Sir Sam William the Conqueror 2008

This is what I have planned for Sam's kindergarten year:

Oak Meadow First Grade

Right now I'm planning on using a prepackaged curriculum for Sam. What does that mean, you ask? Well, it means that I get everything in one big box and it tells me what to use when.

For example, it will tell me "on week one, day one, do this math, this reading, this..." The Oak Meadow program covers all of the subjects, so there is very little prep for me. I like that. I do enough prep for a couple of homeschooling families, so I'll be happy to have it taken out of my hands for this.

One of the other cool things about OM is that it's Waldorf-inspired. The company used to say it followed Waldorf teachings, but it doesn't, but it's still flavored with that thinking. Again, you are asking "what in the world does Waldorf mean, isn't that just a big salad?" Well, yes, it is a salad, but I'm not planning to eat Sam's work for the year. It's an idea that everything should be natural and happy and flowy. In Waldorf schools they don't begin teaching reading until 2nd grade, so obviously we aren't Waldorf in that sense, but I like many other things they do. They teach with stories and Sam loves stories. So math is about gnomes who do things like add sticks and rocks. When you learn the alphabet you learn that the shape of the letter is something that looks like it. For instance, a 'g' looks like a goose ducking in the water.

There is also a huge emphasis on the arts. So Sam will be drawing and painting and finger knitting. This is all stuff he loves and he would do anyway, so I'm kind of directing it toward lessons. He's also going to learn the recorder and the piano (if we can ever find a keyboard; don't ask). Those are things Harry's going to learn too.

Since he is already reading, I need to work on that separately, but that's pretty easy. I have about a thousand booklists already, so I'll pick and choose from that.

Sam will still have speech twice a week, but he'll have to get used to another teacher. That's something I'm not looking forward to. But he's growing and I think he can make the transition. It might not be completely painless, but it should be at least bloodless.

So that's the plan. I've already told the school what I want, and they're pretty okay with it all. Now I just have to wait and wait to get the books. That's the hard part!