Preparing for the NC Home Educators Conference

I have been doing some reading and some homework to prepare for the NCHE conference coming up at the end of May. I have about a month to prepare as I am hoping to be able to purchase some curriculum at the ginormous book fair this year. I have managed to attend the past 2 years without purchasing a single thing. That. Is. Amazing. The temptation is so strong to go ahead and invest in this or that so one feels prepared. I am trying hard to NOT purchase the wrong thing only to have to buy something else later. The book 100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum has been great so far. There is a workbook style approach in the beginning of the book so one is really pressed to consider WHY homeschooling is their choice and then sort of forces you to set the priorities for your teaching. Things like budget, how many kids you have, time restrictions, confidence level, philosophy and your teaching style/your learning style and those of your kids. When all was said and done, I scored high marks for Charlotte Mason-style education and the Classical style of education. This was not a surprise but more of a confirmation of the direction I wish to go. Currently, we are using the Calvert School curriculum and while it has served us well, I find that I do not like the rigid structure that does not make it a very individualized course of study. But on the other hand, I am a beginner and I wanted the "hand-holding" that comes with Calvert. The teaching manual is very thorough and I find that each morning I am not scrambling to find the things we need to focus on. However, Calvert is expensive and I would like to spend less. (tuition for the complete Calvert Kindergarten curriculum is $693.00). Now that I have done the "homework" in the "100 Picks" book, I can begin to narrow down the curriculum choices for each subject James will be tackling as a kindergartener next Fall.

In addition to reviewing curriculum in "100 Picks", I ordered The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise. They are a mother-daugher team writing this book together, tackling different chapters from their own point of view, and I find they make a great argument FOR the classical education approach. It is a thick book so from now until the conference, I shall be very busy reading. I also have The Early Years: A Charlotte Mason Preschool Handbook and Planning Your Charlotte Mason Education. The Charlotte Mason resources I have help a new homeschooler prepare their lessons/day/week/quarter/year. While there are some books associated with a Charlotte Mason education, I would be free to choose what I wish in order to teach reading, writing, spelling, grammar, math, history, science, geography, Bible, foreign language, etc each day. This would make it possible for me to include concepts of a Classical education.

I will be reporting about any purchases I make at the conference in early June. :) Wish me luck!

Lessons

It's Wednesday. We are on Lesson #93 of 160. Ugh. 67 lessons to go to complete our PreK curriculum from The Calvert School. I am still following the lessons for the most part but I have found the "games" activities forced and I have added other elements. We have been learning the Pledge of Allegiance. James is almost there. He definitely remembers the last line, "...and justice for all!". That's his favorite part. We even started doing math and leaning some sight words today. I wanted to see if he was ready without pushing him too hard. He did well with adding and "taking away" the money I got from the money jar. Also, I had some tiny flash cards with words on them I had printed for a Bingo game so I picked out all the one- and two-letter words, 15 in all. He was working hard to sound them out and was getting them right. I told him to "mash the sounds together". The list included a, an, do, he, I, in, is, it, my, me, no, so, to, up and we. Lately he has been pretending to do homework since his neighbor has homework each night and can't come out to play. He picks up his Spider-Man book and flips through the pages and talks to himself.

I am feeling so tired lately. I wonder how long I can keep up this crazy schedule. Working til midnight 4 nights a week and being woken up each morning around 7:30 is wearing on me. Nap time is not the same as it used to be either. I used to be able to make up for the lost sleep but James doesn't need naps like he used to. I knew this day was coming but it's not easy. And even though it's just me and him, you would think I would have all sorts of time on my hands but I always aim to carve out some time for myself each day by reading. I often want to get lost in my books but... There is schooling each day, cleaning the kitchen, doing laundry, mowing the grass, managing our finances, grocery shopping, field trips & making time for James and cooking so that Chris has a good meal every day. He eats like crap during the day. On top of it all, at any given moment, someone could request a showing on the house and I have to hustle to get the house show-ready. So far, I have had plenty of time to clean and clear things away and make arrangements for the dogs.

