Homeschooling

Ah, yes.  Homeschooling.

Well, we are homeschooling this September, although that seems to be very surprising to some people.  We've also enrolled Samuel in the local public school kindergarten with the idea of possibly having him attend a few mornings a week just to give him an opportunity to get out of the house, enjoy the company of friends, and let me manage with one less child for a few hours.  We haven't decided whether or not we're going to do it, but we've attended the introduction to kindergarten night and so forth.  I cannot make any decisions beyond that right now.

And I've chosen some 'curriculum'.  It seems strange to consider the books I've chosen as any sort of curriculum, actually.  I mean, Samuel is only four years old.  I thought I'd share them in case anyone was curious.

We're using the BOB Books to teach phonics.  I'm getting the first two sets and if we fly through them I'll pick up a few more, but if we can only make it through those I'm fine.  I'm also using the first level of the Handwriting Without  Tears program - My Letters and Numbers Book.  I debated buying this because I couldn't really see it being useful this early, but I think I'd like to start Samuel off on the right foot with how to hold his pencil and form letters.  We're also using audio books to introduce some classic literature.  I'm getting Beatrix Potter, A.A. Milne, Herriot and possibly the Just so Stories.  Anything more than that I'll borrow from the library.  That pretty much sums up the literature section.

For math I chose Family Math for Young Children which is a book of math related games that I think we'll all enjoy.  I really don't want to jump into math books right away.

I would like to do some poetry and scripture memorization, but instead of buying anything I'll source it elsewhere.  Same with any crafts or anything we do.

Samuel will be taking swimming lessons on Fridays with a homeschool group, and that combined with practicing on his bicycle and nature walks is my plan for gym.

That's the plan!  It's very gentle, but actually still more rigorous than what he would be doing in kindergarten.