The morning of January 1st, I sat with my husband to drink our morning coffee and chat like we often enjoy. I had no plans to venture into the topic of homeschooling when I sat down. Somehow during the conversation, I found myself saying, "Can I tell you the reasons I'm considering homeschool?" My husband is a type A personality who thrived in public school. He is not a huge fan of the homeschool concept. However, for some time now, I've felt the gentle urging of the Lord to consider it for our children. In spite of all my inadequacies and my nerves, He has persuaded me. A few months ago, my prayer became, "If this is really your will, Lord, YOU have to sway John's heart because I can not do that in my own strength."
Somehow the words that came out of my mouth that morning were enough to persuade him to pull our 2nd grade daughter out of school for the remainder of the semester. The Friday before she was to go back to school, we had made the decision to try homeschooling. To say I was shocked that he agreed is an understatement!
For the last few weeks, my daughter and I have been muddling our way through homeschool. I had two books already on hand to help us begin this journey. The first is the Core Knowledge series (What your Second Grader Needs to Know) by E.D. Hirsch. The second is a full scale curriculum called Home Education Curriculum by Jean Wolff. This is a third grade curriculum (she has all elementary levels) but apparently it's no longer in print. I saw it was well reviewed at Amazon and I came across an unopened box of it for $20. I decided for $20 it was worth investigating!
So far, it's been a modge podge of those two guides. Mostly the third grade curriculum package (which has worksheets and book guides to go with it) but also items from the other book too.
I have two girl friends who are educating their children with Classical Conversations. I'd originally declined to investigate that method of schooling because I thought it sounded so dry and dull. But their kids seem to be thriving and enjoying the work. In a number of other ways, it appeared that God was putting this method of schooling in front of me so I had no choice but to examine it. My favorite thing about the curriculum is that it gives a timeline study of history that the children memorize. How wonderful would it be to learn of something in history and already have a framework built in my mind about what the life and times were like at that point?! Certainly something I was not blessed with in my own education.
Today I ordered the curriculum. I'm sure it will be here within a week or two. It'll be exciting to try it. I'll let you know what I think after we've used it for awhile.
In the meantime, I'll continue with the Home Education Curriculum. I'm sure I'll continue to supplement the new curriculum with it as well as the Core Knowledge series.
It's exciting and overwhelming to begin this journey. I'm afraid I'll stumble and fail my children. I've been reassured that my thoughts and fears are common. That it's a whole new experience for our entire family. That it'll take a little time for us to get our groove before I begin to have those fears lessen.
This week, our primary focus is on following instructions as they are given! This is something my daughter has struggled with for as long as I can remember. She frequently thinks that her childish brain can tweak the instructions of her mother, father, teacher, etc. to be better than the way they were given. Nothing seems to have curbed this behavior previously. Today she began building a large Lego house. As I see it, the value in this is two-fold. 1) she must follow the instructions from Lego in order to build the house correctly and 2) she must be diligent in continuing on her course beyond where her attention span might otherwise release her to move on to other things. Judging by how much time she spent on the project today and how little was accomplished, I anticipate this to be a week long project!
On another fun note, I found the Sunflower Schoolhouse today. Specifically this post on reading resources that I think will be most helpful on teaching my two younger boys!
http://sunflowerschoolhouse.com/reading-resources/
That's all I have for you now. Hopefully, I'll be sharing more exciting adventures with you shortly.
Blessings!
Little brothers both popped in an out during the cooking lesson to pick up a few tricks.
She managed to break 8 eggs into the bowl and only got one tiny shell in! Not bad for a beginning chef.
Her favorite part was squishing it all together at the end. She kept saying things like, "Cool!" or "Weeeee!"
Earlier in the week, we worked on the Lego house.
