First Week is in the Books!

A new chapter in my life started this past week as we began the adventures of homeschooling. Elizabeth loves to learn so we decided to go ahead and start Pre-K with her. I had never really thought about exactly what all I would do for curriculum and such. So many things sounded good and I had collected a mixture of different activity books throughout the years that it left me with almost too much to choose from.  As I started planning what our Pre-K education would look like it became apparent to me that I was not going to be capable of teaching Pre-K and that my children would have to find an education elsewhere.  Besides, if I was having these overwhelming feelings in Pre-K what in the world would it feel like to be teaching a middle school or older student!? My mother made so many things look so easy!

But, I decided to shake off the feelings of overwhelment, and go with a motto I knew my mother would approve of- K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Sweetie!). So what are my basic goals?

Elizabeth loves to learn – Nurture and keep that love alive.

Reading, writing, and arithmetic.

We are working in simple ways on all of those things. I have two basic books that I am working out of right now to accomplish those goals. Last week things went great as we began our adventure. I have a feeling I will learn a lot over the next several months. There are things I would like to add to our curriculum. However, I feel right now I need to be realistic and just work on getting into our groove with the basics. Lord willing, I will have an infant around soon too which will make things a tad more challenging. Maybe next semester we can branch out even more into all the extra possibilities!

It is really great to be able to learn from my mom, mom-in-love, and close friends who have walked this road already. Learning from others mistake and successes makes things a bit easier. A tradition that my mother-in-love had was taking a first day of school picture of the kids starting school. I liked the idea and hope to keep it up!

Elizabeth Grace- September 5^th 2011-Pre-K