Sunday, April 22, 2012

Homeschooling!

The time has come, we ordered our first homeschool curriculum and it came on Friday! I had been going back and forth trying to decide what to do for the first couple of years, whether unschooling (providing the resources without the workbooks and 'school' time and letting the learning come solely through play and curiosity) or if the schedule and order would be best for us. Because Jebriel came from an orphanage that had a daily schedule, he's happiest when we have a routine to follow. He always needs to know what we are doing next, and what we are doing after that, and throughout the day we discuss the schedule, all the way up through bedtime. I decided that a curriculum with a little bit of structure would work best for us right now.

We decided to try out Sonlight, which is a Christian curriculum with a big focus on literature, cultures, and history. The preschool curriculum has very little math and basic science, mostly animals and plant type stuff, and a lot more stories, and poems. The curriculum packs for the older age groups look like a lot of fun, we'll get to do some really neat science stuff! I'll be working with Jeb and Vivi together, since Vivi is ahead in a lot of things and Jeb is behind. This curriculum has a lot of flexibility to help them work on their individual strengths, and Journey will get to tag along on the reading parts of it.

The box came during naptime, but I waited until the kids were up to help open it. They pulled all the books out and flipped through some of them, and Vivi and Jeb found the kids' scissors I ordered for them. They went right to work cutting through the packing paper while Journey started grabbing books and making little stacks of them around the room. I started explaining to them that we were going to have morning lessons and reading so that we can learn new things, and they begged to learn new things right away!

I grabbed a book called 'What's Under the Sea?' and we started reading. We got to a little section about anglerfish, who have a light on their head to attract little fish, and when the fish come close, they eat them. They asked to see the anglerfish eating, so we went to the computer and found a Youtube video of an anglerfish eating. When Eric came home from work, they excitedly told him all about anglerfish and their light, and demonstrated how fast they eat the little fish.

This is going to be fun!

No comments:

Post a Comment