A's "school" agenda.

It is interesting, because my 4 year old hasn't really had any concept of "school" before. He knows he is a "homeschooler", but he has no other reference for that other than what we do with our days.

Well, it is that time of year, and he must be looking closer to "that age"...this week every bagger, clerk, teller, citizen, and passerby has been asking him if he is "ready to go back to school", "excited about school", if he "has all of his back to school supplies ready", in addition to asking what school does he go to, does he like it, how old is he (only 4!). At Whole Foods the other day when the bagger took a breath in the school chat to ask him where he goes to school, he took a deep breath, thought for a second, and said, "Well, I'm homeschooled." My little sweetie. Now, I know that they were just being chatty, but it has started a seed of something, and his plan to now be "ready"!

So now it appears that the first ingredient for our "school" at home is a lunchbox. Not just any kind of lunchbox, but a metal one. With a design on it. With no "high fructose corn syrup in it".

The second ingredient is that he wanted to know if we had all of our "supplies" ready as everyone has been asking him. We went through all of our books and art supplies and organized and categorized what we had so he could see most of it. We put together a few stacks of stuff he wants to work on.


He said he has to practice more german, of course, since he only knows a few words and songs now (and oma and opa chat with dad in german when they visit). So german stories & sticker book from oma & opa on the pile.

He (as always) wants to learn to read and write. He got out his bin with his notebooks, pencils, sharpener, and eraser. He uses this stuff all the time, but wanted to put it all out together. Our recent development in this vein has been that I must now write a note to him for everything we do. Dear A, Here is your lunch. Love, Mom. Dear A, Please go to the bathroom before you have an accident. Love, Mom. He then stashes the notes, and I am allowed to re-use certain ones (meals, etc.). I am also the person who writes notes for him, dictated, upon which he traces to write it himself afterwards. Dear G, Please stop crying so much. Love, A.

Science. Ocean creatures. Always his favorite subject. Also, to learn as much as possible about the ocean creatures, he wants to reference the globe and kids atlas...I mean, where DO box jellyfish live, where is the Mariannas Trench, and what about the Nomura jellyfish around Japan? SO, we stacked some books together that we have in our home library, one book set includes crafts, experiments and projects along with each topic/chapter (including ocean creatures) - which he LOVES. As long as it is the ocean creature diorama project. (Or the worms.)


Money. Not "math", money. He wants to count it, sort it, keep it, you name it. He wants to know how much money is in the money bowl, and to do so he must know all about money and be able to count it and differentiate coins. He suspects the coins in the money bowl total kazillions of dollars and there is a parental conspiracy to keep that fact away from him. So he wants to confirm for himself.

And then all of his other projects. Tools, games, crafts, art supplies, his little stash of workbooks (he loves mazes & cutting), and of course a mountain of books from the library. Oh, and sea sponges.

So during all of this my 2 year old jumped into the game of laying everything out and had.to.participate., and decided this is what he wants to work on right now:

Painting. Beeswax molding. Coloring. Charades. Music. Puzzles. Lacing. Marbles run. Shells for gluing. Oh, and his new "harder puzzle":