Our First Foray into "School"

We started our home preschool earlier this month. So far it has been a smashing success. We do about 30 minutes of school on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Though Annie asks to do school everyday. :) Annie and JJ are definitely in the little sponge stage--they soak up so many things and I wanted to help them focus on a few areas a bit more.

First, we look at our wall calendar (I ordered this one from Amazon). We go over the season, month, date, year, day of the week, and choose the weather for that day. Annie was particularly impressed by the first day of autumn (a fancy word for fall!) and wants to know when the leaves are going to change colors and fall of the trees.

Then we have Bible time, which we do every morning. I read them a few verses (we are reading Proverbs now) and talk about them a little bit, do our catechism (I am very pleased with My First Book of Questions and Answers, by Carine MacKenzie--and JJ and Annie love to ask and answer questions a this age), work on our memory verse, and sing a hymn. I'm teaching them a new one each week.

We do a few pages in our phonics book (Phonics Pathways). Right now we are doing short vowel sounds, and we are going very slowly. They haven't made the connection between letter sounds and reading yet, but I figure it won't hurt to start learning the sounds at least.

We also play some kind of math/shapes/colors/sorting game. Last week I used dinosaur manipulatives in different colors. One day we sorted them all by color and then counted them, one day we put them in groups of three, one day we played around with simple addition and subtraction. Annie is very, very good at this (unlike her math-challenged Mama!).

We have a theme that changes every couple of weeks. I just get lots of books from the library and we do an art project that ties in with it. It is mostly to do with seasons, holidays, or things I think they should learn (right now we are doing a Patriotism theme--I realized at the football game they don't know the National Anthem or Pledge of Allegiance; we are going to cover safety in a few weeks--what to do if there's a fire, how to handle strangers, that kind of thing).

On Mondays we go for a nature walk. JJ loves this and he usually finds a dead bug or worm while I try to encourage his curiosity and not freak out. On Wednesdays we focus on a gross or fine motor skill we are trying to master, like hopping on one foot. And on Fridays we do a simple art project. JJ is great at these--he has the hang of scissors and glue sticks, for sure!

That's it, pretty much. The kids enjoy it and it gives a little more structure to the learning we do all day long. But I keep it light and if something's not working we just move on.

I get lots of encouragement from Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer's book The Well-Trained Mind. I love the classical education method because it makes so much sense. But I also love their focus on teaching kids to love to learn, and not stressing over the details when they are so young. "The best early teaching you can give your child is to immerse her in language from birth" (p. 57). And that's what we do. We don't watch television. They have a few movies they watch occasionally, for about half an hour twice a week or so. I just never got into the habit of using the tv as a babysitter and so the kids don't see it as an option. They are pretty good at playing and entertaining themselves when Mama is busy. We read a lot of books of all kinds every day. And we talk all day long, about what we are doing, what is coming next, how we feel about that, why we did something that way, how many forks do we need to set the table, etc. It is rarely quiet around here!

Right now Annie and JJ are encountering new things all the time, and they are fascinated by so much that I gloss over. I stand back and see what they are interested in, and then find them new information about those things. I love this paragraph from Wise and Bauer: "We feel that there's little point in following a formal, academic K-4 or K-5 curriculum at home. Rather, the first four or five years of a child's life should be spent in informal teaching--preparing the child for first-grade work. In about thirty minutes per day, plus informal teaching as you go about your family life, you can easily teach your child beginning reading, writing, and math concepts, all without workbooks or teacher's manuals" (p. 60). "You should aim to teach reading and math in the same way that you taught the child to speak, to tie her shoes, to dress, to clean up after herself--by demonstrating the basic skills yourself, practicing them for a few minutes each day, and talking about them as you go through the routines of life" (p. 61).

That's all for now...I'm sure this will be an ever-changing road!