homeschooling preschool, part one.

It’s the beginning of summer so I wanted to write some sort of review of our year of 4K.  In some ways it’s been the eternal school year since we actually started back in May of 2012.  But in other ways I can hardly consider it a school year since we’ve been so off-again/on-again.  Or, as I like to say, “Our kids have been in the school of life this year.”

So having said all of that, and taking into account the kind of year we’ve had, I’ll give this post my best shot.

Many of you know of my extreme ambivalence toward the idea of homeschooling at all for many years, so the first question I want to answer is: Are you glad you decided to homeschool for 4K?

The answer to that is a hundred times yes.  We had a major life transition last summer, which if you’re new to the blog you can read about here.  But we definitely could’ve chosen to put Judah into preschool once we returned to the States last summer.  Although now that I think about it, that would never have worked with all the traveling we’ve done.

Okay, maybe we really didn’t have an actual choice about preschool this year, but even though that is the case I am very, very happy I had Judah home with me.  I’d never trade it.  We’ve been through a lot.  I know it’s not a lot compared to many families, but as a new friend pointed out to us the other night, “I mean, you guys have had just one transition after another for years now!”

Yes that’s true.  And so with all of our life in transition, I’m so thankful that a constant could be me at home with my kids.  Even if “home” looked like a lot of different places.  And I’m thankful that when David needed to travel we were all free to go with him.

I’ve loved being with my kids all day.  Don’t get me wrong, there are hard days.  Days I want to pull my hair out.  Days I just need some space.  But — and maybe this is because I was sick for many months and couldn’t care for my family like I wanted to — the overriding feeling of having both my kids home with me has been one of gratitude.  It’s been a gift.

So yes! I’m thrilled we didn’t send Judah back to South Asian preschool last spring, and I’m thrilled we didn’t send him to an American one this fall.

Second question: What did you think about Sonlight?

We chose the Sonlight curriculum based on recommendations from friends, based on the fact that they center their curriculum around classic books, and based on they fact that they ship to South Asia.

I’d say as a whole we really liked it.  I think we would have appreciated it even more had we stayed in South Asia for the entire school year like we planned.  In such a big city overseas, my friends and I struggled finding regular activities and stimulation for our kids like what’s available here in the U.S. (public libraries, the zoo, multiple parks, etc), and so I felt compelled to get a curriculum.

However, once we got back home I didn’t feel like we needed an actual 4K curriculum.  There are so many resources here at home, so many different friends and outings and stores with craft supplies.  And we were traveling almost monthly.  So the kids had plenty to do and an actual preschool schedule just didn’t seem necessary for them.

We ended up not following the daily schedule (which ironically enough was one of my main attractions to the curriculum).  My kids are big readers anyway (neither of them read on their own yet, but they love reading aloud), so they didn’t love the schedule which just gave them excerpts from several books.  I found it worked better for us to read a larger amount out of one or two books at a time.  We really enjoyed the selection of books and supplemented with our own weekly trips to the library.

Judah was not a fan of the workbooks, but I wasn’t very consistent in making him complete them.

One thing that stood out to me is Sonlight’s international focus.  I appreciated that they included stories from different countries and cultures, which was not something I found in some of the other curriculums I researched.

Here’s something else I like about Sonlight: they offer a fantastic member forum community where you can ask questions, learn from others, and even learn tips related to your child’s school year.  This was a huge encouragement to me in South Asia, helped me feel inspired and connected and like I was personally learning about teaching my children.

I will say I was very intimidated by the “homeschooling community” at large, and reading the Sonlight forums totally put my mind at ease.  There was a very sweet spirit of sharing ideas and being non-judgmental which made me feel like, Hey, I could be friends with these people.

So that was our year.  In part two of this post I’ll share what I’ve learned about doing preschool at home, and soon I’ll share our plan for kindergarten.