Starting Yesterday

We started school officially yesterday. I have a general outline by week for what it to come the next  29 school weeks with one week off for Christmas and other various holidays. This means we will end the last week of May, the week before Jer will move out of children's church and be ready to sit and pay attention through the sermon.

Weekly we will be studying through history as follows:

1 - God & The Universe
2 - Creation (overview/review) and God's plan for Humanity (Jesus)
3 - Angels & Stars
4 - Earth & Plants
5 - Humans & Animals
6 - The Flood & Family & Government
7 - Tower of Babel & Language / Math / Writing
8 - Review God's plan, Jesus, right before Christmas. Half Week.
9 - Abraham & God's chosen people Israel
10 - Egypt
11 - Assyria & Babylon
12 - Persia
13 - Greece
14 - Rome
15 - Early Church
16 - 1000
17 - 1200's
18 - 1300's
19 - 1400's
20 - 1500's
21 - 1600's
22 - 1700's
23 - 1800's
24 - 1900's
25 - 2000's
26 - Church ages (Rev 1-3) & Current events, Family Tree, Ohio local history
27 - contd' (Rev 4 - 19)
28 - cont'd (Rev 20-22 & Ez. 40-48)
29 - Our Church vision, body and history

Whew! That will be our whirlwind tour. Of course the beauty of homeschooling and that Jer is  above his age is that we can take as much time we like. In addition we will be studying Spelling Level 1
Math
Handwriting - sandpaper letters in D'Nealian and moveable alphabet
Science and Music to correlate with each week's subject.

Elementary Education Take 1

I have only known about Montessori for about 10 months. I can't believe it has only been that long.

After picking up the book by Meg McElwee, Sew Liberated, at the library I started following her blog (on the back cover) by the same name sew liberated  (although I have not started sewing more, sadly). This woman introduced me to a teaching philosophy that I had never heard of (big surprise, I am no education guru) but sounded wonderful. An idea that using beautiful tools to learn in seamless, real way, making connections between hands and brain, understanding from the big picture, a strong base to build knowledge on.  This I thought, as I began to read more about Maria Montessori and her research with young children, is the way God made us to learn! I was stoked, and the more I read the more I liked about the composure, discipline and self-sufficiency of learning the students acquired with this wonderful approach.

So today I started 'first grade' with my almost 6 year old using primarily Montessori tools and ideals. But far as I can find, I am doing a lot different. Being a Christian and believing in a 7 day creation of the universe and everything in it, I can't use the Key Lessons that Montessori has formed most of the curriculum around. They are based on the theory of evolution which I am not going to base all of history on, given the freedom I have in homeschooling my children. {Montessori does have bible story lessons but they are not the focus on the curriculum} So here I am, 'newly' homeschooling my child and writing the lessons in a Montessori style (big picture history-based) but through the bible's lens. We are also doing something else different, since I don't know how long we will be using this method ( I also like Classical and Charlotte Mason) we will be learning a general overview of all of history. Hopefully since Jer is 'ahead' we will have this year to experiment with a great way to learn and have a strong base of history to continue building knowledge.

I appreciate the many other bloggers out there who I have gleaned tons of great help from and I am directed to share this journey with anyone who wants to join. Questions, comments and fellow encouragement are very welcome!

P.S. I do not claim to be a writer. Please forgive my grammar and clarity.