No big deal....

Only the foundation for the rest of her life!!!! Prepare for some more mindless droning on of homeschool happenings  TT_TT   The Rivmaester is entering into kindergarten this fall, and i have been preparing to purchase our curriculum... i get on the Calvert website and read through the kindergarten curriculum and realize that we have already trudged our way through every thing that will be learned in The Year! let me explain 


Two years ago, i decided that we needed to learn the alphabet and river decided that she did not want to learn the alphabet, i fought with her for a few weeks, until i turned my concerns to my closest friends. Then i was BOMBARDED with resources and DVDs to copy and "how they dids" and "what so and so did" and reassurance and.... What is expected for kindergarten.


So we watched the leapfrogs, we watched the sesame streets we bought the work books and the colors and the flash cards and beginner books and we had what i now realize as "pre-preschool" and not only did river learn her alphabet but pierce got it too, and they learned the sounds, and word building and numbers and adding and subtracting and counting(to 20 for pierce) up too 100 for river. Because mommy so diligently taught them a letter a week... I was under the assumption that you must know the alphabet to get into kindergarten i also thought you had to count to 100, be able to read basic words, and be able to tie your own shoes(this was required for myself to enter kindergarten)


Then the next year we did MotherGooseTime with a group of friends as a co-op preschool program... along with weekly trips to the library and sight word flash cards and art lessons (From mommy of course) and introductory french(colors and animals is all shes really grasped) and well lets just say river is a well rounded individual ready for kindergarten..... Or so i thought!!!!!


Now it seems i have over prepared her for kinder G. We took the first grade reading test and she passed it easily, we took the math placement and she did well but i would like to start with kindergarten math... well Calvert doesn't do that. I cant sign her up for kindergarten and do 1st grade reading, it is integrated. So what i could do is enroll her in 1st grade and start with kindergarten math.  But the education councilor thinks i shouldn't do that she believes the kindergarten program is great!


Of course she would want me to pay for kindergarten and blow through it super fast and then pay for the first grade program to finish out the year... she even said that if we could afford it then that would be ideal... turns out we CANT afford it. I have been dwelling on this dilemma for a week now. Do i reinforce important lessons with stuff that may bore her to death, and maybe make her not like school. Or do i challenge her with 1st grade stuff that may keep her interested, but possibly make it school seem too frustrating.


I had decided to go with kindergarten and ad my own enrichment's to the course. We would do the 2-3 hours of learning the alphabet and the numbers 1-30 and then i we would have 20 min of french 10 minutes of scriptures, 20 minutes of violin and then close with a little bit of art history.


But the more i think about it the more i just hate going over these things again for a third year in a row. There are some things that are nice like the reading comprehension but the books that we will be reading hardly have a plot at all!!! River loves Eloise, Fancy Nancy, Amelia Bedelia, and Biscuit. She will be bored out of her mind with "Mop"  which consists of 3 word sentences, however she will feel quite confident being able to read an entire book without my help... i just don't know grrrrrrrrr


Its really not that big of a deal, its only the foundation for the rest of her life :(

Homeschooling Shmomeschooling

Here we are two months away from what may be the hardest year of my life, and i am giddy with excitement!!! For the past two years Husband and I have been discussing the forbidden "homeschooling" option. At first it was mostly just me being to attached to my beautiful, awesome, sweet, amazing, smart and STUBBORN first born child!!! But last year husband got fully on board and we began really coming to our own realizations about how important homeschooling is to us. We looked into private schools for a bit, and noticed two things about it, it is very expensive, and it will still be some one else teaching my babies. Though the school system will be better fitted to our goals in the long run, it still will be a teacher that cannot appreciate all the things that makes my kids individuals!! Husband is careful to not get too enthusiastic about it homeschooling, saying, "its not me that will being doing all the work"

We have researched and hunted and read reviews talked to friends, and came to our final choice for a school curriculum. I want my children to stay home with me and be in my care and protection, eat my food, and learn my values, but i still want them to get the same "education" that they would be expected to get in a public school. We first were very enthusiastic about K12, but really the only perk to homeschooling is a shorter day, why would i expect my 5 year old to sit still either at a table or a computer for SEVEN hours a day, no thank you. Then we researched Waldorf curriculum's, and every thing about Waldorf sounds amazing, and just what we want for our children, learning through everyday skills and chores and open ended lessons exploration... except for one big BIG BIIIIIIIGGG difference... Reading!!! The lessons fall short on teaching reading! IMO reading should not fall by the way side to allow for personal growth... i will spare you the soap box!

Also there are the options of making up your own curriculum as you go, deciding what is needed, creating a lesson plan and following through with it. I will be completely honest with you, i am not that motivated!! I need a written plan, almost word for word, and i would like times to be included, giving me the option to follow them or not, if we are having a particularly hard time with a lesson, i would like to say "we we are out of time lets take a break from this today and star fresh next time", or," we are really having a great time with this lesson, we can keep going"

Calvert was recommended to us by a good friend, over a year ago, and through out researching we have always come back to Calvert! She has had lots of success with her 5 children, and i really hope that we will love the program so much to recommend it to friends also!!

So now that we have decided on that i have been researching a cheap preschool program to get my three year old involved! Once again my homeschooling friends has recommended a preschool supply program and i think we may go with that also!! Its so nice to know homeschoolers that have been successful and can help you in your homeschooling journey!!

There was going to be more to this post but Mr. Oxenfree is screaming his head off... until next time!