When you're 9 months pregnant and baby could arrive anytime, thereby changing life as you know it, that's pretty much all you can think about.
Physically I am constantly reminded that I'm very pregnant and baby is just about ready. Mentally it's a continuous stream of thought that centers around the impending arrival . . . . my last bits of time with two children, the end of our family & life as it's been, a new season, a newborn to take care of, my most recent shower and what I'm wearing, things that need to be gathered or packed, where my husband's at, where my mom's at, and on and on. It's such a strange bit of time to be waiting in . . . . everything is just waiting and on the precipice of total change but exactly when it's all going to happen remains a mystery. Yet I want to be ready when it comes.
When my thoughts are able to break free from baby they have focused on kindergarten options for my amazing firstborn. There's the option of homeschooling through a charter that offers fairly local classes once a week. Then there's the option of homeschooling through the charter I used to work for and know well. This week, for the first time, I looked briefly at the option of homeschooling totally independently. In our state, parents who want to homeschool on their own have two legal options.
1) They declare themselves a private school. They file an affidavit to do so annually and keep some records.
2) They have their children instructed by a teacher who holds a valid state credential for the grade taught. This is called the Private Tutoring Exemption and does not require any filing or record keeping. Hmmmm...... very interesting.
In daily practice, none of the above four options would look that different from the others. I will be homeschooling. I'm thinking a lot about Charlotte Mason and perusing dusty books on my bookshelves while gathering random materials. The four options do not dictate practice and method but remain a significant decision for my husband and I to make in the near future. Baby thoughts are center stage and the legal paths to homeschooling as well as other possibilities inherent in the various choices are mulling around in the background.
Gymnastics
Our bodies. Flight: history & simple science of.
Types of birds
Crafts
Creating his own stories & books (& reading them to the dog), order & sequence
Calendars; reading calendar & year, months, days
Steam engines
Cotton & how crops are grown, harvested, transported, & ultimately used by consumer. We saw cotton growing in the fields before seeing this truck.
Rocks, minerals, gold.
Gymnastics
Painting & mixing colors
Cutting, fine motor skills
Counting down! Sense of time
Puppy! Puppy care, baby preparation - babies & learning & expectations: babies put things in their mouth, have a lot to learn, etc.
Building, measuring, painting, tools, basic construction, how walls are made, structure, electricity
Reading!
