Home School

Ella is soon to complete her second term of school, which means that Kate and I have had the days all to ourselves for six months now. It's an appropriate time to reflect - we've been doing this long enough that it feels like real life, but the end is far enough away to keep any sadness at bay.

I'll just come right out and say it: I have LOVED the last six months with Kate-mo. As you might recall, I was kind of a mess when Ella started school. I could not envision what Kate and I would do without her. I was afraid Kate would be lonely and bored and that she would tire of me quickly. Thankfully my fears were unfounded. We look forward to picking Ella up at school every single day, but we thoroughly enjoy those precious hours all to ourselves.

Since we are both people who loves a little (but not too much) structure, Kate and I have a few routines that suit us well. Mornings are our times to do stuff. Outings, shopping, play dates, activities, etc. We have lunch together, then almost immediately after lunch we do what Kate calls "our school reading" (more on that later). Between our school reading and picking up Ella, we have free time. Kate plays or reads books on her own and I clean the kitchen, pick up the house, and make phone calls to keep in touch with family and friends back home.

It came to my attention recently that I've posted about various activities (Strawberry Singers, our Thanksgiving Tree, Christmas acts of kindness, etc) and failed to post about an activity that Kate and I both consider one of our favorite parts of the daily routine: our school reading.

The day that Ella started school I purchased the Sonlight Preschool Multi-Subject Package for 3- and 4-year-olds (P3/4). Essentially this home school curriculum consists of a bible story, a children's book, and a brief activity or discussion topic each day. It is extremely flexible and can take anywhere from 10 minutes to well over an hour, depending on Kate's level of interest. Some days we read our stories, chat for a minute or two, and go on our merry way. If she is curious, engaged, and/or I feel the need to particularly stress an idea, we might spend a very long time working on something related to what we have read. Tailoring our daily homeschool activity to Kate's interests is the key. If I pushed her to complete activities she did not enjoy, she would be turned off from our "school reading" in no time flat.

The reading list in the Sonlight curriculum is fabulous. Some of the books were already so familiar Kate could recite them herself. These familiar favorites (Goodnight Moon, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Go Dog Go, Madeline, The Story of Ferdinand, Horton Hatches the Egg, and a few others) were super exciting to Kate because she suddenly realized that these books are well-known by others too. There are loads of fairy tales, and Kate really enjoys comparing and contrasting the original fairy tale with the Disney version. Then there are tons of books that neither of us have ever run across that are super fun for both of us to read and discuss, and some have even been added to our frequently-read repertoire. New favorites are Blueberries for Sal, Crictor, Leo the Late Bloomer, Harry the Dirty Dog, a  Usborne book about our senses, and all the Richard Scarry stories.

While the reading list for the Sonlight curriculum is fantastic, I will admit that the suggested daily activities are not. Most of the time I use the suggested activity as a starting point and then think up the actual activities myself. Kate's favorites have invariably been the the things I'm dreamed up for her to do. A few examples of these are below, but I'm warning you now that there is absolutely nothing special about it. I'm kind of lazy, so I don't prepare ahead and I totally make it up as I go along. I don't take pictures. Some of our finished projects look pretty cool in the end, but most of it doesn't. There have been many days that I've had a great idea and then kicked myself for not looking ahead just a TINY bit to make sure we had time and/or materials to make our activities awesome. But I cut myself serious slack because at least I'm trying. And even if my effort is minimal, Kate seems to love it.

Here are a few examples of Kate's favorite book-linked activities.

• From Head to Toe by Eric Carle. Using a long piece of easel paper, we traced a life-sized Kate-mo outline. We colored her face and clothing and labeled all the parts of her body. We sang "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" and came up with a new version called "Neck, Chest, Back, and Hips" (parts of the face were forehead, cheeks, chin, and lips). Kate then led the singing of both songs at Strawberry Singers the next day.
• Baby Says by John Steptoe. This was a hugely valuable teaching moment for us. Kate and I talked at length about things that babies can and cannot do. Then we spent almost half an hour going around our playroom and making it safe for babies. Her interactions with Rory (our godson) have been markedly better ever since.
• Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson. We practiced some handwriting using a purple marker. Sounds lame, but she seriously LOVED it. We use this handwriting website because they have a D'Nealian option (which is similar...ish to what they use at Ella's school).
• "Where Bread Comes From" a chapter of What People Do All Day by Richard Scarry. We made homemade bread and ate it with dinner. Kate loved making it and was so proud to describe the process to Ella and Nick at the dinner table.
• The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. For once I planned ahead and saved this story for the appropriate time (our self-proclaimed snow day in January). We made snow ice cream and Ella joined in for our school reading this day. She LOVED it. They both enjoyed linking their play in the snow with the character's very similar play. The girls loved talking about the tracks they made, the snow angels they created, the hills they climbed, and sledding down the hill - just like the boy in the book. (Unlike the child in the story, our snow had melted the following day.)
• Usborne Flip-Flap Body Book, Part II: How Do Your Senses Work? I split this lesson into five different days because there were so many fun extensions for this one. Like most kids, Kate relies almost entirely on sight to make sense of the world. She loved figuring out what was going on around her by being blindfolded and using her senses of touch, smell, hearing, and taste. Every day I would place a bunch of objects in a bag and challenge her to identify them by using her senses. She looked forward to what I was going to "surprise" her with every day!

Like I said before, there have been many days that I've thought of things that would have been awesome if only I'd planned ahead just a tiny bit. We could have walked to Pittville Park to see George and Zelda (the local swans) when we read Make Way for Ducklings. We could have made homemade pizza the day we read Pete's a Pizza. But I didn't have time or materials. (Sigh.) Then again, I go pretty easy on myself. Even though there are soooo many great ideas out there on sites like Pinterest, all those sites seem to do is make me feel inadequate. Instead I avoid it (so as not to compare myself with people who actually plan ahead and photograph their picture-perfect results) and fool myself into thinking my paltry efforts are freaking fantastic. After all, Kate doesn't know any better and for the most part I'm just happy that we're doing SOMETHING. :) I love a little bit of structure, and "doing our school reading" has been just the kick in the pants I've needed to link regular old children's books with extension activities.


Before we know it, this little girl is going to be ready to go to REAL school with Ella.

Kate modeling our first school uniform purchases for next fall.

No way that school is ready for Mo-mo!

In the meantime I'm happy to have her here at home with me for the next six months. :)