Just popping in quickly while S and the boys are watching taped episodes of Survivorman upstairs to say how overwhelmed I was to receive your comments to my last post. Each one arriving in my in box with well wishes and prayers for lots of good family time. Thank you friends, from the bottom of my heart.
I have had a few emails asking how I find time to homeschool or what curriculum I use. Well, first of all, I do not homeschool. But we have incorporated many unschooling principles into our regular family life. So, I thought it might be nice to share a bit of an update on our schooling situation. Remember back in April I was debating out loud about our education choices for the oldest boys about to enter kindergarten? Well, I wanted to let you know how kindy has gone so far and if I feel we made the right decision by designing our own hybrid of public school and unschooling principles.
Here are a few observances so far:
* I am glad we went ahead and sent them on to kindy despite their being young 5s. They are doing very well and seem to be right in the middle of their class. But more importantly, they are really enjoying school in general. They have made lots of new friends and really enjoy their teachers.
* Their teachers are really great at communicating what they are studying in class. So in turn, I take their school subjects and find ways to reinforce them with crafts and activities here at home that really tie into what the boys are interested in. Example: The teachers have started talking about patterns in their math block. AB patterns, AABB patterns and ABC patterns. I took it one step further. Zane has been interested in knights for the past several months, so while helping me design and sew his Halloween costume (a knight of course), we used stripes in an ABC pattern for his tunic...pictures to follow when it is completed.
*One interesting observance: The boys are really only in class from 8:30 to 11:10. That's not even three hours. And by the time the teachers get everyone settled in the morning, throw in a 30 minute PE class, a few bathroom breaks and a snack, I honestly do not know how they can get much done. But they do, and with big smiles on their faces. Now part of it is that they send at least an hour's worth of homework home with the kids. Yes, homework in kindy. (I am sure those of you with older kids are grinning at this and saying, duh! But it was a surprise to me.) So the only way the teachers can teach to standards is to send work home and rely heavily on the parents to help. Which is fine by me, but I can see single mother or father having a rough time with this.
* The first day of school I was biting my nails as to how they would do in separate class rooms. They have been great!
So for us it is working beautifully. The boys are getting time apart in separate class rooms, time to shine on their own without competition from one another. They are benefiting from two really wonderful and caring teachers, and I am enjoying the other half-day to explore their own interests while tying it back to their formal school work when I can. And to top it all off, I am getting a little one on one time with the youngest. In some ways, I wish first grade was only half day. (Did I really just say that?)
And not to say that our decisions about education should be everyone's decisions. I do not think there is a "one size fits all" way to see kiddos and their wee minds. Public school, private school, unschool, homeschool...I think they are all great. And who knows we may have to shift gears at some point down the road. But right now, for us, this is working beautifully.
And the photos in this post are of our new nature table. I have wanted to do a nature table for quite some time, ever since reading about unschooling and the Waldorf philosophy. When I started arranging the living room in this house, I purposefully left space for such an area. And now those bits and pieces, rocks and sticks, pine cones and shells, pieces of bark and leaves can be enjoyed and appreciated as they truly should.
I came across this little ABC pattern one of the boys made all on his own with the nature table items we have been collecting. Acorn, shell, leaf, acorn, shell leaf. Incorporating a concept he learned in public school to make a bit of pattern art with items we feel are connected to something bigger than ourselves in our home. This significant little action by one of the boys is a perfect snapshot of how we have taken our children's education in our own hands, incorporated our faiths and values and molded it into what works best for us. Making up our own version of a partnership between public education and unschooling. For me this is huge, I am taking this little scene as a sign that we have made the right decision and I couldn't be more proud of my boys.
More inspiring nature fall nature displays here: