First Day of School

I've had a lot of people ask me how the first week of school went. Surprisingly well, actually. My biggest challenge right now is just finding a routine that works for our family (which is almost always the challenge for me - I'm always trying to tweak it and make it make more sense). That and trying to get used to how different learning at home is from learning at school. I've read a lot about this stuff the last few months and it's amazing the range of home school philosophies that exist - from super structured, tons of curriculum to no structure at all. I'm shooting for somewhere in the middle, keeping in mind that younger children should be focused more on developing core values still. I need the structure and routine and so do my kids, but part of the reason for home schooling is so the kids can learn naturally and through play so just giving Dylan worksheet after worksheet isn't going to be my approach.

I'm sure I'll adjust it a million times before I feel like it's fine tuned, but for now, we start our mornings reading scriptures with Marcos before he leaves for work, have breakfast and do whatever chores need to be done that day (minimal, but something every day), do a devotional (which for now consists of song, prayer, pledge, scripture, Article of Faith, chapter out of the illustrated Book of Mormon and a story out of the friend). The rest of the morning is fairly structured learning, although with more games and classic books than textbooks and worksheets. I usually teach one main thing that interests me (from the unit I've chosen - for now I'm working in units...we'll see how I end up liking that), then we do lunch and the afternoon is much less structured, allowing the kids to learn what they love and explore on their own. I actually might have required quiet time for an hour or so every afternoon where the kids are banished to their rooms with books (Preston in the boys' room and Dylan probably in my bedroom). I'm hoping that coordinates well with an afternoon nap for Marissa and some sanity/study time for me. Again, we'll just have to see how it goes.

I started with a mountain man unit. I found a bunch of unit ideas here and liked the way this lady teaches her kids so I decided to copy her a bit until I felt comfortable doing my own thing. I soon realized, you have to adjust the learning a ton to your own family even if you do get the original idea from someone else, but a lot of my mountain men unit is similar to hers.

The first day Tony was at our house and joined most of our school day (when he wasn't doing his own reading). I gave a basic history of mountain men (it really is fascinating...I didn't know a lot of it) and talked about possibles bags. I already had bags picked out that we owned that the kids could use as their possibles bags when we went on hikes during the unit. We looked at maps, read books about grizzly bears and mountain lions and also learned about several well-known mountain men like Jedediah Smith and Kit Carson. We took a walk not in the mountains, but to the bird preserve because Dylan requested it. We also plan to go to the zoo and the mountain men rendezvous in Ogden next week. Oh and I'll probably try to get Davy Crockett for the kids to watch for movie night at some point.

There is so much information in my brain right now from reading and studying and pondering that it's a bit overwhelming, but I'm sure I'll get into the grove at some point and not worry so much about how and what to teach. Anyway, not the typical "first day of school" post, but I thought I'd post it anyway. The pictures I have are from the bird preserve. You can see the possibles bags the kids carried with them. They LOVED them! Dylan has a plastic knife from the dollar store he's been toting around all week too. It was actually a really good day/week for all of us.