I can't help but wonder what life would be like if we had two children. I think it would be easier. James is such a talker and he spends a lot of time talking to me. I rarely have a quite moment. I shouldn't be complaining and, trust me, I send up silent prayers every day for him. I am grateful that he is healthy and bright and funny and curious and stubborn. I can appreciate that he doesn't want to do much of anything alone. He needs a sibling and I need another child. Our life is not settled yet. It's good we want the same thing. Sometimes we talk about it. And sometimes it's just an underlying current running through our day. When we were visiting my cousins over the weekend, he got to see my cousin's 7-month-old son up close. He had the curiosity you would want a first child to have towards a new baby. He said he would be a good helper in all things...except changing diapers. I couldn't help but smile.

Homeschooling one is a new endeavor in the world of homeschoolers I think. Most families I have met have at least 3 children. I know more couples are choosing this for their singletons for the same reasons the couples with large families do it. But it's different. I suspect the challenges are quite different. How am I supposed to entertain one all day? I mean, his attention span is very short so teaching him all day long is not an option. Plus, I would lose my mind. Should I feel such guilt if I am not with him every single moment of the day? Moms with large families can depend on the older children to help out when she has to start dinner or take a shower or mow the grass.  I feel like the alpha and omega. We kept our neighbor during her spring break from public school a couple of weeks ago and it was bliss! I loved it! We went to the park, they played together most mornings and napped a couple of days for a long time because they were so worn out with the playing. It was wonderful. Right now, as I write this blog post, James is running in  and out of the Fun Yellow Room where I am, making noise and doing any and everything to get my attention. He is waving his little American flag in my face. He is now stabbing the front door with it, locking and unlocking the front door. So, my time is up. The next blog post will be about my progress on choosing a curriculum.

A Preschool homeschool Sample day at my house

James and I have found our groove lately. He is even ASKING for school and reminds me if I don't get to it in the mornings. I love that. :) So here is what a typical morning looks like for us.

• Wake up: 7:30-8:00am

Then downstairs to enjoy coffee for me and chocolate milk or hot chocolate for James. Let the dogs out and give them treats.

• School "lesson": 9ish-10isham

Still in my PJ's, I go prepare our lessons for the day. I am still using the Calvert School PreK Curriculum so everything is pretty much laid out lesson by lesson in the big book. I also add worksheets from www.education.com from time to time depending on the lesson topics for the day. I use those mostly to encourge James to write and draw. It's not his favorite but he will do dot-to-dot pictures, mazes and tracing letters and numbers.

1.  Today's Date on "My First Daily Planner" banner
2. Pledge of Allegiance which has been "Red, White and Blue, I love you!" I am not working on teaching the actual Pledge.
3. Picture Study Art: Rembrandt's "Christ shows his wounds to doubting Thomas".   So far, we have studied "Jacob Wrestling with the Angel" and "The Militia of Captain Frans Banning Cocq, known as 'The Night Watch'". We study each piece of art for a week.
4. The topic for the next couple of days is wild animals. It's review for him but the lessons encourage careful observation (pre-reading skill), talking about what he knows and the lesson usually incorporates math as well.
5. Story from an included book with the curriculum that fit with the topic
6. Singing the ABC song.
7. Occasionally a topic will lead to more questions from James so we scoot over to the computer and look up videos or stories. Reaches have included Big Foot, Angels, The Devil, various wild animals, weather (i.e. tornadoes).

All of this takes about 20 minutes of our morning and we are done. There are days that we may miss a lesson so I will combine the best of a couple (or three) lessons in order to "catch up". I got behind during the Christmas holiday and the aftermath. I started combining lessons and skipped items that would require us, for example, to talk about snowmen in March. We still do additional reading during the day at nap time and bed time...and any other time James might request a book. He goes through phrases of favorite activities so we do that too. For a while, it was Candyland all day, everyday. Right now, he just can't keep his little monkey paws off any electronic in the house. Every time I turn around he has my phone, or Chris' phone, his Leap pad, my camera, or my Nook. He knows how to use all of them. He knows how to download the free games to my phone. I'm waiting for it to start smoking from all the activity on it.We now have the capability to Skype, too, so he has been enjoying that as well.

This sample and the length of lessons are great for preparing James for next year. He can hardly sit still for 20 minutes so that in itself is good practice for him. The rest of the day is incidental learning for him. I also try to give him plenty of outdoor time to play and run around. We have been doing picnics at the park with nature walks around the lake and playground time.

So, gotta tie this up and get my lessons ready for this morning. I am still in my pj's and I hear James' leap pad from the living room. :)