I'm going back to school

Kindergarten, that is.

Brent and I have decided that we're going to homeschool A when he comes back to us. Absolutely at first, but probably all the way up until high school. After that we're undecided, but it's a long time before that anyway.

At first I was all for a very relaxed unschooling approach, but after seeing how much A thrived with structure and a routine, I thought that the freedom of unschooling might be too much for him.

So I began to look into other methods and really like Charlotte Mason's methods. It involves a lot of reading novels and stories instead of textbooks. For example, if you are learning about electricity, you could read the biography of Ben Franklin and learn so many other things about history and science - instead of just learning the key tied to a kite during a thunderstorm story. Copywork for penmanship and memorization. Narration instead of tests ("Tell me everything you know about electricity"). Learning math concepts instead of memorizing facts. Nature walks and drawn maps and leaf collections and sketchbooks.

Of course we're not going to start by reading Shakespeare. We're going to start by learning English. But I really feel like this method facilitates that because it involves so much reading and talking - especially at the early years.

I think this seems like a really well rounded method. And, it interests me also, whereas all the cirriculum I looked at seemed boring and something I wouldn't really want to teach. So I feel like I'm going back to school too. And I'm excited. :)