All Our Needs Are Special: School

I think this is officially my first homeschooling post.

Homeschooling is something that has long interested me. I read back on old posts like this one, and I can see how my thinking has evolved since then, especially on the topic of socialization. Alas, that's another post. I still wish I could keep Abby home with us, and teach her myself. However, her challenges are great and I need the school resources to address them.

When I met my first homeschooler, the big girls were very young. Rachael was maybe a few months old at the time. I was intrigued, but it wasn't something I had seriously considered up to that point. I filed it away in the back of my mind, never really thinking that I would pursue it.

But then something magical happened. Abby started kindergarten.

Abby's first day of kindergarten

I seems like an almost terrible thing to say, but our family is almost... normal... when she's away at school. Suddenly, once she started all-day-every-day kindergarten, possibilities started opening up.

Homeschooling my other children suddenly became an option. And I suddenly found I wanted those precious hours of normalcy with my other children when Abby was away.

I wanted them home.

From Easter. Everyone home.

Rachael went to nursery school that year Abby was in kinder, and then I never re-registered her for the second year. I didn't register her for kinder either. Technically, I didn't have to register her for anything, public school or homeschool, until this year, but I registered her for homeschooling last year, grade 1. "Register" isn't even the correct term - here we just have to notify the Department of Education of our intent to homeschool, and fill out two progress reports per school year.

Easy-peasy.

So now, as Abby heads into grade 4 (!) at our local public school, in her very awesome Life Skills program, Rachael is heading into grade 2. Joseph is, theoretically, doing pre-K, although I'm not sure how much he's going to sit for bookwork. I've decided to have him "do science" with Rachael, as I think he would like the topics we're covering, and the rest... well, he's got lots of time. Reading and math will wait until he's ready.

Cause we're coving stuff like simple machines. He'll love it.

We're using CHC this year, with a bit of infilling mostly from Catholic Mosaic and trying to embrace some project-based stuff. We've been using a mix of different things over the past few years, trying out Mater Amabilis and Seton. I love the idea of a Charlotte Mason-style curriculum, but with MA I had to do too much of the planning. Seton was just too intense.

CHC seems to be a happy medium. Rachael doesn't have the patience to kill-and-drill, and I would rather find myself in a position where I have to seek out extra work instead of feeling obligated to finish the whole. darn. book. That's stress I don't need.

So this year is going to look something like this: