Homeschooling Take 1

When I started homeschooling a month ago I was saying "What was I thinking?"  Honestly.  It was hard.  New schedule.  New disciplines.  New way of approaching things.  Being a school teacher I went into this as school at home.  I'm learning that homeschooling is school through life.  While we have curriculum and daily lesson plans we try to follow, I have had to completely change my expectations for what I thought our homeschool would be.  I like to sit down and work on everything at once and get it done, filed away, and pick up where we left off the next day.  It doesn't quite work that way.  While we do have a schedule and try to stick to it, I have had to become more malleable and take things a day at a time.  Sometimes my plans don't quite work out and sometimes he is just grumpy (ok sometimes I am too).  Sometimes he is so eager than he wants to do 3 days worth of work in 1 day.  I have had to learn to deal with it and go with the flow.  If you know me at all you know that is not easy for me.  I like my plans and I like to follow them.

Anyways, we have made progress.  Enough that even though it is still difficult at times, it has been so rewarding.  There is this special time that Levi and I get to have doing school with no interruptions and with a common goal.  I have seen him give his best and stretch himself and I've seen him become frustrated and shut down.  We've been able to work through those things together and I'm learning how to encourage him and push him past his limits in a good way rather than a frustrating way.  While I haven't mastered any of it by far, I can see little "yay moments" along the way.  Those moments when he finally learns a letter he has been struggling to grasp, when he follows directions completely, when he gives 110% to a task or activity, and all the little "aha" moments he has throughout the day when he sees what we are learning in everyday life.  It makes it all worth it when he is so happy and eager to apply what we've been learning.

Right now he is learning so much.  Most of the curriculum is things he already knows, so colors and shapes have been super easy since he already knows most all of those.  He struggles the most with his letters.  I've tried teaching them to him in the past and he was never interested.  It usually takes him several days to master it, but as we add new letters every few days he starts to get a little overwhelmed and will sometimes shut down acting like he doesn't know any of it.  As of now he has A, B, C, D and L mastered, and as been introduced to E, F, and G, but hasn't mastered them just yet.  Levi is definitely more inclined to conceptual learning.  He succeeds way quicker with his numbers than his letters and mathematical learning seems to be more of his strong suit rather than letters and word formation.  As he grows this may change, but I definitely see him gravitating to the mathematical side of learning.  Right now he can count to 15 and recognizes numbers 1-4 and just learned 5 today.  His fine motor skills are coming along nicely.  The first day we used scissors I thought I may lose my mind, but he is slowly becoming much better and aware of his cutting.  His coloring and drawing skills have developed pretty rapidly since we started school too.  Before school he would want to color the whole page of a coloring book with one color, but now he is using multiple colors on his work.  His drawing skills have also developed where before hand he couldn't (or wouldn't) draw anything.  Seriously anything you asked him to draw was a bunch of scribbles on the page.  While they were beautiful scribbles he has now branched out a little more and drew his first stick person the other day.  While it was just an enormous head and the smallest body any stick man has ever had, it was progress.  Progress that this mama is sure proud of.

I think the one thing he is probably the most proud of his learning to recognize and write his name.

Just a sample of his work.  He had to color the large circles blue and the small circles red, then he could color the rest any color he wished.  The success here is that he used the right colors (instead of the ones he wants to use) and that he finished the assignment (something he doesn't always like to do).  

Homeschool

In the weeks ahead our lives are going to change dramatically.  That's right, school is starting.  Homeschool that is.  I am honestly completely freaked out about it.  I know that is crazy since I am a certified teacher and have taught literally dozens of students, but this is different.  This is my child.  I know that should excite me, but if terrifies me.  I want my children to be brilliant, creative, and wise.  I want them to listen to instruction and follow directions.  Knowing what I want and that it is going to be my responsibility to get them there is a little overwhelming.  I keep telling myself "Its just pre-k.  How hard can it be?"  But the truth is I know how hard it can be and the challenges that are likely to arise.  On the bright side, Levi is completely excited.  At least every other day he ask me if we are ready to start school.  Right now we are schedule to start right after Labor Day, but with his excitement we may start a week early.  We've bought him some school supplies and he is absolutely dying to cut and glue something.

So...Why homeschool?  I've gotten that question a lot.  Well, first there is simple logistics.  We are temporarily in NC and not sure when we'll be returning to GA.  Public school isn't an option right now (we'll discuss that in a bit) and with little time to find something in NC that we liked before it was full was the second problem.  It is also very likely that we will be moving back to GA by the end of the year so we'd have to put him in one place and then find something once we moved which is highly unlikely since for most places there is a waiting list.  That being said the main reason is we love our kids.  I've was a teacher for 3 years and saw too much to put my kids in that environment.  I'm not saying all schools are bad, and almost every teacher I met really wanted to make a difference, but there were too many issues that had me questioning if this was the best place for learning.  I'm sure they would get a decent scholastic education, but a social education is something we want to make sure comes from us.  We want to be the first people to educate him on some of the truths of life and I would feel terrible if he learned some of those things from kids at school before hearing them from me.  That doesn't mean that public school will never be an option, but for now we feel it best that he be taught by us and not his peers.  My goal is not to keep them locked up away from the world, but rather expose them to things on my time table rather than the worlds.  I've spoken with far too many kids that know far too much about the world at their young age.  I want them to be free to discover who they are in Christ before someone else tells them who that ought to be.  My prayer is that the will discover their identity in Christ - their talents and gifts that He has given them - and that through those they will impact the world around them.  I read another blog this week that really said how we feel better than I could put into words.  As I start this new journey it was really encouraging.  If you really want to know how we feel you should check it out here.  

As I said Levi is super excited to "do his letters."  I found this notepad at Wal-mart and he has been working on it while he waits for us to actually start school.  Below is his first attempt.  The pencil sharpener is his favorite.  He has to have it when he practices, and I'm certain he sharpens his pencil after ever letter.