The Big Plan

It's been a year now since I started the homeschool journey. I've gone through a mountain of research and strongly feel that this is the best decision for my family at this point in our lives. 

I've spent the last few weeks looking at all of the schooling options in our area and discovered an alternative academy that looks really awesome. If, at any point, the girls are feeling like they don't want to homeschool or we are feeling it is not working for our family, we are open to this option.

That being said, here is our preschool curriculum guide. I have a fairly loose plan (the kids are only 2 and 3) and plan to add and modify as needed until Kindergarten where I plan to purchase an all-in-one curriculum for at least the first year, and then evaluate after that. The beauty of homeschooling is that I can make sure that the kids are engaged and challenged at the same time and mix things up. Right now I have a loose monthly plan and as things come up I change if I need to. The kids are really excited - they love the learning activities we have done so far and are looking forward to doing more. I love seeing their quest for knowledge and the natural curiosity. It is such a fun way to learn!

Here is the plan.

I am following three books:

 Kitchen Table Play & Learn: Activities and Lessons for Building Your Preschooler's Vital Developmental Skills.

Preschooler's Busy Book: 365 Creative Games and Activities to Occupy 3-6 Year Olds

Mudpies to Magnets: A Preschool Science Curriculum

I've previously written a post about Mudpies to Magnets, but basically it has all sorts of different age appropriate science activities for preschoolers. 

The Kitchen Table Play and Learn book is the book I am going to follow most closely, while doing enrichment activities from the Busy Book. KTPL has 30 unit studies with 5-8 specific lessons contained within each unit. Unit Studies include All About Me, Dinosaurs, Rain Forest, Bugs, Winter Days, Garden, Summer, and much more.  Each lesson has a combination of language, math, physical abilities (fine and gross motor and hand-eye coordination), social skills, and a few other skills. 

I plan to pick a unit topic (e.g. fish, bugs, weather, flowers, etc.) and gather related books from the library and try to tie it in to any travel or activities in the area, and then do each lesson for as long as it takes us - guess a month or longer since I plan to only do lessons 2-3 times a week. I am going to supplement where possible and add activities from the Busy Book and Mudpies to Magnets. 

I also subscribed to the following: 

Koala Crate 

This is a box of craft activities that is mailed to your house each month. One of the things I struggle with most is thinking of crafts for the kids. I'm planning on doing a couple of months to see if I like it as much as I think I will, and am willing to do a year-long commitment if this is all it claims to be. 

Little Passports: Early Explorers

This is a box of activities, printables, and souvenirs mailed monthly that center around world themes like food, space, art, oceans, dinosaurs, and others. I again did a monthly trial to see if it is worth the money, but it sounds great in the description. I plan to try and tie unit studies from KTPL when I can. 

The Young Scientists Club

These are kits you can purchase for doing different science actives. I think that the activities will take several days to get out everything we can out of it. I chose the Clifford Magic Science Kit first. You can buy each kit individually, so I'll see if I like the first one and go from there. 

Academically, that is the plan. I think it is more than enough and I plan to do approximately one unit a month and go from there. I am going to try and have a lesson 2-3 times a week or so depending on how much we have going on.

In terms of learning environment, Ridhwi and I converted the formal dining room into a homeschool room. We are committed to seeing this for at least the next couple of years (possibly K-12 if we feel it will be good for the kids and family) and we felt the kids needed a place dedicated to learning and fun. 

I'm working on organizing it and putting up some pictures 

It is right off the kitchen, dining, and living rooms.

I've already unpacked these tubs and we are planning to make a window seat right here. I think I will spend a lot of time there myself too!

I also purchased a few wall pictures of colors and numbers for Ashima. I splurged and bought two of these educational easels for the kids. Quite a few activities in KTPL require a felt board and a white board. This is also a magnet board, perfect for letter magnets! I think that they will grow with the girls and they get older, too. 

Now to the question everyone (and I mean everyone) asks: what about socialization? I don't like this question. Never in my adult life have I been a room with 30 people of the same age. After high school, we are placed in situations with people of different ages and abilities and expected to learn and work with them, and this is how they will learn being home schooled.  Homeschooling is a much more authentic learning experience in several respects. I will not be locking my kids in a room and not letting them out. Even so, here are the different activities they will be participating in (with other kids so they can be "socialized"):

1. Toddler time/gym time at the YMCA. A 30 minute Physical Education class once a week with about 35 other kids.

2. Music and Movement at the YMCA. A music class with about 45 other kids.

3. Play dates. I have contacted several other homeschool parents with preschool children and we plan to get together and do actives/ let the kids play together. This is in addition to regular play dates with the children of our friends.

5. Dance class. Amita has been begging for a dance class. Our schedule was too busy when she was in school but now we have time for it.

6. Library activities. We are blessed to have tons of classes and activities for preschoolers at our local library. 
7. Swim Lessons. We live on the Wisconsin River so they need to learn to swim as soon as possible. They will be taking classes at the YMCA.

Once the kids are older there are homeschool co-ops with all sorts of actives, music lessons, sports, art classes, etc. for them to be involved it, hopefully not all at the same time. They will actually be able to do more social activities than if they were in school. Whew! So glad I dodged the socialization bullet. 

I have written about what I think I will struggle with already, but I think that getting the kids to understand that when we are doing school we are learning, engaged, listening, and following directions will be most difficult. I might be their teacher but I'm also their mom. Once we get into a routine, though, I think those things will work themselves out. I'm sure there will be frustrating days, but there will be awesome ones too. I'm excited about so much family time and have the ability to do such fun activities with the kids!

