Since Olivia won't really be ready for pre-school until next fall, and she is really excited about school, we decided to home school her. I have to admit, I never thought home school could be so fun and so educational. I did consider starting another blog just for school but I can barely keep up with this one so I figured that I would just add my posts here.
We have just started our third week and I can't believe how much Olivia has learned. Each week we have a different science topic, some topics may end up spanning longer than a week but so far, we're just going a week at a time. I started with familiar topics that Olivia already knows a lot about so that I can get a routine figured out before we start on topics that will be very new to her. While the weather is nice I've decided to focus primarily on science and then once we're stuck indoors during the winter I'll shift over to language and math. Niki is really big on her learning math. What a shock, I know.
Our weeks start off with a trip to the library to check out books on our science topic. We also do at least one craft project or activity to introduce the general principles and we read through our new books in preparation for the field trips during the week. If I wasn't able to incorporate math, language, music, art, or writing through the science activities, then I just throw them in during the day somewhere. My goal is to at least touch on each subject each day. Most of the time it's through our normal day to day activities and conversations but occasionally in the form of flash cards or worksheets.
I've actually found that math has been one of the easiest subjects to incorporate into our day because we do a lot of cooking. Olivia always does her best counting when she's lining up the 40 marshmallows we need for rice crispie treats. Right now I'm trying to teach her to recognize the fractions on the measuring cups. Next will be to add them. Muh ha ha. I don't know about you but I would rather learn to count and do fractions making rice crispie treats and chocolate chip cookies than staring at a black board or crying over a homework assignment. Math wasn't my strong point. I cried a lot, mostly in secret, because I cared a lot about my GPA. Niki was actually my chemistry and physics tutor in high school and that was more or less how we met.
I don't really have any words to truly express how exciting home schooling has been. Planning a basic curriculum to teach Olivia about the world around her has been very empowering and it actually makes me a little sad to think about putting her in a regular classroom. We cover more material in two days than most kindergartens would cover in a week and we also fit in at least 2 or three field trips. I don't think we'll end up as a home school family but we are really happy about taking such an active part in Olivia's education right from the beginning. If nothing else, this experience has helped us realize how important it will be to take the subjects Olivia is learning in school and show her how they can be applied to the real world. Or if nothing else, get her out to see them in action. I'm really big on seeing things for yourself. How can you really learn about a desert if you never actually go out and experience one? I figure that I'm pretty well prepared to at least handle organic and inorganic sciences and health but Niki will really need to take the reins for the higher math. If Olivia ever asks me why she needs to learn how to do derivatives, I don't think I could stop myself from saying, "I don't know honey. Derivatives really are just a waste of your time. Let's throw your book away and go make some cookies."
I'll do my best to add weekly updates or at least photos as we journey through preschool. We'll see how it goes. So far so good.
