The home educators "C word"

Curriculum!

Caveat - One of the big reasons we are home educating is because I'm not very good at doing what I'm told. So that might, possibly, perhaps, have a slight influence on my curriculum choices. Scripted boxed curriculum? Nope. Single encompassing philosophy from one of the plethora of early-20th-century educational theorists? Nah, no thanks.

Over the past 3 years I have been busy reading & absorbing all I can about education, including the myriad theories of Unschooling, Leadership Education, Waldorf, Montessori, Charlotte Mason, Raymond & Dorothy Moore, John Taylor Gatto, John Holt, Alfie Kohn, Piaget, Vygotsky, Bronfenbrenner etc etc etc... and so what we are starting out with is a collage of alllllll the bits that I liked from them. And mostly importantly, the parts that I think will work best for my six year old daughter Lexi!

Reading - She taught herself to read a little while before she turned 4, so we're very fortunate to have skipped the tricky period of learning technical decoding skills! Our reading strategy is basically her dad & I reading to her (and the little ones) a lot, and he's going to bring guided reading level books home for her from his school each week, so we can work on her comprehension skills by reading & discussing them together.

Writing - With a nod towards Leadership Education (aka Thomas Jefferson Education) "Structure time not content", and inspired by Playful Learning, we will be trying out a daily Family Writing Time. The two big kids both have a pouch filled with assorted writing materials, and I have a couple of notebooks, that we will use to sit together & write whatever takes our fancy! Lexi has a basic story book (lines at the bottom & space for a picture above), letter paper & envelopes, notepads, a journal, and a "word detective" notebook (for hunting out interesting words!), and I'll be popping different blank template ideas in there occasionally to try to keep interest up! She's not a confident writer at all, she's scared to attempt words in case she gets them wrong :-( So the more freedom & encouragement we can give her in her writing the better! I'm hoping that having me there as a role model and constant source of assistance will help too.

She's been working through little worksheets from D'nealian Home/School Activities, which is going really well!

Maths- She's got a really good foundation in maths already, and we've just started working our way through the Math Mammoth Light Blue Series grade 1

Poetry - Once or twice per term (we have 4x 10 week school terms here), Lexi will choose a poem that she would like to learn from one of our books, copy it into her own poetry book, then each day we will spend a little bit of time memorising it. Once she's happy with it we will record it to share with family :-)

Science - We have the cute Science in Seconds and Nature in a Nutshell books, and I'm building up a stash of supplies, so the kids can choose an experiment from those & have everything ready to carry it out! I'll be encouraging Lexi to gradually start recording the experiements, whether through writing, drawing, or by dictation.

Art - We will be using the Come Look With Me series for our art study, choosing a picture that is interesting, discussing it, then exploring the medium or techniques used in our own art projects. We have a small selection of instruments here, as well as learn to play books for kids, so I'll be offering lessons to Lexi for some of those, one at a time, for a minimum of a term. Performing arts are NOT in shortage in our house!

This is getting long, and it is getting late, so I'll continue later!