Sonlight: that's one I'd requested free info from last summer just to gather more resources JIC one day I decided I'd like to homeschool -- lost it during my move, though
I think I did check out their forum, too & had free access to some threads :thumbsup: I'll check that out again, too....
Just a suggestion about the TV being on while you're away. One thing that might help is educational CDs/games for her to do instead of staring at the TV...? Or another activity? It's hard to tell someone else what to do in their home - we've been through that with both sets of grandparents, but if you have something as an alternative...? Maybe eductional things on the computer is not as great as manipulatives, original art, etc, but it's a lesser evil IMHO.
Yes, yes! The TV in Leila's playroom is set only to the Sprout channel so at least my parents don't have to worry about teenage programming coming on when they're not looking. Our big Xmas theme was board games & cards, etc. so now Leila bugs my dad to play those with her instead -- he still keps his TV on, but was glad to compromise by sticking to sports instead of reality murder mystery stuff
Leila is very into sports now, though
(I never was as a kid, but that's probably because I had orthoses + asthma
) Leila does have a bunch of preschool workbooks, a mini karaoke thing, kids singsong learning "computer" & Leapfrog, etc. She also has her own account on my laptop -- I leave it home all the time because the battery just doens't last anway: Starfall is the default URL & my mom likes to help her access the other kid stuff in the favorites folder
My parents also just replied to my email announcement about staying in NY & wanting to homeschool -- she actually asked me to write out a sort of schedule and/or list of rules that *they* should follow to help make this a succes
Wow!
Just talking about this is making the decision easier. At least for a summer long trial run, LOL. We didn't make the local funschoolers' learning center activites for this summer, but we're on the waitlist for fall so I actually feel like I'm ahead of the game somehow, LOL. I also found about 1/2 dozen homeschooling families only about 5 miles away with kids Leila's age
Before she was old enough for the inexpensive nursery school (through the highschool technical & Special Needs center where each young child had a 1:1 ratio with a highschooler + 2 adult lead teachers) she came to work with me & very early on showed signs that she was very ready for a more engaging environment than I could offer at work. The local homeschoolers helped us so so so so so much with ideas on how to have enough hands on activities & involvement in an office setting without taking up too much space. I was also inspired to learn how to use my cell phone alarms with fun ring tones so that every so often I would stop whatever I was doing to read to her, play a game, take a walk, etc. I'm thinking of starting off our "official" homeschooling just about the same way. Our favorite thing before was to choose a weekly theme of some sort that fit the season & some holiday (celebrated anywhere in the world by any culture), setting that theme to song & dance, writing, reading & even making various forms of artistic creation to blend it all together (often in the form of food rather than paint). Leila still remembers when we were learning about apple harvest -- we marched around the trees naming the different creatures we saw, collecting different things from the ground & made a collage to look like an apple, then learned an apple song in American Sign Language as well as the basic notes on the piano & dressed up like a farmer to put on a show for my parents. That's the kind of stuff I'd like to do again & I think all the writing we'll need is to tell Daddy about it in a letter