I am also going to read, read, and then read some more to the kids. I am going to allow them plenty of time to play, laugh, giggle, sleep, eat healthy meals, and be children. 

The MOST important thing I'm going to do, though, is instill a lifelong love of learning. This is really the root of what I want them to get out of homeschooling, and it begins now. I will not force them or make them do things they hate. There is no need. I will instead begin showing how fun and exciting learning can be. This is the most important I think they can learn. Once they love to learn, the world is their oyster.

This is it. My plan. I'm really excited to begin and I'll make sure to update as we go along regarding activities and things that work for us. 

Let's Do This

I have previously posted about how Amita was enrolled in a Montessori preschool. We really enjoyed the school and were happy with her being there while we were settling in our house. I am sorry to report that there was a teacher change in January and something that was positive became negative. 

Let me start off by saying that Ridhwi and I evaluated where we were regarding homeschooling over Christmas and decided that we were ready to take Amita out of school and begin seriously working on homeschooling after this academic year was over. We thought we would keep Amita in school until the end of the year so she could have some consistency. We had moved her around so much that we didn't want to change anything for her if we didn't have to. While we loved the school itself, there were things we didn't like but were willing to put up with them as long as Amita was happy and learning. 

Here were the things we did not like: 
1. The lack of sleep for both kids. I would have to get the kids up before they were ready in order to get them out the door on time. They were both sleepy and crabby throughout the day because of it. 
2. The lack of breakfast. Amita can easily take an hour to eat breakfast. As I mentioned in point number one, she was already getting up earlier than she was ready for so I couldn't get her up an hour earlier on top of that for breakfast. Because of this, she would eat her breakfast in the car during the 25 minute commute to school and she often went to school without eating anything because she was sleepy. They gave a snack within the first hour so I didn't worry too much about it, but I still was not happy about it.
3. The lack of freedom in our schedule. With Ridhwi's work schedule, it is imperative that we schedule family time when we can. It is especially important for the kids to get quality time with him since they don't see him at all on his working weeks. Amita's schooling limited our ability to do this quite a bit.
4. A crazy-insane schedule for a two and three year-old. We were running around driving Amita to school on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We had Toddler Time at the YMCA on Tuesday mornings and Music and Movement class at the Y on Thursday mornings. On Saturdays we have been going to the library for the different learning activities they host. Every single morning we were out and running around. I hated that the kids did not have time for free play or adequate rest, and that I had to choose between school and some other learning experiences (especially for Ashima who was not in school).
5. Sickness. Amita was constantly sick this winter, much more than anyone else in the house. 

We were willing to work around these things so Amita could have some consistency, but then Amita's previous teacher (who was awesome) was moved to another classroom. The new teacher, "Ms. Smith", was not as effective of a teacher. The first day I took Amita in the classroom after Christmas Ms. Smith did not introduce herself to me. In fact, it was two days before I knew who she was (I thought she was a teacher helper) and a week before I knew her name (Amita told me). I feel it was a bad first impression - Ms. Smith should have introduced herself to the parents and maybe have written a letter about herself so we could get to know her a bit and begin a relationship - especially considering she came in the middle of the year. There were also some behavior problems and lack of proper supervision that began after Christmas. Ms. Smith was a first-year teacher. I myself have been a first year teacher and  I was willing to give her a couple of weeks to settle and get her classroom management figured out. There were eight 3 year-old kids in the class, after all, and I could understand that she needed to her to classroom flow down to a routine. Four times that Ridhwi or I went to get Amita from school she was in the hallway by herself. The classroom door was open, but still, this was unacceptable. A three year-old should not be unattended. Then the behavior problems started. There was a kid in the class, "James", who has been a behavior problem the whole year. Amita had told me several times about how James would get in trouble and be in time out, or about other things James had done that were just plain bad. She never did those things herself, she just told me about them. I wasn't too concerned because it was obvious the previous teacher had James under control. Then one day after the teacher change I was reading to Amita and asked if she could give me a kiss - and she spit on me. No joke. My sweet, loving, and kind daughter spit on me, and not in a silly way - it was deliberate and mean spirited. I immediately picked her up and was on en route to time out when Amita bit me. Hard. My kids have never bitten each other so I was surprised and incredibly upset.  After the drama was over, I sat her on my lap and we had a serious discussion about what was going on. I explained that what she did was very wrong and bad and how it hurt Mommy. I asked where she learned spitting and biting and she said point blank that she learned it from James at school. It became obvious to me that Ms. Smith did not have the class under control. When combined with the other things we did not like about the school situation in general and the fact that we were planning to discontinue school anyway, we decided that enough was enough.The next day I went to the front office and put in a two week notice for her last day. 

Let me also say this. If a daycare situation was our only option, I might have been willing to put up with these things and discuss the problems with the teacher and come up with a plan so they did not affect Amita or our home life. After all, she would have had a new teacher and class in August. I understand that teachers can only control so much in a classroom setting and that kids have to learn from difficult people throughout their lives but this is not our only option and Amita does not need to learn these lessons right now. We were already planning on pulling her from the school, this just helped us decide to move up the timeline. 

I've been planning my curricula for a while now and I am finally ready. I'm going to post the things I'm doing for both kids in detail in a further post. We are going to begin next week and I am really excited for this to happen. I've been planning and deciding for a year now, and we are ready to begin. 

Let's do this.