Bumble Bee is set to start Kindergarten next year... but despite doing well on the classical selective enrollment test, she has been waitlisted or not accepted to 12 magnet and gifted schools in Chicago. Too many parents are no longer moving out to the suburbs when their children reach school age! The competition is fierce for the classical/gifted schools, and the magnet schools are based on random lotteries.
Our neighborhood school is a level 3 school, which means it's a failing school, at the bottom of the heap. I'm not thrilled about the idea of sending her there. Chicago has one public "virtual charter school" (homeschooling with the help of CPS). I thought I would do that, but even there she's number 48 on a waitlist. So, I'm thinking about doing homeschool with her. Illinois is amazingly lax about requirements, and she's not even legally required to be in school until she's 7!
I was reading up and found a program based on Charlotte Mason's ideas of teaching. I rather like what I was reading about this program's curriculum. I also saw, however, that there is an Orthodox online school, St. Raphael's I think it was. It seems like it would need to be supplemented.
Anyway, I know that lots of you out there homeschool, and I would love to hear about what has worked and not worked for you. Over the years I have picked up activities here and there from your blogs to use in our down time. Now, I'd like a little more guidance on putting it all together and having a unified curriculum.
Please comment....
I'll leave a comment but I think it's likely to be one of the least helpful!
ReplyDeleteWe haven't done much in the way of having a unified curriculum. Over the years we've figured out what has worked and what hasn't. Kindergarten has become ridiculously simple: we concentrate on reading, writing and arithmetic. Anything beyond that they pick up whether you're planning it or not. We get books from the library - anything of interest - and while I provide paper, crayons and colored pencils, I give no art direction whatsoever. Anything the children are interested in (sewing, etc.) I teach as they show interest. Children of that age naturally want to help cook and that is a lesson all by itself. We have animal encyclopedias and such and those, plus books in general, provide any science instruction that I feel like doing. Science usually "just happens" in ordinary living.
For kindergarten (as of last year, since I don't have a kindergartener this year) we use Abeka for math and phonics. We start spelling (Modern Curriculum Press) in 1st grade. For beginning readers we've used Dick and Jane, Dr. Seuss and anything else lying around. (c;