Contemplating Kindergarten

For the past few weeks my thoughts have been geared toward G-man's upcoming kindergarten year. We'll officially start in the fall, although I have been realizing that we've been doing kindergarten stuff for quite some time now. For future reference, I'm just going to list some of the goals I have and things I plan to do or use for our kindergarten year.

G-man has really been thriving on the unit studies of Five in a Row and http://www.homeschoolshare.com/ . The curriculum provides a great jumping off point for many subjects including social studies, geography, art, and some math. So I plan to continue with this into his kindergarten year. We'll also do some of our own unit studies. I plan to do units on frogs, each of the continents, and a quarterly musical composer unit. I'll also leave some flexibility in our schedule so that we can follow G-man's personal interests and make unit studies around those. Space is one subject I know we'll be learning about as he is very interested in all things space right now.

I plan to work weekly Bible verses into our units so that G-man can begin hiding the word of God in his heart. We'll also do daily children's devotionals and perhaps a Bible story of the week which I would work similarly to the Five in a Row curriculum. The repetition would help familiarize him with the stories.

For phonics, I will be using Bob Books and various other books and games including http://www.starfall.com/ and the phonics games on http://www.pbskids.org/ .

For math, I plan to use some of the Funtastic Frogs curriculum and maybe a bit of Math-U-See along with just everyday counting and number recognition games. My goals are to teach him to count to 100, count by 10s to 100, count by 5s to 100 and count by 2s to 20. I also want him to be able to tell time to the hour, recognize coins and understand their values, and be able to read a calendar.

We will continue to learn Spanish vocabulary through Boca Beth (possibly ordering another video from them) and My First 100 Words in Spanish.

For an introduction to history, I'm thinking of using History For Little Pilgrims.

For science, I'm planning to use the Let's Read and Find Out Science series. I also have a great book with tons of fun experiments in it called More Mudpies to Magnets: Science for Young Children.

We'll also be involved with the local homeschool group for social activities and field trips, we'll continue to enjoy storytime at the library, and we'll have regular playdates with Seth. I'm also thinking he'll be ready to start martial arts in the fall.

G-man's Dot to Dot

G-man made his own dot to dot the other day. I thought it was cute.

New Kitty

Yesterday we finally got a kitten! G-man was so excited! He loves his little kitty and wants to name her Kiki. We'll see. She was born on March 8th, so is 8 weeks old. She is a little snuggle love! She's definitely a lap kitty. When she can't find us, she cries. She is just so sweet, and G-man and I already love her. I'm not sure about Daddy yet. :-)

Only Child Stereotypes

I had my first two encounters with peoples' only child preconceptions yesterday and today. They both happened at the dentist's office. First, after I declined a second set of x-rays for the year for G-man, the dentist asked if he was an only child. After I told him that he was, he made some comment on how mommy is protective of her only child. So....what, people with more than one child don't care about them and just let the dentist do whatever he wants to them?

Then today, we went back to the dentist for my turn. G-man was talking to the hygienist and she asked him if he had any brothers or sisters. When he said that he didn't, she immediately asked if he was spoiled. And so it starts, I guess. Now I just have to keep up on my job and raise an only child who is not a spoiled brat.

Lincoln Log Quiet Time

G-man decided to build during quiet time today. After a few minutes he excitedly called, "Mommy, Look!" When I went to look, this is what I saw. A complete log cabin with deck, bench, and TV set. I was amazed as he has never built such a well-planned-out structure before. They are usually a lot more abstract. :-)

Homeschool Meetup Group

We've been to 2 homeschool meetups, and I'm really liking it. There are some really fun ladies there and lots of kids, several being right around G's age. Last week we went roller skating and had a lot of fun! G loved it! I am so pleased with his social growth just since we've been checking out homeschool playgroups. He used to be such a leg-hugger, but now he's running (or skating/tripping) up to people and saying hello and asking their names. It's so great to see him growing like this.

This was G's 3rd time skating, I think. The last time being about a year ago. At first he wanted to hold on to me, but when he figured out that I would not be towing him around the rink all day, he quickly let me go and declared, "I don't need you." His improvement was amazing! He started out slipping and tripping all over the place, falling every couple of steps, but by the end he was doing SO much better. It was fun to see his improvement over such a short time.

The Question of "Weirdness"

A few days ago I was asked a question pertaining to homeschooling: "Are you worried that your son will turn out weird?"

It got me thinking...I guess it depends on your definition of "weird". I suppose what the asker meant was, am I worried that my son will be a social outcast for life because of homeschooling, that he will always be a step behind in jokes, slang and slurs? I'm not exactly sure what other homeschooling stereotypes are out there that people are worried about and think that I should be worried about. Perhaps it is believed that people who homeschool actually stay home and keep their kids from the outside world altogether. In reality, we do more social extra-curricular activities even at this stage of the game than I ever did going through public school (where socializing is largely discouraged, or at least it was when I was growing up. Do children still get in trouble for talking in class?). These days there are so many great ways to get involved with the local homeschooling community (which is a rapidly growing group), it is a rare thing to find a family who keeps their children cooped up at home, not allowing any outside contact.

The more I think about it, though, the more I realize that yes, my son will be weird. I take "weird" to mean outside of the norm, strange, different, even extraordinary. There is no doubt that he will not be an ordinary child. Even now at the age of four, he is not ordinary but a bit weird. He's got a large vocabulary, can comfortably have a conversation with people of all ages, and is reading. As he gets older I EXPECT him to be weird, and I will be proud of him for it. In observing the ordinary children of today, I see disrespectful individuals who are hungry for attention. They hate school and ridicule anyone with a love for learning or who does well academically. They are bitter and resentful, and they embrace evil.

So, I am looking forward to seeing the "weird" man that my son will become outside of that influence. If being "weird" means that my son will love and seek after God, love and respect his parents, be compassionate, have a high self-esteem, be well-educated and able to think independently of the crowd, KNOW what is right and stand up for it, be able to carry on intelligent conversation, be able to relate to people of all ages (not just his own age group) and have sound reasoning skills, I say, I hope he's as weird as they come.