Friday, May 14, 2010

Schooling with Jonathan

I can't ever remember what (if anything) I've posted about our plans for schooling Jonathan. Well, we're planning on homeschooling next fall, probably through a combination of CHEP (a public homeschool charter) and possibly a friend who will be teaching a small group of homeschool students two mornings a week. Mostly, though, we'll just keep doing what we're already doing, which is what keeps my anxiety at bay. :)

Right now we have "preschool time" three or four mornings a week. Sometimes we practice handwriting, sometimes we do a math page or play with Mortensen math blocks. Some mornings we read together in the BOB books. Sometimes we do animal discovery and sometimes we paint models and sometimes we bake bread. As long as we rotate and don't get stuck on just one thing forever, it doesn't really matter to me which one we do. And Jonathan is much happier when he gets to pick. :) Obviously that can't last forever, but for now it is working well for us.

Depending on the day and the activity and the interest level, we spend 20-60 minutes in this semi-formal "schooling". The rest of the day is informal. We read books together, they read books to themselves during quiet time, we play outside and garden and when I do laundry they help sort and match socks. Jonathan is learning to fold his own shirts! There is so much more to learning than just "academics", and I'm starting to relax into this gentler understanding of school.

3 comments:

Amy said...

Sounds wonderful!

Tamra said...

Sounds like you have a gret handle on the whole school thing! Littles don't need a lot of sit down school and they do best when there is a variety. I let my 4yo pick what he wants to do each day as well.

Elena Johnston said...

That sounds perfectly lovely and wholesome and wonderful! =)