School Update

We have several different kinds of "school" that we refer to our household. A few weeks ago I started using a kindergarten curriculum with the boys for our home school. This consists of "morning school" which involves both boys and "afternoon school" which is just Joshua. "Morning school" is more activity-based and lasts about 45 minutes to an hour. We say the Pledge of Allegiance every day after we begin with prayer, and the pledge has turned out to be their favorite part of school. :o) They totally get excited about standing up in front of the flag and putting their hands on their hearts to say all those big words. "Afternoon school" is more focused on kindergarten-y things for Joshua (who is now 5), concentrating a lot on fine motor skills, reading, and writing. We also do some math activities and Scripture memory together. This also only lasts about an hour; we do it when Micah and Luke are taking naps. Of course, I mustn't forget to mention "recess" for "afternoon school", since it's Joshua's favorite part. In the middle of our school work, we take a 10 minute break where I play whatever he wants to play. We set the timer and play until it goes off, then we get back to our school work. So far this has turned out to be very positive and motivating for Joshua.

Our newest version of school is called "local school" and it's actually a preschool/kindergarten here in our neighborhood. The boys just started going this week for the first time. It's just 2 hours a day, but they are totally immersed in the local language and playing with local kids who don't speak English. The school itself is a pretty impressive setup, housed in a big 3-story home. They used the Montessori methods of teaching, which I've seen on the internet, but haven't really researched much. Right now they're not really following a curriculum because it's the summer, and most of the kids won't really start coming back until September. They only have about 12 kids or so now so it's really more daycare-ish. But the boys are still being exposed to the language a lot. I hope they're not too overwhelming for the staff since they can't speak any of the language. It must be a little frustrating for them (the staff, I mean). The hope is that the boys will start to pick it up quickly so that communication will flow more freely. :o) We're also hoping that the boys will be more comfortable when they meet local kids on the playground and at the park. We'll see how things go. Right now they're pretty excited about going because there are LOTS of fun things to do there. I hope they stay that way! The first day we were trying to give them last minute pointers, like how to tell the teacher if they had to go potty and important things like that. But the boys just wanted to play and weren't really interested in listening to our advice. The teacher kept looking at us like we should just leave them because they were going to be fine. :o) It's a big step for Mom & Dad, too!