Week 2

Well another week of homeschooling is done, and we both are still having a great time. Unfortunately, though, combining two lessons a day did not work. We both were still really bored. Bug looked like she was about to fall asleep during half of our lessons this week. So, today and yesterday we backed away from the curriculum and went back to what we were doing before: playing games and doing activity sheets. Bug really loves to do activity worksheets - matching, same/different exercises, finding hidden objects, color by number, connect-the-dots, etc. I printed out some Kindergarten activities, higher level than we have done before with reading and "end of the word" or "middle of the word" sounds (not just starting letter sounds), and drawing time on clocks with the "big hand and little hand". She had a BLAST. We also broke out Frog Pond Fractions and started playing that. I could see the difference in her -- she was energized and enjoying learning. (And to be honest, *I* was having more fun too! Our schooltime was becoming a snoozefest.)

Calvert is wonderful, but the Pre-K level is really just quite boring for both of us. I am going to read through the lesson plan book over the weekend and highlight the games and activities and stories that I think we would enjoy. I will go through my Handwriting Without Tears material and prepare some of those activities. And I will scour the Mailbox "Teacher's Helper" magazines my mother-in-law got for us and the Mailbox magazines we get, and look online, and print out tons of activity pages. That is what we are going to do next week, and see how it goes - if we can get a better flow going, with more energy and excitement. We will do more puzzles and read books. We will play with Play-Doh and do fun arts and crafts. And we will sing and dance and tinker around on the piano.

I wanted to try using a boxed curriculum to save time, and I did a lot of research and chose Calvert. I don't regret that decision, because it really is well crafted, and would be great for a 3 year old (or maybe even 2). The idea of everything being laid out for me is fabulous. It takes a LOT of time to pull all the above activities together. I was spending 3 hours each Sunday putting stuff together last spring, and that was just prepping for about an hour-a-day's worth of activities - a letter of the week with various activities, and a couple Bible stories/crafts thrown in. But I have learned a lot about where to look and what types of activities work best for us. So I'm hopeful I can get the process more streamlined. It was interesting to see how the curriculum worked -- it actually mirrored what we had been doing (reading/math prep, stories, talking about seasons/colors, etc.) but it was at a much lower level academically. They do have some neat game ideas and I'm sure there will be many things we can use. (Trying to not kick myself over the $300 spent!) And now, I can give fancier names to the things we do. For example, playing Candyland is "math readiness", as is a conversation about how many more M&Ms Bug is trying to finagle out of me. :) "But mom, can't I please have 5? That would only be 2 more!! I promise that's all. That's it."

This week I have also started thinking about what type of homeschooling I would want to do long-term. Would I want to do what I was trying with the curriculum, re-creating a classroom environment at home, with a set schedule every day of what subjects we must cover and how long we should spend on each? Or would I want to use the curriculum/guidelines/standards as a base point to jump off of and do our own thing? Could I leave behind my Type A Organizational self and venture into a more laid-back method of learning? Could I somehow reconcile those two parts of me (I'm such a Libra!) and come up with our own educational style hybrid? That's what I'm pondering right now. More on that later. :)