Mommy Moment – Planning Ahead

Yikes – a picture-free post! Momma’s in the mood for a brain dump!

A lot of my friends are about to register their children for Kindergarten this upcoming week. I think that the “buzz” about it, plus driving past what would be Tornado Boy’s school (if we ever choose to send him there) daily has really hit home for me. I really was feeling like I needed to get things settled for us for this upcoming year.

I am tremendously grateful that a variety of situations led me to pull Tornado Boy out of preschool last September in order to give this homeschooling thing a try. I have learned an amazing amount this past year; about homeschooling, about my son and about myself. I am far more excited and confident about our first year of “real” (aka reported to the government) school starting in September. I also know that I’m making totally different decisions now about how to handle the upcoming year than I would have if I hadn’t had these past eight months to get used to the idea. Had I not had the time, I likely would have used something like K12 or perhaps Calvert School as a base curriculum for us. I know now that something that is structured so that you’re doing all subjects on the same grade level will likely not work for us. I also know that I really prefer a unit study type of curriculum that will allow us to more deeply explore subjects that interest Tornado Boy.

I looked at a lot of different possibilities for how to handle next year. Our laws really give me a lot of freedom. I basically need to just send a notification that I plan to homeschool along with my qualifications to do so. I am now completely responsible for my son’s education. That is an amazing and awesome responsibility. I never pictured myself being at this juncture in life, but now that I am, I am truly excited to begin this journey. One of my biggest concerns is that I make sure that we will continue to have a social group for my son as most of the people his age will be headed off to school. The fact that he’s an only child really makes this vitally important to me. We’ve made some connections at a local co-op, but opted for a set of homeschool enrichment classes for children his age. I’m hoping that exposure two days a week to the same kids will be a positive thing for him. We’re also going to continue to have him be involved in at least one sports class at a time. I’m hoping that he can continue to do that with some of the kids that he’s currently friends with.

I filled out my official paperwork this week. I have yet to submit it; but it’s complete for when I’m ready. I also registered for another homeschool conference so that I can continue to network in the community and learn more about educating my son. The other big step was that I ordered all of our curriculum for next year. I also decided to go ahead and start using it now. Since we’ve pretty much just been learning about whatever interests Tornado Boy at the moment I figured that there’s no time like the present to try and get into a groove and see how a more formal environment will suit us for the fall. Here are the items that I’ve selected:

Five in a Row – for our language arts studies. I selected this to be able to continue in the unit study vein, using classic literature for the basis of our studies. We have not received our materials yet for this. The reviews that I’ve read have been so favorable, so I’m hoping that we’ll like it, too. Books are such a huge part of what we do every day, so hopefully it will be a good fit. This is supposed to include some geography, social studies and art along with the reading.

Math-U-See – this is a change as I had planned to continue with RightStartMath. Given Tornado Boy’s struggles with addition and his success with place value, this seemed like a potential good fit. I only ordered the Primer level so that if I decide to go back to RightStart, I’m not out too much money. So far, Tornado Boy is far more excited about Math-U-See. He seems to do really well with video content, so I think this will be right up our alley. He loves the manipulative blocks that come with the set. I’m really excited to see how this goes over the next few months.

All About Spelling – I like the “hands on” nature of the curriculum and the way it really uses phonics as a basis for spelling. This is how Tornado Boy naturally spells words – he sounds them out first, and then gives us the letters. His spelling is very good, but he needs work on the vowel sounds. I’m pretty excited about getting started with this.

Science – Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding – I choose this for a couple of reasons. We did a LOT of science this year as it is what Tornado Boy really seems to be interested in. I think that we will find this to be a lot of review of what we did in the past year, but much more in depth than we had done. Also, it was really inexpensive. If it doesn’t work out – no harm, no foul.

Handwriting Without Tears – I’m planning on using both Sentence School and My Printing Book. I’m such a huge fan of this curriculum. The entire line of products – manipulatives, songs and workbooks are incredible. They really make it fun for the child to learn to write. Good stuff.

Those are the major choices that I’ve made. In some ways I feel like I may be going overboard and towards too much structure. We’ll just have to see how Tornado Boy adapts. My major goals for the year are that he makes social progress – getting more used to the social aspects of school; and that he continues to really love to learn. He is so positive and self-motivated right now. I really want to make sure that we continue to light that fire for him.

What do you have on tap for the upcoming year?