Here in Alabama, school gets started a little early. Now that we find ourselves in August, school supplies are selling out and in the next weeks kids will hike out and begin the school year.
This year, Eowyn is in kindergarten! It's crazy having a school aged girl. When we talked over what we hoped for her education and looked at our options (public, private, homeschool,) after considerable prayer, research and hours of conversation with eachother and those we trust to have a voice in the decision, we decided. We're going the homeschool route.
I think I've gone through all the emotions that are customary to taking on educating your little people. The anxiety of doing it well, the hightened stress of planning, the giddiness at the potential learning, the somberness at the weight of what we're doing. Overall, we've reached out into our community and chosen curriculum and we're all pretty pumped about this upcoming year.
We chose MFW (My Father's World) Curriculum and have already loved it. We were guided that the curriculum, like any, is lacking in some areas, so we'll be supplementing in math. We've bought all our materials and begun a few test runs with some of the manipulatives / working with Eowyn while entertaining Elias. So far, so good.
One of my main concerns was how we were going to do this with my 2 year old tagging along. So far it's been incredibly reassuring. Having him around seems to put my girl's mindset into being the big sister and thus trying more things on her own. When it's just her and I (which I was intentional about when doing preschool work with her) she often would ask me to do things for her repeatedly. To see her take a stab at most things by herself, repeatedly, then try to teach her younger brother is encouraging. I think we'll see a lot of progress in independent learning and in actually absorbing the information. Nothing makes someone remember information more than wanting to teach it!
Since we're simultaneously adjusting to being a family of five, we've been trying to transition slowly into more structured days with a lot more deliberate outside time. We've had a few cooler days (high 80s) so we've been taking advantage. Right now we're keen on collecting bugs and examining them with our magnifying glasses. I had to laugh when Eowyn hollered to her little bro this morning "Come Elias! Quickee! Let's go outside! We don't want to miss a DISCOVERY!"
Perhaps having a little sidekick will make this year even more exciting.
We also joined a co-op where she'll be doing math, english and PE with several other kids. This was in part for her, in part for me. Having some other families committed to homeschooling and seeing them weekly will be a great deal of encouragement. Especially so during the weeks where I question if we made the right decision.
Combine this with the field trips we have planned for the year and the couple of extra-curricular classes we're looking into and I think we'll have a good time. We're fighting busy and keeping realistic expectations for ourselves, so we're working hard to not structure her days drastically, yet still engage our girl enough so she can wake up excited (because E, like her mama, likes a little structure to her days.)
Thankfully my mom, who previously homeschooled us for a short season, continues to give her kind words to us. It's given a lot of courage and boldness to persue this in our moments of "can we do this?" Thank you being a wise and thoughtful cheerleader, mama.
We've had a few mamas, some of whom are also homsechooling, also give wisdom and encouragement. It's been a blessing to be surrounded by support.
Thank you all for that.
Cheers to making decisions "based on our hopes and not our fears." And cheers to kicking off Kindergarten! Hope you follow along with us!
I hope to be posting here along the way, but you can also follow us on instagram @simplespraguehomeschooling for regular updates.
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