A few weeks in

I had thought I'd write each week, but that hasn't happened. But that's ok.

We're now starting week 4. Week 1: Ping, Week 2: Lentil, Week 3: Madeline, Week 4: A Pair of Red Clogs. We do a variety of reading or activities each week related to the book we're working on. For instance, geography/culture: Where are China (Ping), Ohio (Lentil), Paris, France (Madeline), and Japan (PORC)? What do children in those places look like? Eat? How do they go to school? What language do they speak? We started putting cut out copies of the books' covers on a world map so we could see all the places we'd looked at. I don't know that children this young will retain where China is or where Japan is, but as we come back to it in future years they will have this foundation stone in place.

We've also found some fun stuff to do - checking out buoyancy in the bathtub was definitely a high point that first week. The boys were very impressed with the Eiffel Tower, well, actually it's cool-looking elevators, in the video last week. I'm hoping this week to get a friend who was stationed in Japan to come and talk with them about his experiences. It's fun.

That's what I have been so pleasantly surprised about: this is fun! I love putting together the things we are studying. I thought I would have to use a prepackaged curriculum to get things accomplished - and I do for math, handwriting and learning to read, but I love using unit studies to explore lots of different things with the boys. I'm glad I'm integrating ideas from both Five in a Row and My Father's World. The MFW Kindergarten curriculum was too elementary for where my oldest was this year, but he wasn't reading well enough to put him in the first grade. I think I'll use the MFW-Kg as intended for the middle child next year (when he's 5). We'll see.

Next week we're taking a different week. The plan is to do lots of drawing, go to an art museum and (maybe) another museum, and to have an "easy" school week. This is also my catch up week - catch up on housework and next month's planning. But that's good. I've heard several moms say they had a 3 weeks on, 1 week off approach to homeschooling and it worked really well for their family. I guess we'll see how it works for ours.

In the meantime, I am looking forward to this week. It's fun to see them learn and grow. And I'm learning a lot, too.