Day One...

of the Great Homeschooling Experiment is over and I think it went pretty well.

Some of the materials I wanted to use are being shipped, so I had to scramble around a little to find some stuff to do today, but once I decided on dolphins (mainly because I have a great Level 2 reader called Amazing Dolphins that I thought I could build on) things came together nicely. The afternoon looked like this:

1:00 Maggie went down for nap
1:00-1:30 Kids and I mopped kitchen, half bath and front entryway
1:35-1:40 Quick snack
1:40-2:45 Dolphins -- read dolphin book; Abby Kate read 5 pages aloud; played dolphin memory game; Kids made dolphins out of Floam; Abby Kate did writing practice with dolphin body parts and freewrote a sentence about dolphins, Grant circled the correct body parts when directed; kids did coloring sheet about dolphins as a listening exercise; observation of differences/similarities with plastic dolphins, whales and sharks.
2:50 Maggie woke up

I could not have asked for a better timetable. We had a few hairy moments with the kid mops, mainly because G wanted to mop the walls, doors, counters...but a time out later he decided he'd rather toe the party line than give up his mopping privileges. They loved learning about dolphins. Heck, I think they just loved being busy in a purposeful way, rather than shoved in front of the tv. We did a little learning, a little art (Floam: what is that stuff?), a little cleaning. Just what I'd hoped.

It's all going to hinge on my preparation. If I am lax, it won't work. And, as I remember so well from my teaching days, it never hurts to be overprepared with more than you think you can actually get done. I really wasn't sure we'd finish everything today, but we did and it gives me a good gauge for what I need to come up with each day.

My biggest fear is that I will get pooped out pretty quickly, having to prep so much, but if I build in some days off -- like for library visits and playdates (and whole weeks off, like during zoo camp) -- and if I am consistent about planning and printing what I need, I think I can pull it off. It seems logical to make my summer revolve around Habitat as a theme, rather than more discrete subjects like rainforest, desert, ocean. Habitat is specific, yet general enough to encompass a lot of stuff, and it lends itself to a wide variety of activities in all the disciplines.

Tomorrow will be different; Maggie's morning nap will be our cleaning time, so the instructional time in the afternoon will be longer. Not sure yet how this is going to play out, but I am encouraged after today.