08.12
My little girl(4.5) started her first day of Kindergarten yesterday. She was so excited about it that we had a hard time getting her to bed the night before because she was so worked up. Of course, we are homeschooling and so my wife is her teacher. The curriculum we chose starts out with day one of the Genesis account and goes through all the days of the creation week mixing in activities and reading to tell the story. The math part is really cool too. You use these things called “Cuisenaire Rods” along with a workbook that uses math as a base to learn colors, letters, shapes and all sorts of stuff.
Most of the stuff is going to be pretty easy for her right now since she is almost 5 but that’s fine. We have heard that when they are little it’s ok for the work to be easy for them since it gives them confidence and a sense of accomplishment. You want it to be challenging without being overwhelming where they get frustrated. My wife has been studying the teacher’s workbook religiously and has come up with a good schedule for each schoolday. The lessons in the My Father’s World curriculum that we picked out take about 1.5-2 hours to complete.
She also painted up a special tub for my little boy(2.5). It has learning games in it like letter and math puzzles, a building block mat that uses stackable pegs, and a bunch more stuff. That is his special “school” tub that he can only play with during the school lesson. It keeps him occupied while my older one is learning her lesson but it’s still engaging his mind since they are all educational toys. And since he can only play with those toys during school time he doesn’t get bored with them as he would with just normal toys from his room.
In Alabama you don’t have to register your child until age 7. At that time we will sign up with a home/church school group. We will use these first couple of years to get used to the whole process and refine the daily schedule. We have heard that a good schedule is doing full lessons Monday-Thursday and then having a “light” day on Friday where the kids can be a little more free with what they want to learn. That sounded like a good plan to us since Friday could then be used as a catch-up day if they needed some extra help in a certain subject. We have also heard that it’s best to do schooltime in the morning when the kids are wound up so that’s what we’re doing.
