Our future (and current) Homeschool

The bee is two and a half years old. However, she is old enough to learn so many things, and she craves structure. She loves schedules and lists and charts. She has a 'chore' chart where she checks things off with a washable crayon every day when she accomplishes them. She makes her bed when she wakes up in the morning, and checks it off, she helps me unload the dishwasher, then checks it off. She loves it! Totally the opposite of my personality which is much more laid back and unscheduled. It has been hard to mold myself to her needs. Huck so far is much more laid back than the bee ever was.

So we chart. We have schedules and actually keep them pretty strictly. She loves them, and thrives on them.

And thus we DO a bit of homeschooling already.

I'm a big fan of Charlotte Mason and Rudolph Steiner (Waldorf method) when it comes to the early education of children. Both are very arts and crafts driven, as well as lots of time in nature, observing seasons, and natural progression of things. Very little media, and just a general encouragement of creativity.

However this form of education seems to suit me a bit more than the bee. I'm learning to mold the philosophies of these methods to a child who thrives of her little lists of things to do. So we go outside from ten to ten forty five, then we come in and have singing time for fifteen minutes, followed by lunch at eleven, book at eleven thirty and nap at noon. (Just an example, not always the real schedule)

I've been looking a bit more into more structured education for her. She seems at this point to really like it, and I think I'm leaning toward a classical approach at this point. Once again it is book heavy, as is Charlotte Mason, but it is also more structured. I like several things about the classical method, especially the emphasis of critical thinking.

But again, I'm getting ahead of myself. The child is two ;) And Huck isn't even nine months old.

I think one of the keys of parenting is identifying the styles of your children and catering to it. Especially perhaps with adopted children who aren't going to follow the same styles as yours. And perhaps that will require a home school where if you have five children, you'll have five different styles.