Putting it all together, once piece at a time

I finally settled on the curriculum for the "year."  I decided to do a mixed kinder/first grade level with him for now.  He needs a lot of reinforcement on reading whereas his math is more on par with the second semester of first grade or maybe higher.  He isn't mature enough to do too much work so I am pacing him as slow as I can since he is still only five (born in December) and typically five year old children are just starting with kindergarten with basic skills or for some children, no skills (shame on those parents!) He is still a young fella so we are giving him time still to grow.

What my husband and I have decided on is for the bulk of curriculum a new secular Charlotte Mason/unit study/ literature based curriculum called Build Your Library.  I was very impressed with this program and very excited to use it.  It is actually part of the reason I am calling this year a hybrid kindergarten/first grade year because I was so impressed by the choice in literature for kindergarten we didn't want to miss out on it and on top of that the first grade curriculum uses a lot of the things I was already planning on using for him for what would be traditionally his first grade year so we are going to hold off on that until he completes this kindergarten program.  It includes basically all subjects, including history and science though I do intend to expand upon the science a lot since my son is very interested in science especially nature.

Since he needs a lot of work in reading we are going to be doing All About Reading, which I am thrilled about and have heard nothing but fantastic things especially since it is recommended for dyslexic children.  My son hasn't been diagnosed with dyslexia, but he shows some possible signs of it or possibly a visual problem so we are preparing him in case he does end up needing more help because of that.  We are using Draw, Write, Now and various copy work for him for his writing. I feel he writes better than a lot of older kids so we aren't too concerned with his writing  at the moment so we are going very light on this for now.  We are also going to be trying Spelling You See this year since we won it in a giveaway.  We haven't done any spelling yet for curriculum so it should be very interesting.  

For math we are continuing with the second semester of Singapore Math Essentials.  I think he will probably finish this pretty quickly as he tends to excel in math and he knows half of the book already but it goes into money and time at the end which he is not at all familiar with so we intend to hit that so he is comfortable with it before doing the first grade level math.  We are using Lollipop Logic for Logic since he seems to really enjoy that sort of thing and we like to keep him interested.  I am trying an introductory art course for him this year called Pineapple Paintbrush Art so hopefully it will give him a good foundation on art.  Since he enjoys instruments we will be trying Discovering Music for now and probably Rocksmith when he feels ready to try that.  Right now I am planning on using the free resources from All in One Homeschool and Confessions of a Homeschooler for his computer, PE, and character study curriculums.

We are really looking forward to "officially" homeschooling him since he's closer to the age now that most people start schooling and seeing how he does.    

Thoughts. Ideas. Feelings.

When we had our first child five years ago I thought a lot about what his life would be like. What things he accomplish, who he would become, and how exactly he would get there.  I never thought much about what school he would be attending as a child.  My personal experience with public school was not positive.  My brother has had ASD for as long as I can remember and he basically fell through the cracks in public school, it did absolutely nothing for him.  Now in his thirties, he relies heavily on my parents who he lives right down the road from.  He was not given the tools and skills to provide for himself.  I feel strongly he could have benefited greatly from a different schooling experience, but I'm not sure my poor mother was up for the challenge as she already had my sister at home who was helpless, relying on someone to care for her every need.  I was the youngest in my family and I did well in public school academically, but not socially.  To me school was a place where I was forced to sit with my peers who treated me like a disposable object or maybe even at times a doormat.  I wouldn't have wished the kind of hell I endured during those years on my worst enemy except that I loved everyone and didn't understand why children were so cruel.

Once my son started to grow and our daughter was born,  I came to the realization we would need to make some difficult choices concerning education for our children.  At the time my husband was in the military and we had already lived in Japan as well as moved numerous times in the four years we had been married at that point.  Moving a lot meant public school could be hard on the kids, it would be a lot of trying to adjust and adapt constantly.  We decided to not make any decisions on how they would be educated until they got a bit a older and we could work with them and see who exactly they are and how they truly learn.  Initially, I yearned to have my son attend a fantastic Montessori school in the city we were stationed.  I quickly realized the cost was going to be impossible for our single income family (I dedicate my time to raising my children and keeping our lives together.)  With a Montessori education outside the home off the table, and getting to know our son and his various quirks we made the decision to homeschool him.  It was our concern that with his personality, public school would probably not be the right place for him.  I sincerely felt he would fall through the cracks.  He is and always has been a very bright child, but he needs one on one patient understand and guidance with his learning.

After working with him on K4 skills and seeing how quickly he catches on I decided to enroll him in an online charter school.  This was not an especially great experience.  I don't really regret this decision as it didn't cost us anything and I kept doing the same things I had been doing with him all along anyway.  Halfway through the year I got fed up with the tests he would have to take.  We couldn't afford the two hour drive every time we had to drive for whatever standardized test they wanted him to take.  We were supposed to have at least monthly meetings with his teacher who we actually never even got to meet because I couldn't drive to meet her (no car while husband is at work) and she never offered to drive to meet us.  I wasn't remotely pleased with the curriculum they had him doing and every time I would suggest something he would like I was denied it by the school.  He finished the completely kindergarten language curriculum within the first half of the year (this was at kindergarten level when he was four years old.)  The math curriculum they had him doing would one day be so dreadfully easy he would request not to do it all and the very next day the lesson would fly so far over his head with the way it was worded he would get frustrated and close him laptop.

In December I decided I wanted more for him because he wasn't retaining anything his classes were supposed to be teaching him and he needed more substance to his curriculum.  I started him on Moving Beyond the Page's 4-5 year old curriculum, Handwriting Without Tears, and Right Start Math.  He loved doing the work and was happy to be learning again.  Right Start Math proved to probably not be the best thing for us as he already had a way to doing math and it didn't work well with Right Start so we didn't continue using that program for long.  Moving Beyond the Page was very fun, we all enjoyed it very much but the 4-5 year old level was really not challenging enough for him so we decided to stop using it at the typical end of the school year instead of continuing.  We gave him Singapore Math's kindergarten level books to reinforce what he already knew and make sure he is definitely ready for first grade math, he smoked through the first book with ease and was very sure of himself.

Today I am planning for the "coming year" which truthfully will start any day now.  I am fairly certain we are going to be year round schooling so we can travel when we need to and take breaks when it's the best time for us to do so but for now we are starting early so we can do a mixed kindergarten/first grade curriculum with our now five year old and let him go at the pace he needs.  Once he has mastered the kindergarten level skills we will move on to the first grade, whenever he is ready we don't really have at timeline for this.