Back in 2018, I made a video about the resources I was using to teach French to my two young daughters–then just 4 and 6 years old. Since then, I’ve adapted our approach quite a bit. We’ve kept some elements, done away with others, and added new resources as our goals and abilities have changed. Because I have been getting a lot of questions lately about what I’m using now, I thought it would be a good time for an updated post.
We’re just past the halfway mark in our homeschool year and it’s been far too long since my last blog post. I thought I would share how our year is going so far–the resources we are using, what’s working and what’s not, what we’ve set aside for the moment, and what our daily and weekly rhythm is looking like right now.
Until last year, I dreaded winter. Winter, to my gardening, barefoot self was a season of eternal inconveniences, discomfort, and grayness. After leaving Colorado, our winters spent in Hawaii went largely unnoticed, other than better waves and whale-watching. I didn’t skip a beat in our daily excursions, so our nature-based homeschool rhythm had a chance to really take root. When we came back, our first winters were an exercise in patience–and I didn’t enjoy them very much at all. I did, however, notice what a big dent that season left in our outdoor lifestyle. And I knew something had to change–specifically, my mindset about winter.
My youngest daughter is every bit the hands-on learner. She loves to dive into things, and explore and manipulate her environment with her body. She possesses a tenacious need to “do for herself,” rather than have things done for her (even if she has not been shown how yet.) And rare is the lesson when she is not dancing, bouncing, climbing, rolling, or balancing with one knee on her seat, the other leg flagged out beside her in counter-weight fashion.
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I usually share our curriculum choices in the fall, just after our school year has begun. But this time I thought I’d share them with you now, as I’m finalizing the vision I have for the year ahead. I usually make the majority of my curriculum decisions in the spring, then spend the summer gathering materials and designing the general structure of the homeschool year to come.
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My youngest is starting kindergarten this year and I’m so excited! Kindergarten is such a wonderful time, and I’m really looking forward spending it with her.
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I find it funny that the week I made a video about how we plan our homeschool was a week that all “plans” were put on hold. (You can watch that video by clicking here.) Both girls took turns being sick this week–Brice with a bad cold and Blake with an ear infection. So we ended up doing very little “homeschool” and a lot more soothing, sensory play.
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Homeschool planning used to stress me out so much. There is some quirk in my personality that makes it physically uncomfortable to cross things out, white-out over pen, and change something that’s been “officially recorded.” This did not combine well with the other half of my personality–the one that doesn’t like being told what to do and loves to dance the line between structure and freedom on a daily basis.