School Days
I would say that I have been homeschooling my children for a while now, here and there, very informally.
This year, however, with Turtle now 6 and a half and in "1st grade" I started to regularly homeschool on Sept 10.
We "do school," as the girls say, Mon through Thurs, leaving Friday free for Atrium. All this means to me is that at least one pre-planned learning activity is done every day. I am happy with how relaxed and manageable this is right now. Rosebud has the patience for only about one sit-down work and Sunshine doesn't like being left out for too long. Turtle is usually hungry for more and so I try to direct her to extension-type work of the new concept introduced at her quiet time or as the others run off to play and her attention span is still intact. :)
Ultimately, I would like to have enough space for all the learning materials I introduce to be available to them anytime such that that classic Montessori/unschooling question of "What would you like to learn today?" can be really asked of the girls with the resources to support that freedom of learning. I don't want to be the chooser of the activity always. But for now, in my small house and my lack of storage and resources I am working with what I have. I hope as the weeks progress and I get more confident (or feel more energetic!) I can look to Turtle and Rosebud to indicate what thy are interested in learning. Right now, Turtle seems interested in outer space so I hope to go with that in the near future.
I have been keeping little notebooks for each girl and chronicling the learning things that they do every day, everything from read-aloud time to cooking with Mommy. I plan to include the "non-traditional" school moments too as a message to myself that every moment is educational and so much learning happens every day. If I just open my eyes I will be encouraged! This won't be too hard, eh? :)
This year, however, with Turtle now 6 and a half and in "1st grade" I started to regularly homeschool on Sept 10.
We "do school," as the girls say, Mon through Thurs, leaving Friday free for Atrium. All this means to me is that at least one pre-planned learning activity is done every day. I am happy with how relaxed and manageable this is right now. Rosebud has the patience for only about one sit-down work and Sunshine doesn't like being left out for too long. Turtle is usually hungry for more and so I try to direct her to extension-type work of the new concept introduced at her quiet time or as the others run off to play and her attention span is still intact. :)
Ultimately, I would like to have enough space for all the learning materials I introduce to be available to them anytime such that that classic Montessori/unschooling question of "What would you like to learn today?" can be really asked of the girls with the resources to support that freedom of learning. I don't want to be the chooser of the activity always. But for now, in my small house and my lack of storage and resources I am working with what I have. I hope as the weeks progress and I get more confident (or feel more energetic!) I can look to Turtle and Rosebud to indicate what thy are interested in learning. Right now, Turtle seems interested in outer space so I hope to go with that in the near future.
I have been keeping little notebooks for each girl and chronicling the learning things that they do every day, everything from read-aloud time to cooking with Mommy. I plan to include the "non-traditional" school moments too as a message to myself that every moment is educational and so much learning happens every day. If I just open my eyes I will be encouraged! This won't be too hard, eh? :)
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