Homeschool Day 1

I have a son in Grade 1 who has been asking since the beginning of the school year if we could do homeschool. He is in a great public school, we like his teacher and the principal, and he is doing well, so I have been a little surprised by the consistency of his requests for homeschool.

My husband and I decided that before making an official decision, we should do a trial run while he is out of school this week on Christmas vacation. I also wanted to keep a record of the things we do, and I will be doing that here (amongst the recipes, home improvement projects, and gardening attempts). I have always admired homeschooling families, but until recently felt like it was not something that I wanted to do. I really value time to myself and am very happy with the public schools in our area, so it wasn't terribly appealing to me. However, over the past few months, my heart has been changing, and I felt like it was something I should consider for Scott.

My intention for this week is to ease into things. Somethings we will do every day, and some we won't. Besides what we have done today, I also want to do history (and I intend to use the Story of the World), Spanish, French, piano, violin, science, cooking, and lifeskills (planning meals, doing laundry, cleaning, car maintenance, etc). My husband will likely supplement occasionally with computer programming, and he can help with the Spanish by providing a native accent. He speaks only Spanish to our 2 year old daughter (which only started about 10 days ago), and it is really helping the rest of us, too. I have previously taught college-level French and worked as a French camp counselor for kids. I currently teach Suzuki violin, so I feel pretty confident in those areas.

I am a complete newbie, am still making decisions on curriculum, and am keeping this record mostly for myself. However, I welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions, especially if you are a homeschooler or a homeschool alumnus.


Devotional:
Sing all 7 verses of "How Firm a Foundation" as requested by Scott. It's his favorite hymn. For our scripture study, we looked up the verses that were referenced and read them together (Helaman 5:12; Isaiah 41:10; Isaiah 43:2-5)

Math
Scott did a pre-test for the first unit of a math workbook I picked up last weekend. It gave me a sense of what we can work on together. He can do simple math facts, but he does not know how to add large numbers together. For example, 25 + 37. He got the right answer, but when I asked him how he did it, he just wiggled his fingers at me. Ok, then. It's good to have something to work on:)

Language Arts
Scott loves pigs. One of his Christmas gifts was a hardcover book called The Whole Hog: Exploring the Extraordinary Potential of Pigs. We started with a one paragraph dictation from the beginning of the book. Scott did quite well. He is an excellent speller and only made a few small mistakes, mostly related to commas and random capital letters. After correcting the paragraph together, we took turns reading from the book out loud.


P.E.
It was a sunny, crisp day, and I could tell that it was time for some ACTION. We bundled up Scott and baby sister into hats, gloves, and coats, and headed out for a walk. We took several laps around the nearby high school track, and Scott also tested the longjump pits and ran up and down the bleachers.

Art
Scott loves all things art related. Another of his Christmas gifts was a rock-painting kit, so he spent some time this afternoon priming and painting one of his rocks.