We've officially committed to the idea of homeschooling! We had discussed the idea of starting Micah in 3 year old preschool last year, but that didn't seem like a good fit (Our church school is a bit of a drive for us, plus being Mom's first year not working, she was looking forward to the extra time to spend at home with the kids, rather than sending them off to school right away. Additionally, Daddy never went to preschool and didn't see it as a necessity for Micah).
When we started thinking about options of different schools to have Micah do preschool (or to consider sending him early to Kindergarten since he's just a couple weeks past the birthday deadline??), we couldn't come to a decision on a place that felt right to all of us. Grandma Moldy suggested to Mommy the idea of homeschooling and, it turns out, Daddy had already been thinking of the idea himself. So after lots of prayer and discernment of various options, we chose to try this course of action for the current school year.
We are grateful to have the opportunity to have a greater influence over our kids’ academic, moral, and spiritual development. We feel blessed that this enables us to provide more opportunities for learning through life experiences and to be able to play to their personal strengths and learning styles, without spending precious time focusing on “teaching to a test” or meeting certain academic benchmarks that frustrate many teachers these days due to the lack of basis in the science of brain development, especially for the early elementary level. The individualized attention allows us to provide quality academic experiences without “time fillers,” maximizing the concept that learning is fun. We incorporate a variety of ways to develop their interpersonal skills with all ages, not just their own peer group, which more accurately reflects a “real world” context. Plus, it’s just fun to be able to spend more time together with our kids! We know it’s not for every family. And we’re not sure how long it will be right for our family (our intention is to reevaluate after each school year to decide whether we should continue). But at this time, we are really happy with our choice to homeschool!
Being we had a challenging week with Daddy's business trip the first week of Sept, when most of the schools in Michigan were beginning their year, we appreciated the freedom to be able to ease into our academics the second week of Sept instead!
We started out by focusing on the letter A. This included filling in the letter A template using yarn (this was definitely an activity that was easier for Micah at 4, than for Henry at 2). We also had a letter "A" bin, where they had to find items that began with "A" and put it into the bin - hence the alligator hanging around the table during Micah's project.
Since Henry loved using the nickles for math last week (he asked to do that activity repeatedly), he filled in his "A" using coins again. (Originally, Mommy thought he would use play dough, so you can see some remnants on his page. He wasn't as into the play dough idea, so we brought out the coins instead.)
Henry wanted to try the yarn as well, but needed assistance.
"A" is for apples! We have a collection of wooden apples from a trip to the Scrapbox in Ann Arbor. They come in handy for projects like this (or when it's feeding time at a homemade zoo).
More ruler math for Micah. He's totally into his ruler since he got it at a back-to-school sale recently. So Mommy made him up a worksheet to measure.
Lining up those apples!
Micah had the idea to smash Ants outside ("A" is for ant, of course). But once we got out there, the boys began to focus on the butterflies and dragonflies (we have an abundance of dragonflies at our house!).
We don't have a butterfly net (maybe we should invest in one??), so the boys used their sand buckets.
The goal was to try to capture the dragonfly inside the bucket.
They were also a bit timid of the dragonflies - they didn't actually want to touch one. So their method included throwing the bucket at the dragonfly. (For the record, throwing a bucket at a dragonfly is not a preferred method of actually capturing a butterfly.)
Meanwhile, Helen hung out in the wagon and played with the basketball.
This was the best shot - showing both their desire and timidity!
And a video to go along with it. :)
Next project: the boys discovered the large drink container in the basement.
Henry set about exploring it.
Meanwhile, Micah brought some bucketfuls of water. They worked together then to get the water out of the dispenser.
Helen just observed, this time from the outside of the wagon.
The boys began to follow the little river of water that ran down the driveway (go gravity!) until Henry discovered a caterpillar. He wasn't moving at all, so Mommy assumed it was deceased. However, the boys insisted that we put a little water on it to revive it. Amazingly, their efforts were successful! They were quite proud of their accomplishment of saving the life of this caterpillar.
Observing the river run down the driveway.
Helen participated as best as she could.
Water bottles are so fun for babies!
We capped off our first homeschooling day of the year with a trip to Costco. When Mommy ran back to get an item we had forgotten, she just had to snap a photo of Daddy managing all three kiddos in Costco (believe me, this is no small feat, especially when the samples provide a sugar rush to said kiddos!).
It was a busy and fun day. There are so many opportunities for learning all around us. What a blessing to be on this journey together as a family!
No comments:
Post a Comment