Thursday, June 27, 2013

In which our heroine plots and plans

I'm a planner.  I love to plot and scheme and consider all the possibilities related to some vague future possibilities.  The difficulty comes in making the final decisions, sorting through all those possibilities to come up with an actual plan.  It's come time in our homeschooling plans to do some finalizing.

I've dreamed of homeschooling my kids since Moose was just a baby and I was still working at the Rocket Factory.  Originally, I'd thought we'd be waiting until he was at least five to begin anything, but after hearing my nephew talk about kindergarten at Easter dinner, Moose insisted on beginning school right away.  There was no talking him out of it.  Unfortunately, "right away" was only about a month after Sprite was born, so we tried for a few weeks with a Letter of the Week program I cobbled together and then gave up.  At the moment, the plan is to begin again in September.

I love the concept of Charlotte Mason's method, and in the long run, we'll probably incorporate much of what she promoted.  I also like the classical method of studying the trivium.  Moose is only three right now and won't be four until October, so we have plenty of time to figure out what works for him.  We'll definitely be using lots of great literature and nature study, especially at this young age.  After all, those are two of the most important things in our lives even now, along with music and faith.

A copy of Five in a Row, Volume 1 is on its way to us right now, and our wonderful local library is able to get all of the related books for us to borrow.  I'm really hoping it works for us.  I think I have some great ideas, though I won't really know for sure until I get the book.  Even if it doesn't, at least I only spent $8 total, and I'm sure I can resell it for at least that much.  I'm looking at Sonlight as well, but we probably won't use that for another year or two.

Much as I love planning, actually choosing what curriculum to follow has been driving me crazy.  I'm sure it will only get worse as the years go by.  After all, this is really just play.  Educational play, but for a preschooler, what isn't educational?  In many ways, while I didn't really intend to start so young, I'm glad it worked out like this.  At least I'll have a couple years to get my feet wet before it's time to get serious.

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