School Has Begun

As most of you probably know, we are (planning on) homeschooling the boys. The law in Virginia is that children start school the year that they are 5 by September 30. Caleb "missed" the cut-off last year, turning 5 in November. This was fine with me as it gave me a year to really figure out what to do for school, and for Joshua to get older. And since Caleb was already reading, he was learning plenty on his own without "school." We are planning (at least for the foreseeable future) to use the Sonlight Curriculum, which is literature-based. We love to read books aloud anyway, so this curriculum is a perfect fit for us. We are adding language arts, math, Bible and Science to the read-aloud history/geography books. I ordered the "Core" for 4/5 year olds last year and we read through it over the course of the year. This year we are using the Sonlight "K" level, which is for kids between about 5 and 7. Joshua is a little on the young side, so I am not pushing his participation (since he doesn't need to be schooled until next year), but he is usually around for most of what Caleb and I do together. I know he is absorbing things because frequently he yells out the answers to questions before Caleb does. :) I want him to participate as much as possible because the plan is to keep the older boys on the same core since they are so close in age.

Anyway, all this was to say that a few weeks ago we observed we were having more than usual behavior problems with Caleb and that it seemed that he was bored. Even though the state of Virginia doesn't require homeschoolers to have school for a specific number of days, we are going to aim for 180 since that is the number that most public schools do. I figured we might as well get started in June, instead of waiting until September. And so, yesterday was our 15th day of school. Caleb is really enjoying it. Once we get started each day, he keeps pushing to keep going. I am loving watching him learn and use his mind.

This picture is from the other day. I had to order a bunch of books to complete what we needed for Core K, and the remainder of the science books arrived last week. Since we had seen thousands of tadpoles in the pond near our beach townhouse last month, I suggested to Caleb that he might wish to read the book "Tadpoles and Frogs" (in which we learned that some mama frogs grow the babies in their tummies and then the frogs hop out! Sounds like a good idea to me. :) ). The below is what happened. Even the littlest ears got in on the listening. :) I love homeschooling! :)