Katie's enrolled in a local kindergarten (Americans would call it pre-school, except that the last year of it, for 5-6 year olds is what we call kindergarten in the States, since Chinese primary schools begin with 1st grade). She spends the mornings there, comes home for lunch, and then during Caro's naptime we do some basic homeschooling. I had many friends tell me that kindergarten does not need to be an intense time of homeschooling, and I've taken that very seriously! I sometimes wonder if we're doing "enough" but then I have to remind myself that my child is in a full-blown second language immersion program half the day and doesn't need to be Tiger-mommed. We start off with a sentence or part of a sentence of copywork, typically from whatever passage of Scripture we are memorizing (this fall it's been Psalm 103). We then do a page or two out of Phonics Pathways, a lesson from Rod & Staff's Grade 1 curriculum. Depending on her attitude, that can take as little as 30 minutes or over an hour.
The best part by far though is what happens next and has always been one of my favorite parts of the day...read-aloud time with Katie. Ever since Katie stopped napping (which was at age 2.5!), I've tried to turn our afternoons into quiet rest time. Before Caroline came on the scene, Katie would spend an hour or so alone in her room, playing quietly while listening to an audiobook. This time did not come easily at first, but eventually she got used to it and it became a sorely missed time of day if she ever had to go without it! Once Caroline arrived and her afternoon nap became somewhat normal, the first hour of Caro's nap was Katie's room time, the second hour for a little phonics work followed by read-aloud time. Perhaps groomed by listening to audiobooks, Katie could've sat and listened to me read for hours. I loved this time alone with her (plus I loved reading all the Little House books and Boxcar Children books and Narnia books just as much as she did!)
For some reason since coming to China, Katie has never gotten over jetlag and continues to rise as early as 5:45am on some days but usually around 6:30am or so. Since I am not prepared to converse with anyone until 7am, she usually comes out and sits on the sofa next to me and listens to an audiobook while I finish my quiet time. I didn't know what I was going to do at first without the public library's awesome selection of audiobooks for kids, until I discovered Librivox.org. So far, Katie has listened to Peter Pan and Pollyanna. We also bought the mp3s for Susan Wise Bauer's Story of the World, Book 1 which she has loved.
Besides listening to these books, the "official" books we have read this fall as part of homeschooling are:
- Swiss Family Robinson- this book was a long one and a little too wordy for her age, but she was able to keep up amazingly well plus learn some good vocab along the way (and I did as well, I should add). This book provides great fodder for a unit study--we dabbled in pursuing some of these tangents, like keeping a list of all the animals mentioned and trying to figure out if the island where they were could be an actual place. Narration ala Charlotte Mason was really helpful in making sure that Katie was tracking with what was going on.
- Betsy-Tacy- this books is so, so sweet and wonderful. I discovered it on Ann Voskamp's book list. Once we read it, I couldn't believe I can't wait to check out the rest of the series.
- Black Beauty- I had never read this before and realized a little too late that it was probably mostly over Katie's head, but we pressed through and she amazingly was able to retell the basic storyline each day and hopefully has picked up
- The Magician's Nephew- this was so fun to read with her...she was SO into learning how things in Narnia began and about jumped out of her skin when we got to the bit about the lamppost. She's now listened to all the books in the Narnia series except for The Last Battle (which I'm saving to let her read on her own when she's old enough).
- The Wind in the Willows- why didn't anyone ever tell me what a wonderful book this is? I am in love! I got the idea to read it from a novel I discovered, The Pilgrim's Inn by Elizabeth Goudge.
- Little Men
- The Secret Garden
- A Little Princess
- The Little White Horse
- Stories from Grandma's Attic and More Stories from Grandma's Attic
- Elsie Dinsmore
1 comment:
I loved the Grandma's Attic series growing up -- such fun! Your book selections sound delightful! I so enjoy reading your blog, Mary. :-)
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