changing it up

I've been reading so much about how other people homeschool and it's been incredibly interesting. Because of my job, it's so easy for me to fall into teaching Esme in the most traditional ways. But she's not in school and I want to make her education as flexible as possible and open to many different kinds of learning as possible. So we're switching some things up a bit.

The most successful homeschoolers I've read about let their children take the lead. We'll still do our daily lesson plans, but we're trying to move in a direction that is more child-led. I'm developing several learning centers and she'll have more opportunities to work in them, and choose what she works on. We're going to continue to focus on themes of her choice and let her have choices within the themes too.

Another change is we're going to be moving into some pretty intense phonics. For a while we've felt that Esme is right on the cusp of reading on her own. But in our lessons we've focused on a lot of literary elements and a few sights words, with only a little bit of phonics thrown in. Another homeschooler recommended a phonics curriculum to us and we're starting to use it this week. It's called The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. All three of us are excited about Esme really reading on her own. We'll continue the literary elements parts because we love them so much, and of course they help her comprehension as well.

The last change is that all of a sudden Esme is BUSY! She is officially a Girl Scout and is attending regular meetings, we've started meeting weekly with other homeschoolers, she has Sunday School, and in a few short weeks she'll be starting soccer. We've joined a local homeschooling group that has all kinds of activities, and we're starting to take part in those too.

We are a busy, happy, learning family! It's hard to express what an incredible experience this has been for us, even in this short time!

P.S. Book of the week is ABC Weather.