Yesterday I started preschool with Bella. It was beyond adorable how excited she was. Kinda like this:

Thanks to the amazing Alex at Alexandra Wrote for putting this animation together for me!

I was actually a bit nervous. I know for these first few months, things will be all over the place. Routines will take time, it will feel awkward. Today I had a small panic attack thinking, “What the heck am I doing? Can I really educate my own child?” Then I remembered that same feeling when I taught school, and how by December our days were down pat.

So I jumped in and we started after she woke up from nap and had a snack. First was a story together. The love of reading is so, so important to me – I want her to adore books as much as I did growing up. And still do.

Then we did painting. We talked about the colors and how to wash the brush. Eventually they all ended up mixed anyway.

After we cleaned up that, we did music. I have several CD’s with all the songs we grew up with – from Pop Goes the Weasel to If You’re Happy and You Know It, which was the one we did. 3 times. I ended up putting Charlie in his kennel because “If you’re happy and you know it jump for joy!” caused him to spaz out about attacking our toes.

Saturday night I started reading up again on a curriculum I’ve been interested in for a while. Before Five in a Row. I love that it’s so literacy based, geared to ages 2-4, and has a Christian base but not the “TURN OR BURN KIDS” method that so many other curriculums have.

I ended up ordering it to add more structure to the Montessori activities we’ll do.

So many of you expressed an interest in doing this. Let me encourage you as best I can, while still knowing the uncertain feeling of it all, that you can do this if it’s your desire to. The lovely thing about homeschooling is that it’s so flexible – especially with young children. I decided afternoon mostly worked better for us. We only do about 45 minutes (for now) of structured activity. I have shelves just for her things that we only use for school.

You can start now, you can start next month, you can start at the first part of next year. You don’t have to have been a teacher or worked with young children – there are many programs out there that make homeschooling much easier for all of us. We have an extra living room in our home that we turned into a playroom, but you can do school at the kitchen table, buy a table and chair set for their room, use an open attic. The possibilities are endless and unlimited.

Homeschooling doesn’t have to be forever. You could do it just for preschool, or kindergarten, or try it for a semester in school. My mom homeschooled my little brother and sister for one year – she was in middle and he was in elementary.

Tomorrow I’ll post some of the books I love for homeschooling, most you should be able to pick up at the library. Then once a week or so I’ll post an activity we’ve done together, and if I get enough interest in that we might do a link up so others can share and we can add to all our own!

I’m so excited to do this and hope so many more of you will join me. It would be amazing to form a community of parents on here that start homeschooling at an early age and support each other.

Tags: homeschool ideas, homeschooling, preschool