First Adventure in Homeschooling

We decided that I would start Simone's 1st grade homeschool during the summer after her Kindergarten.  In fact, we started the Monday after her last day of school.  My belief is that learning, formal or not, happens all the time.  The only reason why there is a vacation in compulsory education is that, historically, children needed to help their farming parents between the months of June and August to reap the harvest.

I have been preparing for about 3 years for the moment I would start homeschool.  I had chosen The Well-Trained Mind as a structure for teaching Simone, but I can already see that we might veer from its organization.  In fact, I go through a re-evaluation of teaching methods every day!!!  Issues include number of breaks, when is the best time to teach Simone, where is the best place to teach her, how to present information, and how to mix up the subjects from day to day.

One thing I have learned with how I present information is  I need to be more interesting!

Simone straight up told me that I am boring.  Wha- what WHAT?!?!?    Me? Boring?  Well that was a shocker, but a very constructive criticism.  AND an instigation to give more props to teachers who teach more than one child!

The funny thing is that our first day was one of our most creative.

I had bought a lot of e-books from Teacher Express, a sub-company of Scholastic, Inc.  For the first day, I turned to one of their activities.  I chose the brain hats because Max had recently asked about our brains and where it is.  Simone really liked coloring hers.   Max got frustrated that he couldn't color and cut as well as his sister.

After a few more days of our doing worksheets, Simone kept telling me that learning is borning.  So for one of our writing prompts, I asked, "Why do you think learning so boring?"  Here is her answer.

"Because you do it difrnt"

On the left is a picture of Simone with her teacher Mrs. Dye.  Simone is happy and standing tall.

On the right is a picture of Simone with me.  She is cowering in a corner.  She told me, "Here, I am crying."

My ultimate goal is not to copy what teachers do, but I do want to get her more excited about learning.  Simone did comfort me by telling me that she likes how I teach her Spelling. 

I think Simone might be more of a kinetic learner than I originally thought.  Well ... here's to learning more about learning.