The Proof is in the......Planning?

I have a secret, do you want to know what it is?.....OK here goes.... I LOVE planning! There, it's out, I said it.
Sorry, are you disappointed? Not what you were expecting?
Well I do it's true. It think it's somethimg about the excitement of seeing something developed from idea to reality. From vision to a tangible outcome. So I guess I'm quite well suited to Home Education because I spend a good deal of my time planning and preparing. If you've found a way not to. Don't tell me. Heehee
Having decided to base our homeschooling around monthly themes, I promptly began planning. I started by deciding which subjects I was going to focus on. For us that meant core subjects of;
                          1) Literacy.      2) Numeracy.     3) Islamic Studies.    
I had originally included History & Geography on this list, but I quickly realised that for us a better fit is something I'm calling "Cultural Studies". More on that later. Alongside the 3 core subjects there's;
                         4) Science.       5) Project Work.    6) Arts & Crafts.
As Bambina is only 5, the content of each subject is a mixture of Reception (K5) and Year 1 (Grade 1). This has suited us due to the fact that in terms of Numeracy we had to back track quite a bit, but in Literacy and most of her other subjects she has been doing Year 1 work for a while. We use a combination of manipulatives, worksheets, the odd workbook and oodles of arts & crafts. We used workbooks more in the first month or so but we have realised that Bambina is a Visual/Kinesthetic learner so we introduce concepts via manipulatives, games, youtube, discussion, books, DVDs, art etc and we concretise learning using worksheets/workbooks. I use the National Curriculum to inform but not dictate what we are learning about.
Finally there are several extra curricula activities including; Arabic & Quran class, Rainbows ( aka GirlGuides) and Gymnastics. She will also be attending a Home Education Supplementary class one morning a week.
I can hear the gasps from here! Yes it seems alot when written down, but trust me in the five months we've been homeschooling there are still times when we have completed everything and have to think of something extra to do. So far this works for us. I try to stay flexible and constantly review/assess as we go along.
One of my greatest tools in terms of planning is an Android App called My Class Schedule by Sebastian Meyer. It's a free app and I use it every day. Although I pay no attention to the times down the side, it gives me a great colour coded visual of what we need to accomplish each day and where we need to go. I've tried to include a screenshot of the app to give an idea of layout. Alongside this I have a planning book which I've divided into themes. In each theme I have divided it further into subjects and that's where I make all my planning notes covering what I want to accomplish each month in each subject.
In my excitement I turned out the planning for four months worth of themed work before she'd even finished at the primary school! Heehee, I am nothing if not eager. So there I was with my daily timetable and colour coded theme folders, did it go exactly as I'd planned? Did it heck as like. First of all we went abroad for 4 weeks and ended up staying 3 months! As I hadn't brought all my carefully planned work with me, those same fantastically planned out, colour coded themed units in their pretty plastic folders are still where I put them in my draw. Aaah well, we will use them at some point.
We are still doing themes each month, we just haven't done the ones I so diligently planned yet! Sometimes we do "mini-units" which last a week, we might do this before starting a monthly topic or during times like Ramadan when our family's schedule is turned upside down. Which is now by the way. See my post on Ramadan.
These are based on the concept of "Delight-led Learning". This is just a cutesy way of saying we do what Bambina wants. How I interpret this for our homeschool may be quite different from others. I laminated a sheet called "Things I Want To Learn About" (sorry I can't remember where I downloaded it from) and stuck in on the fridge. Then I explained to Bambina that when she thought of things she'd like to learn about she could use a whiteboard marker and write them on the list. I made it clear that it wouldn't always be instant as some things take planning and sometimes we'll be in the middle of something else. So far she's asked for; Elephants (done), ice skating, India, China, Brazil, Horses, Cats and Dogs...... Stupid list. Lol
So far we have done one monthly themed unit on The Human Body, not one of the ones I had planned on doing but it was brilliant. I'll do a post showing some of her work soon. As it is Ramadan until mid-August, we will be using her suggestions as mini topics until then.
In conclusion, I have learnt a valuable lesson early on in this homeschooling lark. It is important to make plans and be organised, it really is. As long as you are ready to ditch your plan and follow Gods plan. An important lesson for life too methinks.
QM

Getting Up To Speed

After saying that I would be blogging weekly, it occurred to me that since we have been homeschooling since late February it would be a good idea to do some entries regarding some of the normal homeschool bloggers stuff that seems to be mandatory.
Hence the following flurry of entries where I will be going through some of the background around why and how we homeschool. Lets get started;

WHY WE HOMESCHOOL

Bambina attended a small Islamic nursery / primary school from the age of 3-5. She only went 3 days a week for 2 years and for us this was perfect! We both loved it, she was happy and so was I. Let me say at this point that our decision to home educate was NOT based on me and my husband being unhappy with the school itself. We are eternally grateful for finding the school and indebted to the teaching staff for the loving care Bambina received.

Having said that, it was when Bambina went full time into Reception that we noticed a marked difference in her self-confidence, energy levels, self-esteem, attitude to learning and level of work. And NONE of it was good!

On top of this she lost all confidence in her ability with numbers and I mean all. She was dissolving into tears every day after school, upset because she was getting things wrong in her numeracy work and was "behind" the other children. She was not even five yet (December baby)! Although we did communicate with the school that we felt there was undue pressure being placed on such young children, and I was trying to work with Bambina at home in the few precious moments we had together, nothing was improving.

We were especially upset to find out that the maths work we were being sent home as examples of her not performing well was Year 1 (grade 1) work!
This concerned me and Superman greatly, why were we paying for our child to be uneccessarily upset? We began having doubts....

All of this was compounded by the fact that Bambina and I were not enjoying our time apart. When I was expecting Bambina, we had discussed home education as our preferred option. However after having her I began to freak out about her being an only child and getting lonely. I hold my hands up here, it was all me. Superman let me know his preference was home education, but being the amazingly supportive man that he is, he acquiesed. It was fine when she was part time, we had four out of seven days a week to do everything we needed/wanted to do. We were "semi-homeschooling" if homeschool purists don't shoot me for saying so.

But what could we do? Reception aged children have to go to school don't they? Isn't home education tightly and exhaustively monitored? Would my only child become horribly unsocialised and a "loner" if we homeschooled? Was I qualified?

These were the questions milling around in my head until a dear dear sister friend and I had a life altering conversation one freezing January morning...

Blowing on our hands and stamping to keep warm, we stood on the corner of the road after dropping off our children and bemoaned the fact that we couldn't have the best of both worlds as we had when they were in nursery. Complaining bitterly that we missed our children and resented having to turn into screeching Sargeant Majors to get our poor little children to school every morning.

Suddenly we both had a lightbulb moment! A look was shared and the unmentionable was uttered...."Lets look into the options, perhaps a homeschool co-op or flexi-schooling?" There was light at the end of the tunnel. We went off and began to research, our husbands got used to their wives constantly being on the phone or messaging each other, and very quickly we came to the same decision. There are options and more importantly, we were going to use them. Within six weeks, Bambina was officially de-registered and we were on the cusp of a new era......

I hope that wasn't too long winded, but thats our story and we have never looked back. Just 5 months later and I can't imagine not homeschooling! Wow, surely "We plan and Allah (God) plans, and He is the best of planners" couldn't be more true! Praise God

See you soon