And now for something completely different…
That’s my girls’ actual first day of school picture.
We started homeschooling this year. The littlest was about six weeks old, and I started doing kindergarten work with both the big girls. (They’re 4 and 5.) I knew going in that I was going to be the biggest slacker homeschool mama ever because, well, I’m new, and it’s kindergarten, and I just had a baby.
I wasn’t wrong.
I grew up in a homeschooling family with a trained elementary teacher as a mom. The bulk of my current experience with it has been through a best friend who home schools and is also trained as an elementary school teacher.
I am not an elementary school teacher.
I subbed in elementary schools for a bit. Subbing was fun. (ish.) But I can’t really imagine teaching elementary school for a living. (God bless the elementary teachers.)
So I knew that my kids’ schooling experience was going to look a little different from the homeschooling I’m familiar with. But I didn’t really know what it should look like. I live in Alaska where homeschooling is a pretty normal choice, so I asked some of the many moms I know who do this and joined a facebook group and, well, I’m making it up as I go.
My life still doesn’t look a lot like my perception of the other homeschool mamas. And I’m not sure I’m doing it right. But I’ll share how we’ve started anyway, because I really needed to see lots of different approaches, and maybe you do as well.
So here’s my version of homeschooling kindergarten. So far. (It’s been six weeks. So the jury is still out.)
I bring you: The okayest homeschooling routine ever!
We start the day with oatmeal.
Well, I say that. But really, we do math first. It’s Right Start math, and it’s heavy on manipulatives and activities. They actually just did their first real worksheet this morning, which is fortuitous, because work samples are due this week. Anyway, it takes maybe 10 or 15 minutes if they’re cooperative. And when they’re done, they get to play with the abacus! Hooray! While they do that, I get the toddler out of bed (and, since we’re being honest, he’s certainly leaked through his diaper, so I rinse him off and toss his bedding in the laundry) and I warm up their oatmeal. Baby Lilly could be anywhere at this point. Sleeping? On the floor? In the wrap? Who knows? We’re working toward routine, but haven’t really found our groove yet.
My kids are unaware that I know how to make breakfast foods that aren’t oatmeal. They make choices all day. And by “they,” I mean “I.” I have to lay out choices and talk them through making them. And breakfast is just too. darn. early. So it’s oatmeal. I started making it in the crock pot since we started “school.” (“School” gets air quotes.) I make a huge batch, then throw it all in the fridge. In the morning, I scoop it out and heat it up. Done. Ain’t nobody got time to get into philosophical discussions about breakfast with a 4- and 5-year-old.
Once the oatmeal is done, but before Brian the Toddler gets out of jail (or his high chair which is now, along with his hair, covered in oatmeal), we crank through phonics. The curriculum I picked has handwriting and phonics together, and there’s another 15 or so minutes of that. Katherine (the 4-year-old) doesn’t have the focus or the fine motor control to do the handwriting part especially well, but we muddle through it. She’ll pick it up.
(This is a pillar of my current schooling approach. I’m doing kindergarten ONCE with the girls. Katherine is 17 months behind Jenna, so she doesn’t get the material as fully or as quickly as her sister, nor does she have the attention for it—because of her age and her personality—but I’m not going to sweat it. She’ll learn to read. And if she doesn’t do that this year? Well, she’s FOUR.)
At this point, we’re done. Yeah. I’m serious. We’ve done half an hour of school. It’s not ten yet. Nobody has left the breakfast table. (Brian may still be covered in oatmeal. He might even still smell like pee.) But that’s it.
Sort of. We go on about our morning, make it through feeding the baby and discipline stuff and lunch and whatever. Once the little two go down in the afternoon, we do some strategic reading. I have a pretty rad collection of really pretty story books. We made it through Aesop’s Fables, we’re into Grimm’s Fairytales, working our way towards Dickens and Shakespeare. (Again, yes. I’m serious. Dickens and Shakespeare are, in fact, next up. The kid versions, anyhow.) I read some sciencey stuff. If I’m super on top of it, I remember to grab their respective AWANA books and we do verses.
And that’s it. Really.
And that’s on days when we don’t have morning commitments. So three mornings a week, this is the plan.
And by “plan,” I mean “hope.”
Some days the whole thing gets scrapped in favor of “character training.” Because I don’t really care if they’re reading or adding this year if they’re little hooligans. So if we have to, we spend all morning (day) on discipline.
Really? Some of this gets done. Most days.
Six weeks ago, it ate 100% of my time and attention all day to do half an hour of “real school” and some strategic reading. It’s gotten easier. I feel like I can be a person again, at least kind of. (KIND OF a person. That’s all I can manage with the addition of maybe a total of 90 minutes of work with the read-alouds. I’m not sure how “real” homeschool mamas pull this off.)
But anyway, that’s what it looks like so far. Don’t do it this way. Leastwise not on my recommendation. I don’t have any evidence that it works at all. And even if my kids do learn to read, it’s probably not an indication of my awesome teaching so much as the fact that they just want to read. So whatever. This is what I can manage right now, and, at least for now, it seems like it’s enough.
This post is part of the write31days challenge… I’m trying to post every day in October. Or, you know, lots of days in October. The rest of the posts can be found here.
grace enough 