A New Year!

One Mountain, Many Paths

We have certainly tried a few paths already. I started my oldest with a Montessori method for pre-school, and that was followed by a Kindergarten/first grade combination using the classical education model.

He was having problems relating to his younger brother, and it seemed that my method wasn't addressing his whole self. I switched to a Waldorf-inspired curriculum, Enki. The woman who has compiled it recommended that I start him back at the Kindergarten level. We stuck with that for a year and a half, but we ended up doing unschooling. After a few months, I decided I (and my son) needed a whole lot more structure, so we dug out the classical first grade curriculum and are wrapping it up now.

His issues with his brother are resolved to the point where they are at least manageable, and normal sibling stuff. Also, in the meantime, my second son taught himself to read. I have tested them using a few companies' tests, and they have placed into the third and first grade respectively for this fall. For their ages they should be in the second grade and Kindergarten. In order to compensate for the skipped year (if there is any pressure), I have extended out our calendar so that we'll go longer than June.

I am also starting my daughter (almost 4) on preschool/Kindergarten material. In order not to go completely out of my mind, or just stop doing it altogether, I bought a packaged curriculum (Calvert) to cover some of the basics. We're still going to do History and Literature according to the classical schedule of grades. Also, I've recently learned about a math curriculum (Miquon) for grades 1-3 that teaches by letting them discover the concepts, rather than by explaining everything and hoping they keep up. Foreign languages (French & Latin), music and art we are also going to do outside the Calvert curriculum, but I think that their scheduling and scripting will help me out a lot.

I already have our weeks mapped out, and I am very excited to start. The kids keep bringing things up, and I keep thinking, "just wait, we're going to be studying that in a month!"