We recently committed to homeschool for William next year. He is bright and self motivated to learn, but he's young for his grade and this school year left him a little burnt out. Today he asked when second grade starts at his old school and said that he should start homeschool then. He is obviously excited for summer vacation. But we told him that maybe he should start homeschool today. He was apprehensive about that until we detailed his homeschool achievements for the day:
Art - He created a little tent, a figure and a pillow using card stock, tape and markers before I even got out of bed this morning. It's Sunday :)
Religion - We went to church. Again, it's Sunday.
Writing - He dictated a blog entry.
Social studies - William asked for a US map to trace the route we took on our recent road trip.
Science - He developed a curiosity about queen ants. We googled queen ant to find out that they start as regular ants and are nourished to become queens that will fly off to mate and start a new colony.
Math - This is an area that we'll need to be more deliberate about to keep him challenged. But yesterday we made plans for his weekly allowance and today we discussed our homeschool budget.
Last night I subscribed to two magazines, which I decided will be the bulk of our curriculum - Ask and Appleseeds. I am really excited about the unschooling approach. I feel that's best for us at this point. We need to nourish William's natural love of learning which has already taken him so far. "School" was not a good fit. He obviously learns a lot when left to his own devices. I'm excited to see where his schooling will take us. I have no doubt that these two magazines will inspire learning if we are ever in need of inspiration.
As for Eliana, our current plan has her going to preschool three mornings a week next school year. She thrives on social interaction. The letters she knows are all letters in people's names... what does that tell you? Personally, I predict that she will love school and excel there. But we're taking things one step at a time and doing the best that we can for each of our kids. I'm excited to blog about our unschooling experiences starting now, not in the fall :)