We've been debating homeschooling our children (Firecracker - 4 and Sunshine - 6) for the past three years. I have done countless hours of research trying to figure out what curriculum to use, how to schedule my time and how to schedule their time. I've set up homeschool areas in my house about three times...and then promptly put everything away.
To give you some background, from the time that Sunshine was 2.5, we had her in an absolutely wonderful Montessori (AMS) preschool. When Firecracker was old enough to attend we decided to change to a Montessori (AMI) preschool that was both closer to our home and significantly less expensive. I was not able to observe at the school, but we loved our former preschool so much that we figured it would be OK.
It was not OK. Sunshine was going into her third primary year. This should have been her capstone year. She is not a super-gifted child, but she is bright. The school was unable to meet her needs. Their reading area not only didn't have any books to read that were not the easy BoB-type books, but the works that they had were, in a word, dull! The directress at the school was extremely rigid. Sunshine is a kid who grasps concepts quickly and doesn't need to perfect steps 1, 2 and 3. She will often jump to step 3 and be ready to move on. This directress was unable to "follow the child". She required students to show perfect mastery of all steps before being allowed to learn anything new. The problem with requiring that of a child who is gifted is that, often, they simply won't do it. Not cannot, will not...big difference. Take handwriting. Sunshine knows how to write all of her letters and composes lengthy stories at home, complete with illustrations. When she focuses, she is able to produce perfect letters....but she is not interested in perfect letters, she's interested in getting her thoughts on the paper. This teacher could not understand that and made my child do metal insets every. single. day. How boring! Especially for a bright child!
Firecracker was a completely different story. She is a child who is very interested in pleasing others. After 7 months at the school she had not managed to pick up a single letter sound. Now, in my opinion, she should have gotten these from circle time even if she wasn't choosing the work. She came home a few weeks ago and I asked her what she worked on. She said "I washed more turtles...I tried to find work that was not practical life but they told me to go back to practical life". I confirmed this with some other people. The three year olds were expected to stay in the practical life area. I had heard about this phenomenon, but had never seen it in practice. It seems to me to run entirely counter to Maria Montessori's philosophy.
We are moving on. The homeschool room is complete, the curriculum is ordered and I am so very excited to finally begin this journey with my children.
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