I’m already behind on recording our schooling experience. I want to have it writing so I can look back and see what we’ve learned, and if it encourages somebody else along the way, even better! This post is actually about LAST week, not the one we just finished.

Last week was SO MUCH better. We’re beginning to get into a groove with our routine, which had to be changed a bit. Instead of waiting until lunchtime for our “morning basket” time, we began the day with it. That was the original plan, so I’m happy with it.

So far, our routine is as follows:

• Breakfast and Bible lesson
• Get ready for the day and clean kitchen
• Molly does independent work while I play with Mac.
• Morning basket
• Snack
• Math lesson
• “Recess” and lunch
• Reading lesson
• Naps for EVERYONE

My Favorite Things from This Week

The Timeline of Molly’s Life

I used When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant to introduce Molly to the concept of the past. We don’t have a curriculum for social studies since this is just kindergarten, but I still want to try to approach the subject in a logical way. I’m also using West Virginia’s social studies content standards to guide me a bit. It seemed to make sense to prepare Molly for the study of history by first looking at her own life, so we created a timeline of her life with photos.

At the last minute, I thought to add an ultrasound image even though the original plan was to begin it with her birth. I love that the ultrasound opened the door to begin working through The Story of Me, which is part of a book series written for specific age groups to teach children the biblical view of families and how babies get here. 🙂

Nature Study

We began Exploring Nature with Children for science. This week’s topic was seeds. We went a nature walk around our house, looking for seeds and sorting them in an egg carton. We also collected more seeds next to the church parking lot because there wasn’t a whole lot of variety in our yard. My favorite things of all during this lesson were the books! I’ve read Miss Maple’s Seeds and A Seed Is Sleepy before, but I forgot how much I love them. Miss Maple’s Seeds makes me cry! Yes, it really is about seeds, but it’s easy to see the analogy between the seeds and childhood. Seriously, every family should own the book. A Seed Is Sleepy gives even more description about a seed’s life, and the illustrations are beautiful. I like that there’s a life lesson to be learned in it as well.

What I Learned Last Week

Subject integration will occur naturally.

Because I didn’t purchase an all-inclusive curriculum, our lessons don’t correlate across the subjects. I like integrated unit studies, but they’re a lot of work to plan in way that is truly integrated and not merely thematic. (When I talk about integrated unit studies, I’m not talking about themes, like “under the sea” or “farm.”)

Last week, I saw some of the subjects naturally line up with one another, and I decided that when that happens, I’ll use that for an opportunity to integrate them. Our math lessons on the numbers 1-5 went along with the Spanish number lesson. Social studies, art, and Spanish went together when the book When I Was Young in the Mountains inspired us to draw our own landscapes, and while coloring those, we used Spanish to ask for certain crayon colors. The book also led us into a discussion on grandparents and previous generations which went along with The Story of Me and was a great segue into this week’s lesson on the family tree. In science, we were learning about how seeds get dispersed, and I happened to find a printable Spanish booklet from Scholastic Teachables (which is available to the patrons of our local library) on exactly that topic!

It’s put my mind at ease to know I can to use the opportunities that present themselves rather than forcing the subjects to correlate.

It pays to be prepared!

I know from experience that one of the key factors for success in the classroom is being prepared, but I took preparedness for granted in our homeschool. A friend had recently said something about hating to be unprepared. It was during a discussion about homeschooling, and I thought she must be referring to other activities she’s involved in because surely, it’s not a big deal when you’re at home.

Teachers know that if you’re not prepared in the classroom, you can easily lose the entire class while trying to get it together. I had no idea it would be even more important at home. Even the little things, like having workbook pages torn out beforehand, make a huge difference. If it’s easy to lose students while they sit at desks in a classroom, then it takes almost nothing to lose your own child when they’re sitting in their home, surrounded by their toys, siblings, and other comforts. Being prepared last week made things flow much more smoothly.

School time hasn’t been super easy, but we’re liking it. A lot. At least I am! During those first few days, I was so frustrated. I know it was only the very beginning, but I was a little discouraged by Molly’s inability to do some things that I thought she should be able to do by now. I was regretting not having spent much time teaching her prior to the start of school, at least not things like handwriting and letter sounds. I’ve been amazed at how spending just a few minutes a day on certain skills is completely sufficient! I’ve already seen a huge improvement, and I can’t wait to see what Molly is doing by the end of the school year. I have confidence because I know that my role is to guide the learning. My confidence actually comes from knowing it’s not all on me. I can’t force it. And I don’t have to, because it’s going to happen in spite of me.