Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Plans

We haven't started La Befana just yet because the kids have been busy playing and pretending. Lots of pretending. I love it when their imaginations go crazy.

I've been thinking about the way we do things and we are definitely most comfortable as unschoolers. The problem I am having, however, is letting go of what they "should" be doing. I have a list of everything Maeve should know by the end of kindergarten. She knows most of it. But I second guess myself and think about history. Have we covered anything historical? I tried to cover the Mayflower and pilgrims, but it fell on deaf ears. Do I do enough? Should I order curriculum to make sure I'm not leaving anything out? How much does it matter?

It certainly doesn't help that there are oodles of homeschooling blogs, websites and curricula. There are yahoo groups and Facebook groups and groups in the community. Thankfully, I have already found a good group of people and kids so that's one less thing to worry about.

I am confident that everything will fall into place. We will achieve a rhythm. I think I will always be tweaking how we go about things, but that's just how I roll. I am considering adopting a year round sort of school schedule. Three months of learning with a week long break in the middle month. The fourth month we'd have off. The off months would be April, August and December and would allow for putting in the garden, a canning extravaganza and preparing for the holidays. I could also re-evaluate things during the off months and come up with a tweaked plan. Of course this is all slightly funny to me since I plan something and then the kids and I find something more interesting to do. I like to have a plan, but I can't always follow it. Such is the life of a homeschooler, I suppose.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think it shows that you *are* doing something that you worry. We use the What Your Whatever-Grader should know books to just skim and get an idea of what we should be working on. The Altoona Library has the set, or at least most of them, I think. Otherwise, I have most of them-Kindergarten through 5th or 6th right now. We like using an unschooler mindset-flexibility. Liv flourishes with actual sitting down to a set curriculum, but we ended up taking half of December off for holiday stuff, and have a planting/harvesting routine much as you do, so doing stuff formally isn't feasible during that time. Learning happens all the time, though, I think it is just as important that they learn the things that happen during those off times, too, like taking time to celebrate family and Savior, and growing and storing food for you family. You're doing great! :)