Homeschooling Goals

In January, I started a curriculum with my 2 year old daughter, Melody. It's called ABC Jesus Loves Me. It is a free Christian based preschool curriculum. A friend of mine introduced me to it, and it sounded like a good start for my daughter and myself to get a feel for what we want from our homeschooling journey.

I decided to work through the first year curriculum and start the next year in August. When you start in August, the curriculum actually corresponds with the seasons. So, for Christmas, Easter, etc, they will have fun crafts and projects coinciding with those holidays.

My type A personality loved this curriculum, as it gave me a schedule and laid out plan of what to teach, when. It also gave ideas for many fun arts and crafts projects for me to do with my daughter. Each week a different book is assigned to read and projects to do pertaining to the story. All around, it had everything I wanted in a curriculum.

Since the new year will begin in about a month, I've been re-thinking my homeschooling goals. Although, I liked the curriculum, I don't think it is working for her style of learning. Looking back, I wasn't focusing on the right things. I wasn't listening and paying attention to my daughter. I was too focused on covering all the material in the right amount of time. She is only 2 for goodness sake! I don't want to look back at these early years and think, "I should have played more with her", or, "I should have let her lead more".

So, I have decided that I'm not going to follow any certain curriculum this year. I am going to follow her lead. We will have fun, we will do art projects, read books, sing songs, get dirty, and learn about our God and Jesus... in our own time. I will save a more structured learning system for when she turns 5. (Or maybe 4 if she is ready.) Or maybe not at all. I want her to be inquisitive always. I want her to get excited about learning something new. Yes this may be difficult for me to just let go and "wing it" but it will be the best for my children. And when I am older, and I look back on this time of my life with little children I can remember all the fun we had, all the excited little faces, and all the little moments that may seem unimportant now, but will mean everything in the future!