Tomorrow will be Christian’s first official day of homeschooling. I have decided on a core curriculum that will cover letters, numbers, shapes, and colors. These are all things that we have been working on already. He recognizes all of the common colors (red,blue, green, yellow, black, grey, purple, orange, brown, and pink) and shapes (square, rectangle, circle, oval, heart, triangle, square). He can even draw a few of the shapes (not perfectly, though). He can count to 10 when he feels like it and can recognize some letters. In homeschool we will simply be exploring them more systematically. I have bought a ton of workbooks with coloring sheets and activities. I also have plans for lots of arts and crafts and games that will incorporate the concepts. My goal is to encourage learning through play and to make education fun — not a chore.
In addition to the core concepts, I want to accomplish some other things. Such as being able to say and identify his name, getting dressed by himself, learning manners (he says please, thank you, sorry, and you’re welcome already but not consistently and I would like for him to also learn how to share and say excuse me), and following a schedule. This last one is critical, because as a single parent household in which the parent works from home and is in grad school, I have come to the realization that having a schedule is necessary for me to keep my sanity and be able to do everything that I need to do on a daily basis. Plus, kids really do need the stability that comes from having a schedule.
Anyways, I’ve decided to start out by doing the homeschooling thing 3 days a week — on Monday Wednesday, and Friday. Here is the schedule that I have decided to implement. Hopefully it won’t need much tweaking as we test it out (although, I admit that I am NOT a morning person — hence the 2 hour period I have dedicated to prepping for the day. Lol!):
7am — Wake up, breakfast, get ready for day, Quiet Play (Prep snacks and lunch)
9-9:10 — Opening Activity
9:10-9:9:30 — Story Time
9:30-9:40 Quiet Play
9:40-10 — Snack Time
10-10:30 — Learning Activities
10:30-11 — Active Play (Outdoors as much as possible)
11-11:30 — Learning Activities
11:30-12 — Lunch
12-3 — Nap/Mommy works
3-4 — Active Play (Outdoors as much as possible
After that, we will probably do quiet play while I prep dinner, watch tv for a bit after dinner, play, have story time or whatever we feel like doing, and than I plan to have him in bed and asleep around 8 so that I can exercise, do homework, watch Netflix, waste time on facebook, or whatever I need to do that night.
This week we will be focusing on the letter A, the number 1, the color red, and the circle. We will do activities from his work books; read stories like All About the Letter A, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Little Red Riding Hood, and The Little Red Hen; do a variety of arts and crafts activities such as painting, string art, making and playing with homemade playdough, drawing, coloring, digging for buried treasure in his sandbox, etc.
I know this journey will likely have its moments (or periods) of frustration, but I am determined to see it through. I have wanted to homeschool since before Christian’s arrival and am excited that we are about to begin. I pray for wisdom, patience, and perseverance for myself as well as fun, joy, and growth for Christian. I also pray that this week goes well for him as he will be attending a program with other children twice a week so that I have more time to focus on my business. All in all, this coming week will be a big change for the both of us. I am hoping that one of the other benefits of these changes will be that I will have more time to dedicate to not only my businesses and schoolwork, but to working on my Young Adult Fantasy novel (if you haven’t read the first chapter yet, you can do so here). Wish us luck!
Are you guys facing any big changes soon? If so, are you excited, nervous, etc?
