This whole Homeschool thing.
Josh and I all along have never planned to send our kids to preschool for many reasons. The biggest reason, of course, is cost. Preschool is expensive! And as a SAHM it didn’t make a lot of sense to be paying for “child care”. We also weren’t sure that it was the best environment for our kids which sounds a little crazy but the obvious part of it is that even in the best classroom setting, a teacher still has other students which require their attention. These two are the main reasons we were always going to do preschool at home although, I confess, I was quite nervous about going straight into Kindergarten which in our area is all day every day. I wasn’t nervous about the academics, I felt confident that I could provide all the background Judah would need, rather I was anxious about how he would handle going from being home all day, every day with me to going to school full time.
Nevertheless, we started this year and I was actually quite excited. I had an old “Early Childhood Themes” book that I used to guide me in planning out each week. I had calendar materials from my teaching days and made a corner of the playroom our school area.
Each day we practice the days of the week (Today is…Tomorrow will be…Yesterday was…) and the month and date. Now Judah can get these with no trouble at all and we use the calendar to practice our counting. My goal is to master counting 1-30 by the end of the year. We then read a book from the library. Usually there is a theme but sometimes not. After that, in the beginning part of the year, we would try to do some sort of craft or activity that went with the theme. This part has not lasted, largely because I’ve come to realize that we’d rather use that time to play or go out and do something. I have to remind myself that we don’t have to do all the things a “regular” preschool would do – that’s one of the big perks of homeschool! We can do the things we really want to do.
After a few months, Judah had learned all his letter names (even out of order) and so, to start teaching letter sounds, I’ve been using the book “Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons”. Nearly all of my homeschooling friends recommended this book and it teaches phonics really well – something I was very concerned about as a professional teacher and knowing how missing some of these basics can really inhibit a child’s ability to read well later. I borrowed a copy from the library… and have continued to renew for about 4 months 😀 I should really just buy it. It’s only $15 on Amazon…
After our reading lesson (which only takes about 20 minutes if everybody is in a good mood) I try to do some writing. This has made me want to pull my hair out. Not because Judah isn’t trying hard or a quick learner but I’ve had to dig deep for LOTS of patience. There’s a reason I gravitated towards middle school when I was teaching! On days where we don’t do writing, I’ll have him color or practice scissor work so we’re still strengthening those hand muscles.
Sometimes this stage of life is really hard. Most of Judah’s friends go to preschool now and many of those moms have gone back to work or school which makes it hard to coordinate play dates. And while we’re not spending all day doing school or being super strict about doing it every day, I like structure and predictability. Judah does better with a schedule. This means that the stage where we have play dates every day is gone but we’re not yet doing “real school.” Next year, when we start Kindergarten, we’ll be joining the Classical Conversations group and that’ll put us in contact with some other homeschooling families and new friends but in the mean time, sometimes it gets a little lonely.
Well, that’s two posts for January! In February I have a feeling I’ll be writing about how much I’ve been tidying up 😉
Adventures with the Morgans 