If I hadn’t gotten to do my top career choice of stay-at-home-mom, I would be a schoolteacher. I just love lesson planning, buying and organizing supplies, and looking through curriculum. Now that we’re wrapping up preschool, Tommy and I can’t wait until September to start kindergarten. So we’re making plans now, and we’ll officially start on Daddy’s first day of school (Aug 20). I still believe that children, especially little boys, need to be outside playing most of the day, running around, digging in the dirt, or just using their imagination. I firmly agree with Charlotte Mason that short lessons keep things fresh and interesting. So my plan is to keep this next school year pretty mellow, taking things at our own pace and trying to keep everything under an hour or so unless Tommy wants to pursue something further. (I don’t count read-aloud time as school because it’s just part of our life.) Because we’re one on one, I think we’ll accomplish as much in that amount of time as most kids get in a classroom all day. We slowly moved from 20 minutes of preschool to about an hour’s worth, once or twice a week over the past two years. The only difference with kindergarten is that I’m planning to do it every afternoon while the girls are napping. (Hopefully that will leave our mornings free for Bible study, CBS, errands, and park dates.) I’ll miss having that 1-3 window to accomplish things around the house, but it will hopefully be a good transition year into the reality of daily schooltime.
At this point, here’s what we’re planning to do for kindergarten:
Daily
Bible: Memorize Mark chapter 2. Possibly start Leading Little Ones to God. (5-10 min, depending on if we review past sections)
Phonics: Finish Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading. Read aloud a lot together. Possibly start First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind when we’re done with phonics. (5-10 min, not counting read-alouds)
Math: Saxon 1st grade, going slow. We breezed through Saxon K this past year, but I don’t want to push him just for the sake of being a grade level ahead in math. (10-15 min, though he usually begs to do more since he loves math)
Handwriting: Continue to work on letter formation worksheets or copying words on the markerboard. Lots of coloring (good for fine motor skills). (5-10 min, plus hours and hours of coloring)
Weekly
Art: Work through drawing books for kids (like Draw Write Now). Set aside at least once a week to do painting or other messy art projects. (15 min)
Missions and Geography: Use Operation World and a world map to learn about the countries where our missionaries are working. Continue to play with geography puzzles. (10-15 min)
French: Continue low-key vocabulary acquisition, as time permits. Read French Tintin books regularly. (5-10 min, though he usually will listen to Tintin until my voice gives out)
I’ve decided to wait on history and Latin for another year or two so that Elizabeth can start them with Tommy. Science is going to consist of books from the library for awhile yet.
I’ll be sure to post homeschooling updates throughout the school year so you guys can decide if we’re brilliant, insane, or somewhere in between!
How do you do Saxon in 15 mins? I find that it takes a lot longer, but maybe I’m just making way too much of a production out of it. Do you skip the Meeting Book?
With Saxon K, we actually just used the meeting book, since the concepts were pretty basic. We easily finished in 15 minutes. For this year, I’ve done a lot of reading on it, and I decided not to buy the meeting book since a lot of people were saying that it was just a time drain. And looking at the teacher’s guide, I think a lot of the lesson presentation is probably longer than it needs to be for one kid. In a classroom, you might have to demonstrate something six different ways, but if Tommy gets it at example 2, I’m not going to waste our time doing four more demos, you know? Also, I’m planning to go by time, not by lessons, since we’re sortof a year ahead, and not make him do more than one side of a worksheet at a time unless he wants to. If we don’t finish Saxon 1 until next year, that’s fine with me. On the other hand, Tommy says math is his favorite subject, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he tells me he wants to do the other side of the worksheet most days.
I’ll let you know how it’s all working a few weeks in!