Day 4 of Kindergarten at Home

Most of our faithful readers will already know that we decided to try homeschool this year. This is our 4th day of kindergarten at home. We are following a public school curriculum which gets delivered to us online and through the mail from K12. We registered last week, so we are still waiting for the delivery of our computer and other materials to arrive. However, we have been able to do phonics, math, art, and a little history.

I waffled for a long time in the decision of where to school, but I have no regrets at all about doing homeschool. Here are some of the things I love:

• We follow our own schedule. Today we woke up at 9 am, made whole wheat pancakes, and started school around 10 am. Our public school starts at 8:15 am and finishes at 2:30 pm.


• When Ethan is tired of working on math worksheets, he likes to sit down on the couch and read a book, sometimes out loud. He just finished reading Pete's A Pizza to Scott.


• Scott enjoys doing worksheets, too. He is very happy to have Ethan home.


• On odd days like today, Mr. M is around. He is a gifted teacher, especially for our boys, because he has the same kind of curious mind. They explored colors and distortion, as seen in Picasso, while doing Ethan's art lesson on self-portraits.


• Ethan can move at his own pace. He doesn't have to spend weeks and weeks learning to recognize letters and the sounds they make. Yesterday he finished reading his second Hardy Boys book.

I cannot remember a time in my life when I felt so much peace, even with the regular arguments between the boys or moments of frustration. I attribute this to several factors. One is that I have made an effort to pray aloud in a private place, morning and night. The other is that when we moved in June, I left behind a lot of responsibilities: teaching 8 private violin students and Monday night group classes, the MOMS Club board, RS presidency, heavy visiting teaching duties... It has made a tremendous difference.

I feel really happy. I am surprised by how much I am enjoying this because I always looked forward to getting my kids out of the house and having time to myself. For our family, this is working wonderfully.