Preschool Prep

We toured a preschool for Henry a couple of weeks ago and although he will not be attending, we decided to proceed with preschool at home this year. This has Henry in a huge frenzy of excitement! We went school supply shopping and when we got home he opened everything and packed it into it's proper places in his backpack.

He then proceeded to run in huge circles around the bar in our kitchen, trying to burn off that extra excitement that had bubbled over. It was adorable. I wish every kid got this excited about school! (And I hope he will always have a desire to learn like this too.)

When he finally calmed down, he refused to take his backpack off for almost an hour. He played in it, he ate in it, he even asked if he could go to bed with it on. Eventually it found it's home hanging in a safe spot until it's ready to be used.

Technically our first week started yesterday, but we've been working on a few things since last week. Henry has finished all the tracing exercises that were in his workbook and yesterday we decorated the cover of his journal for the year as well as hanging a calendar, weather board, and alphabet chart.

We introduced letters yesterday and today we are introducing shapes. Tomorrow it will be numbers and on Thursday it will be colors. Fridays are going to be field trip and service days for us so I'm going to try to keep actual 'lessons' to a minimum. Next week will start our actual 'lessons' as this week we're more or less just getting used to the idea of having a school routine and going over what we will be learning this year.

Thanks to Desiree over at Macke Monologues I have an awesome curriculum to follow this year called God's Little Explorer's that not only focusing on learning the basics, but also life skills, service, and the Bible. I'm adding more to the lesson plans (a color and number each week in addition to a letter and shape) and bending each week's plans to fit our needs. You can find out more about this curriculum here.
Overall I think it's going to be a great year! I'm really looking forward to documenting it. I find myself lucky in that sense: that Henry and I can not only learn together in this way, but that I will have that opportunity to be there to take photos and remember these early educational moments in his life.
How is school prep going in your home? Are your kids as excited as mine?

Praying about Homeschooling

Jeremy and I have discussed for the past year and a half or so about homeschooling Henry. I'm not going to get into our reasoning right now, as that could be an entire post on it's own, but more or less about my heart's uneasiness about such a big decision.

Today Henry and I are starting a 'pre-school' type of regimen that I have been working on for awhile now. Each week we will go through one letter and number and pair that with books, songs, trips, movies, etc... pretty much we will have a 'theme' of the week and stick to it all week long. I'm going to see how this goes, if I can stick to a certain schedule and successfully teach Henry a few things on my own.

We have prayerfully considered our options and we feel as if homeschooling is best for us. However, we are also considering 'sending' him to a fellow homeschooling mom's home for school. I know that sounds a lot like sending him to public school, but the curriculum would be quite different and we feel like his life would be enriched by a different sort of learning experience guided by what we feel are essential lesson plans that include Biblical teachings and community service.

So pray for me today as we start on this journey. In a few years when it comes time for 'real' school, Henry may just end up going to public school. We don't know. We just know at this season of life, right now, our heart's are pulling us in this direction.