Our First Days of School...

My sweet Emberly is starting Kindergarten this year.  I feel like I should follow that with a big "gulp" but I am honestly just very excited for her.

We are homeschooling, so I don't feel like I need to have all of the emotions that go along with wondering whether or not she will be ok without me, if she will make friends, whether or not she will be kind or polite to others, if her teacher will like her, or if she will try to run the class herself... 

I know this is not for everyone, but we are just really thankful for this soft entrance into the school year.  We are praying it will be something that we continue to enjoy and that will be a good fit for each of our children, but we are willing to evaluate year after year to see if that is the case.  This is not a blanket "forever we homeschool!"  Simply a "for now this is right for us."  

  I've been dreaming about this day from the time I quit my classroom job.  Not because I felt like I was missing out.  Teaching other people's kids while someone else teaches yours just didn't make sense for us.  It wasn't hard to transfer all of my brain bites to my own children when we decided that the classroom took too much and gave too little.  But there was always a little something inside of me that missed teaching.  Teaching my own children feels like the best of both worlds.

So here we start.

With my sweet turning 5 year old in just a few days.  

Kindergarten will be filled with fun and flexibility to learn and explore in the ways we see fit.  For my eager to learn child who can already read quite well, can count well above 100, and can articulate many well thought out ideas, kindergarten might be more about learning to learn from mom than learning the content itself.

And that is ok.  

I've chosen curriculum that would be entirely appropriate to be spread over two years if we need to slow down.  But I'm imagining that once we start, she won't want to stop.

I can't wait to see her mind start connecting all of the dots.  

I've debated whether or not I should write out what curriculum we're using because I feel like it just causes my heart to feel a little bit anxious.  There are SO many different choices for curriculum.  It seems to me that everyone decides to homeschool for different reasons.  You may know more about these choices than some people, or you may know less.  It gives an opportunity for you to agree or disagree with me, and even though I generally don't care, for some reason this feels a bit vulnerable to me.  But I know that when I hit the point that I want to start Kindergarten with Piper or Grayson, I will want to remember what we did.  So for better or for worse, here are my picks.  I feel pretty convinced I have too much stuff.  And I know it is not perfect.  But this is where we are starting.    

Handwriting: A Reason for Handwriting - K

Bible: Grapevine Traceable Units - Creation to Babel

Phonics/Reading: All About Reading Level 1

Math: Math-u-See Alpha

Art: Home Art Studio - K

Social Studies: Pearson My World S.S.  

Science: Sonlight Science A

Supplemental: COAH K4/5 curriculum

Abeka K5 Letters & Sounds

Abeka K5 Think and Learn

COAH Daily Learning Notebook

 So far we've added Handwriting, Daily Learning Notebook, and Math into our lives over the past two weeks.  We will gradually keep adding more until we have a full coarse load.  I do not intend to teach everything every week... but time will tell! 

And don't forget about my sweet Miss Pip! She is more than just along for the ride. I can tell she is learning by osmosis. We throw in all sorts of fine motor, gross motor, art, alphabet, number correspondence, sorting, and BOOKS galore to give her a nice preschool experience. Nothing is formal, and that is perfect for us at this time.