Homeschool fall 2009

As we get closer to "the school year", i have been remembering what we have all been through and am trying to learn from all i have experienced, all i have read, and to listen to that old, tiny, precious voice within, along with the voices of my children before we jump into another fake construct of charts and lists and over wrought plans that noone wants and noone would ever, could ever truly "do" until June.

So, here are our plans, our loose and loving plans for this semester, also known as the time from September 'till Christmastime. Ish. Lots of "ish"!

Mondays all of us will be driving 6 year old Casey and 3 1/2 year old Charlie to their once-a-week school/daycare place. The two of them will be gone from 9am until 1pm at a woman's house who is running a very Waldorfy day school out of her home. This will be Charlie's first experience being away from me in a non-family or friend or babysitting situation. I hope they behave well and that they enjoy it. I hope to make the best use of this time to do something cool with Greta, Mickey and Eska.

Tuesdays we are reserving for field trips. Could be anything, library, museum, nature center, etc.

Wednesdays we are going to be doing school-y stuff with the little kids in the mornings before lunch, and during naptime (If I work it right, both Eska and Charlie will take a nap from 1 until 3 or even longer) I will be doing something school-y with the older kids.

Thursdays we will be doing all necessary work for our homeschool Co-Op, such as me planning my class i teach to assisting them with their homework for their own classes. I also have dreams of getting together with my sister and her 3 children for dinner at their place on Thursday nights---her husband works midnights and she has to do the entire evening thing on her own everynight, and my husband works until 8pm on thursdays, so I thought maybe we could go across town and bring a pizza and hang out from like 6 to 8, maybe even get the littles in their pj's for the drive home? My mother's death has brought us much closer together but still didnt give us any more hours in the week, so we both agreed to try to do anything we can to see each other LOTS more, even if it is just a silly Hot N Ready on a weeknight.

Fridays we have our homeschool Co-Op. This is a great group of homeschooling parents who teach classes to each other's children, there are doctors and lawyers and moms and dads and it is a very inclusive group of open minded families from literally all walks of life. I am looking forward to this immensley and hope to post lots of info and pictures once this gets started.

The class I volunteered to teach I called Circletime/Show and tell. I am planning on doing fun little games like Head,shoulders, knees and toes, Hot Potato, and stuff like that. do you like how it starts in 2 days and i really don't know exactly what I am going to do yet : )?

It looks like there will be 11 kids in my class, ages 3 to 6. i will have a uch better idea of what the heck i am doing after the forst week, once i get a feel for who these little people are and what they seem to enjoy! I hope Eska is not a CRYING fiend, because she has been a bit of a pip lately--very cross and biting and hitting (yes, the little apricot is a toddler now! getting molars and feeling angry about it!) and wanting to nurse for one second and then back flipping and screaming...(might give the tiny angel a bit o' the pre-emptive tylenol that morning, come to think of it!)

Greta will be taking German, Physics, Writing, Art History and Teens for Our Planet.

Mickey will be taking German, Legos, and Science.

Casey will be taking Circletime, Language Arts and Legos.

Charlie will be taking Circletime and Language Arts.

Eska will be taking painkillers. LOL!

We are considering a few other semi-regular events proposed by my county-wide homeschooling Yahoo group, a homeschool nature class, a homeschool "gym" class at one of those bouncey-inflatable party places, and maybe ice skating.

So, although looking at what Ive typed here, the schooly stuff seems to have gotten a rather small slice of our time pie, I know those open spaces are where my children do their true learning, and where meaningful relationships with the world are realLy formed.

I would like to use Five In A Row curriculum again, a very nice product that helps you glean the most from some great children's books. in a nutshell, it was written by a mother of five, and you are supposed to read the same book up to five days in a row. They now have it for older kids, too, so I am excited to check that out.

Continued apologies on my lack of blogging, and thank you for still reading!

Love to all,

Housefairy/MamaJoy