homeschooling

Without really having much idea about homeschooling methods I just cobbled together some Montessori activities and pages from several prek workbooks on whatever I thought was timely or important. Medium loved the workbooks we've used and the activities we've done but for a million reasons it wasn't practical to do lots of those things. Still, it seemed like he needed a bit more focus than the free-for-all that was going on around here while I was too sick to do anything but turn on the TV to babysit them. And I felt I needed more structure to help me make sure I was including all the things he should be doing. Luckily, one of my favorite things is research which is easy to do from the sickbed.

I spent weeks combing through articles, reviews, studies, and blogs trying to work out the very best homeschooling plan. I priced packages, online schools, software, individual unit studies, and books and then threw it all out the window because the kid isn't even 5 yet, for goodness' sake! He should be building forts and making mudpies.

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes (on brother)

Since Dad and I both agree that kids his age don't need to be inundated with academics (but like I said, we really needed some structure) I was happy to stumble upon a used Oak Meadow kindergarten and 1st grade lot curriculum on eBay. Oak Meadow is great because it's a very gentle, Waldorf-inspired curriculum that is nature, art, and play-centered, but it leaves the religion and some of the more out-there pedagogy and anthroposophy that I don't necessarily agree with about Waldorf.

We've started the kindergarten and we're doing lots of drawing, painting, and singing as well as crafts, baking, and taking nature walks. The most important thing Oak Meadow is doing is helping us to establish a rhythm to our dasy. We would never get by with a rigid schedule but I believe that children are comforted by knowing what to expect next. In addition to Oak Meadow we're including some Earthschooling lessons, library books, and I invested in the Character First curriculum (hurray ebay!) since finding secular character education materials is difficult but it really seemed like something we needed to actively peruse. This sounds like quite a bit but it all feels like it fits naturally into the flow of our days and weeks and the lessons seem to compliment each other.

We've been at this for a few weeks now and my phone is filling up with tons of pictures documenting our activities and it only just today occurred to me that it might be nice to share them with our family. So prepare to be inundated with pictures of Medium :)