Oh, how I love this beautiful girl...
Well, folks, plans have definitely progressed forward since my last update. We've sold our home and are now just cleaning it and getting it ready for closing. We've also made it past unimaginable hurdles to finally wade our way through the process of immigrating to another country. It's really something that is both incredibly excited, but also very challenging! There's paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork. There are passports, visa applications, paperwork to compile *for* the visa applications and passports, and then of course going through your belongings to decide what to ship with you and what to get rid of.
I did speak about this on several past blog posts. It really cannot be understated, so I apologize if it is becoming redundant....
The pic above is of my oldest, who has chosen to stay behind and go to college for a couple of years. She is at least willing to consider the possibility of moving at that point, and we'll be flying her down to see us at Christmas and during her summer breaks from college. I am going to miss her like crazy...by far the hardest part about this entire move.
Anyway, we have jumped through all of the hoops and are now staring down the barrel of a 29-ish hour trip from point A to point B with 2 small children, one of whom is autistic. Please send positive vibes for that! I am staying positive, naturally. We've dabbled with some essential oils and other methods to try to help ease the passage. At the end of the day, however, I think it will just be a matter of just moving through it and honoring whatever comes up for all of us. Our little one may surprise us and settle in nicely!
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Homeschooling has necessarily taken on a more child-led look, as I've simply been far too busy for too many structured lessons. We did just begin Math U See (gamma), and I have to say that DS8 is taking really well to it so far! He enjoyed the video lesson, and he *really* enjoyed the physical manipulation of the blocks that really helped him visualize math in a new way. One thing I like about it is that you have 6 practice pages per lesson (there are 30 lessons, presumably for 30 weeks, along with exams that would stretch the whole book out to the full 180 days or whatever a family wanted), but you can choose to do as many as you want until you feel you've mastered it. You could sit and do all 6 in one day, and then take the rest of the week off before taking an exam, or you could just do 1 or 2, take an exam, and then take the next week or so off and not be behind at all! You could blast through all 30 lessons and exams in a couple of months, if you were so inclined, and then "be done with math" for the rest of the year.
It would be totally up to you! I think we'll likely do at least 2-3 of the practice pages before we attempt an exam...perhaps doing the exam under a clear pouch with dry erase marker, and then if the score is a bit iffy, going back and doing more of the practice pages, maybe even watching the instructional video for that lesson again as well.
You could also decide that, since (for example) this particular level (gamma) is focused on multiplication, which is a skill that is worked on in both 3rd and 4th grade (and beyond), that you could really take your time with it, and just do 1 or 2 pages a week, taking the lesson exam at the end of the 3rd week, which means you'd likely cover approximately 12-13 of the 30 lessons by the end of the year, saving the rest for the following year. Some people have said they like this approach, because their children are not fond of math, and so picking 1 or 2 days to do *structured* math is about all they can manage, and the rest of the week the children might play board games, video games, etc to get more math into their week.
Personally, I'm hoping to go at a somewhat accelerated pace, so that we can be "done with math" for the year as early as possible. As many of you know, math is something we use all the time in just every day life in this home, so really this is a formality that allows us to keep up with a scope-and-sequence of his same-age peers. I know that is not as important to everyone, and of course some subjects and some children are at different levels and that's totally cool.
DD6, on the other hand, will be slowly doing more structured activities, but still in short bursts. Her attention span is only about 15 minutes at a time, so whatever activity we do, it needs to be done in short bursts. I'll have a language arts activity and a math activity for her a couple of days a week, each one approximately 10-15 minutes long. Science will comprise of nature discoveries, watching science videos, and playing science games (turtle diary is great for this!). History will continue to be Story of the World on audiobook, for both children. They both enjoy listening to it in the car. DS8 will have more activities to go with each chapter, where DS6 may not, depending. Activities for her will likely be more the type where we try to locate the country on a map. She gets frustrated easily by such activities, so they need to be saved for when she's calm and attentive.
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We'll still be using the Waldorf format of a main lesson book, but we'll wait until we're settled in before we decide what exactly will go in it. It might become a nature journal, or perhaps also include copy work on the Old Testament.
Third grade is when students learn the Old Testament stories, which we prefer to present as a sort of extention of the myths and legends genre. There are specific reasons for why the OT is taught in 3rd grade based on the specific stage of growth the child is in at that age...and it is not meant to be a spreading-of-doctrine activity.
For those who interpret the biblical stories literally, of course this works well for them, and for those who do not, it can be taught as metaphor, allegory, etc. It is often the story-telling aspect, and some of the human characteristics met in the OT stories, that (according to Waldorf education) prepares children to begin thinking about other peoples and other cultures as a prelude to learning actual history, which begins in year 4.
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Because we'll be in another country, I'm not making any specific plans for art or fine arts just yet. I'm waiting to see what is offered through the local homeschool group when we get there. It is, by all accounts, an active homeschool group that does a lot of fun things as a group. For the first several weeks/months, we'll of course be acclimating to our new environment, and so we'll be aiming to get homeschooling "out of the way" first thing in the morning to save the rest of the day for fun.
I want our lives to be chock full of fun. We've been far too isolated where we are now, and I can't wait to be in a place where people are so excited about our impending arrival, where people are so accepting and laid back. It will be a nice change to have genuine and sincere people around us.
Our entire world is about to be flipped on its head (literally!). I'll be planning to take you all along for the ride as often as possible.
Until then, happy beginning of summer!
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