Baby,  Kindergarten,  Life Story

gather ye rosebuds while ye may, old time is still a-flying

deli_counter

After all sorts of discussion we decided to have Joan pass on her option for full day preschool this year. Parents! Sometimes I think we grow more relaxed by the year, and sometimes it feels like we’ve become psychoanalyst zombies who can’t help but minutely over-examine our children.

Joan is self-driven, often beginning her morning by piling up books for me to read her, filling whole sheets of paper with alphabet letters and doodles, and telling me things like “I want to get books about the human body.” So on the one hand, I feel she is teaching herself, but on the other, she can be a swift flowing river that doesn’t like to be redirected with my mossy sticks jutting out here and there. She is intensely imaginative, sometimes developing long narratives that she tells herself, barely noticing what her sisters are playing around her. After short social events, she likes to have plenty of time to play and read alone to decompress. These are all characteristics we mulled over when we decided to keep her home for another year.

My memories of Lux’s fourth year at home with me are some of my favorite. I have dozens of photos of our walks around town with her stuffed animals, making soft pink playdough together, the trays of paint she would pull out for the afternoon, the funny games she played with two-year-old Joan, like stacking spice jars in towers or packing snack-picnics.

I’m really looking forward to Joan’s and my year together. What a gift!

We are also joining a one-day-a-week homeschool community. This will give me a chance to experiment with curriculum (with no expectations on her, of course, just for fun and discussion) and give her the chance to have peers she sees every week and practice some public speaking. I found the national program, Classical Conversations, through my friend Jenny, my friend Kacia, and some of the online community that posts on instagram under the name wildandfree.co

I have to tell you, I don’t have high hopes for myself in managing a structure with much elegance. I will try to set about something of a morning schedule, but I’m sure it will take some plotting. In Lux’s first year of kindergarten last year, it took me a remarkable amount of time to figure out how to plan our days. It was practically April before I realized how nice it was to get Alma’s naps in earlier, in order to have her be rested by school pickup time. If you are entering a new schedule this fall, I encourage you to take it easy on yourself (of course!) but also to mix things up in all sorts of ways as soon as you can manage it. Change nap times, snack times, wake up times, all of it, until you can pinpoint a great rhythm for your family.

It’s September! I’m hoping to post soon about our new apartment and the move to a new neighborhood, what I’m working on in my alone time, some of my favorite fall things to do around here, and our travel photos from Maine.

8 Comments

  • Jess

    We are in our second year with Classical Conversations and I love it. My oldest are 6 and 5 and I feel the program gives me just the right amount of structure and accountability. I also ADORE our community and feel so very blessed to be walking with these other families in this season. I’ll be interested to hear how you and Joan like it. Happy New School Year!

  • Rachel Ann Brothers

    That’s so cool! I didn’t know CC had programs for kiddos that young. Whoops. Should have researched more. 🙂 We are just over the river in Somerville and we are also foregoing preschool this year by cobbling together some activities. Hoping my nine month old adjusts quickly to not being able to take a long morning nap while we’re on the go. Eep! Can’t wait to hear how the year goes.

  • Susie

    I always enjoy reading your posts! I like the old fashioned feel of this photo. Looking forward to hearing how you’re setting up home in a new space. Take care!

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