This week has officially been our first week of homeschooling ever! I did not want to post right away until we had had a few days of it and I got a better picture of how things are going. Well, things are going GREAT! I am so excited and feeling so grateful to God that with His help things are going smoothly so far. I'm also feeling more connected with my kids and just happier overall. I know to some moms this might all sound crazy, ("how could you feel happier when you're not seeing your kids off to school and getting a little break??") but this is just working for us right now.
On Monday, I was honestly not prepared to begin. The weekend had had all 3 kids coughing and sneezing and myself, too, plus our son had a headache and a fever for two nights in a row (he would wake up feeling great each morning, though, until the next bedtime). So I figured we would use Monday to recover and start Tuesday. But come Monday morning, my hubby told me that I should start that day, (kind of like "if you keep putting this off, you'll never start!), and so I obliged. The kids LOVED it. And thankfully, since with Sonlight, the lessons are all planned for you, I really had no prep work to do other than finding the right pages in each of the books for that day.
Here is how our days have been going each morning.
6:30 AM - I wake up and have coffee and try to get a quiet and calm start to my day while everyone else is asleep (some days I am joined by the little one but she just does her own thing)
Somewhere between 6:30 and 7:45, everyone else wakes up. My husband comes down and gets a coffee, and we sit down on the couch. I read the Prologue to Ochrid for the day out loud. I don't make the kids listen but I hope that with time they'll just get used to it and listen along. After the Prologue, I read the daily Bible readings aloud.
8:00 AM - I try to have breakfast made BY 8 so that we have ample time to eat and prepare for the day. I typically don't let the kids eat in their pajamas but prefer they are dressed for the day. They get dressed on their own upstairs, other than the little one. After breakfast, I prepare for the day upstairs and get dressed, and my husband usually does the dishes during this time (that was his own initiative, not a request on my behalf. But I'm not complaining!) We do morning prayers as a family once my husband and I are ready.
9:00 AM - As close to 9 as possible, we start our school day. At this time, the kids and I hold hands and sing a Russian song about going to school as we walk into our school room (aka the formal living room where I have made a school corner). I open the double doors of that room and lay out all our materials for the day from my shelf, while the kids sit down on the couch. Once we have finished the song and everything is prepared, we stand up and sing a prayer before our studies.
The Sonlight curriculum does not take much longer than 45 minutes to an hour each day (for pre-school). I love that! I usually add in a few of my own things here and there, and at the end of the school "day" I let them color while listening to music. Yesterday was particularly fun! We read a story that was based in Japan, and looked at Japan on the map afterwards. Then, during their coloring time, I turned on Japanese music instead of regular classical music, to keep things interesting. They loved it!
We are just having so much fun together with school so far. I hope and pray that things continue going this way! One of the things I was most concerned about before we began, was that the kids would stop speaking Russian to me at all once they realized I CAN speak English to them, sometimes. Well, this has not been the case at all. They just click that as soon as school starts, we speak English, and then afterwards we go back to Russian. My son actually starts saying "Ok Mom, we are ready!" as soon as he enters the "school room." They take the school space very seriously (and I giggle inside at that). Yesterday I suggested coloring at the kitchen table instead, because it's more spacious, and he very seriously said, "no, right here is perfect" and sat down at the junior table in the school room.
Thank God for everything!!
BTW: Another thing I have been trying to do is pray to St. Sergius of Radonezh and St. John of Kronstadt each morning before school, because they are two patron saints of education. They helped me so much when I would struggle in college! I am certain they are helping with things going well so far.
