With September fast approaching we are getting more and more ready for school, but not exactly the way we had planned.
J will be starting preschool at the same Montessori school V attended. In fact right now we anticipate her being in the same classroom that V was in, with one of the same teachers. Hopefully this means a tear free beginning, and an easy transition. J was very excited for the open house days and while I am not sure if she completely understands V won't be there, other friends will quickly distract her.
The surprise for the coming year is V. I've decided to homeschool her for Kindergarten, and if we get along fairly well to continue homeschooling her for the foreseeable future. Surprising, right? Around Christmas last year I was looking for a book list, a couple actually. I wanted a list for me to use at the library, but I also wanted one for the girls of those great kids books one really shouldn't miss. As I wandered the interwebs I found AmblesideOnline. It is a booklist from K - 12 that I fell in love with. The books on there that I was familiar with were all favorites, which means the ones I wasn't familiar with would probably be pretty great. It broke things out by year so I could read to her without overwhelming her. And I pretty much fell in love with everything I read. At first I just planned to use these books as bedtime and family reading stories. But the more I learned the more I felt that this was something I really needed to fully embrace. So here we are becoming a homeschool family.
V. seems to be excited about the idea of spending more one on one time with Mom, but whether she really understands she wont be going to a classroom full of friends remains to be seen. She is such easy disposition when it comes to sitting down and doing lesson that it really makes the idea of it less overwhelming for me.
Will we love it? I don't know. What I am certain of is if I didn't give it a try I would forever be looking back and wondering. So here we go.
If you are curious about what exactly we are doing check out the AmblesideOnline website. We have already finished the Year 0 books. Year 1 is intended for 6 year olds, so we are doing a modified year 0.5 that is discussed in the forums. We will officially start Year 1 next year between January and April depending on how things are going. Meantime there will be lots of nature study, handicrafts, poetry and RightStart math lessons. Year 1 free reads, spanish, piano lessons and art projects.
If your have questions or concerns about how we plan to make this work - or things that I may be overlooking - let's chat!
If you love bookstores as much as I do and want some titles to look out for here are a the ones for Year 1 that we haven't been able to find a hard copy of locally. However, they are all either available at our local library or through the public domain to read on the ipad.
- Benjamin Franklin Ingri D'Aulaire
- Buffalo Bill Ingri D'Aulaire
- A Child's Book of Poems Gyo Fujikawa
- King of the Golden River John Ruskin
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