Mum School

So, my 5yoS is a Fall Baby, and missed the deadline for Kindergarten this year. I'm sort of okay with that though. I'm not exactly a mainstream person, and I'm still trying to figure out if I'm going to go the public school route, or give homeschooling a try.

This year is a nice buffer year where I can play like I'm homeschooling, without actually having to stress about formal lessons yet. If it doesn't work out, I can send him to Kindergarten next Fall, no worse for wear.

He's a bright kid, and he enjoys learning. So yesterday I decided to pick up a copy of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons because he's been showing more interest in reading. I figured we'd give it a try.

First though, we made a reading chart to put stickers on when he completes his lessons. I made the grid and told him I wanted him to fill it out, starting with numbers 1-10. When he came back with the first line, I asked him what came next, and we listed off numbers 11-20. We went through the cycle until it was filled out. By the time he hit the 30s, he started recognizing the pattern and felt more confidant about being able to write his numbers through 100.

This is the finished product.

Now, I know his penmanship could use a little help (particularly with 6s and 9s), but considering I've never formally done any handwriting practice with him, I'm pretty impressed. He's also never attended pre-school, so everything you see here is more or less intrinsically motivated. He wanted to know how to write his numbers, and I showed him. He wanted to know how to count, and we've practiced out loud whenever he's brought it up.

Anyway, he was pretty excited to figure out that the columns all had the same last number and the rows all had the same first number. It was a cool discovery for the day.

I had him write "Reading Chart" at the top, and we hung it in our living room so we can be reminded to work on it every day. We even did Lesson 1 today, and he's begging to do Lesson 2.

All in all, an exciting day academically. I hope we can be consistent and make some real progress over the next 99 lessons!