Homeschool Update

Well, since I never posted about starting homeschooling, I guess this isn't really an update :). I started pre-k with Felicity in September, right after our family beach vacation. So far we are absolutely loving it!!! I spent a ridiculous amount of time researching for a couple years (we have known we wanted to homeschool for a while). I stumbled upon Charlotte Mason, and then Mater Amabalis which is the Catholic version, and it was love! There is very little formal schooling before age 7, and lots of time spent outdoors/in nature, coupled with living books instead of text books, and lots of high quality literature. Could it be any more perfect!? I'm sure I will tweak it a bit each year, but so far I've been really happy with it and I'm eager to do kindergarten with her next year! We are in the first year of "prep level" this year. There were one or two things I removed, but otherwise I'm following it pretty closely. Our day generally looks like: breakfast while I read a bible story, followed by any table work we are doing (writing, math, workbooks- which are NOT Charlotte Mason but my kid loves!, etc). Then we move out to the couch for reading time. Generally we do arts/crafts and one other thing in the afternoon; usually a hands on phonics or math game, and then we spend as much time outside as possible. I aim for about 2 hours a day... that'll increase when they can go outside without me, either because of their age or because we FINALLY build a fence ha! Sometimes they scooter and play with friends, and other times we go on nature walks, hikes, or make "soup" out of mulch, rocks, and berries. We have started nature journaling a tiny bit, but mostly I leave nature time pretty unstructured for now. I would say all in all, we spend 40 or so minutes a day doing "school" when you think of the more formal things, but of course Felicity is learning tons outside of that when she helps me clean, or cook, or just asks questions on her own. We normally do about 4 days a week with maybe a super quick thing to wrap up the week on the 5th day. Next year will go up to about an hour a day. One of the biggest perks for me has been doing art with her. She not only loves it, but I am enjoying it and learning so much, too! We've learned about a couple different artists now, and my favorite so far has been Kandinsky who created abstract art. There is a book "The Noisy Paint Box" that has SUCH a wonderful message for young kids, with his actual life experiences and quotes in it. I highly recommend checking it out! We are going to start some music study soon (and by study I mean painting or coloring while we listen to a composer and me mentioning his name :) ), and we are going to The Nutcracker next month... can't wait! So far homeschooling gets 2 thumbs up from all of us!