"Deschooling" and starting a new schedule

by Elize vdM
(Pietermaritzburg, KZN, South Africa)

Currently my two boys go to a playschool three mornings a week, but we have cancelled the lessons because we have decided to homeschool them. The oldest must start with gr. R next year (2012), while the other one is now only 2.5yrs old.

So from October they will be at home. I don't want to immediately start with "school" at home because they were in an English playschool, learning the alphabet in English, whereas we are Afrikaans at home and planning on teaching them in Afrikaans.

My actual question is... can I rather do things like Bible lessons, nursery rhymes arts & crafts, and maybe some science and nature science "experiments" with them to help set a routine and help us to get used to the fact that we are going to be with each other every single day? One afternoon a week must also be set aside for friends to either come over, or us to visit them.

I don't want to plan every minute of every day, but maybe just one activity for every weekday? Then lots of free play as we are fortunate to have a big garden with lots of things for them to do. We have actually managed to start reading stories in the evenings after bath, so that routine is almost set.

What do you suggest?

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Oct 04, 2011
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We have started
by: Elize

I continued two days (HS-at home) on and three days off (boys at playschool) until end of September. Now the boys are fulltime at home and I just decided that I will start fullsteam. Doing just little bits didn't work.

We started yesterday, Monday with the wallchart - days of the week, month and year, season and weather. I followed that with a bible story and their memory bible verse for the week.

That was followed by alphabet decorations where they stuck rubber circles (for apples) on the A and drew sticks and leaves. Then Adam drew other things that starts with a. We are doing this in a drawing book in alphabetical order because then Adam will have an alphabet book at the end.

This morning started off with "my little eyes see" and then you have to name a colour and the other person must look for something of that colour. This, before we even got out of bed! Our bible verse and story later we were dressed, fed and ready to continue. Unfortunately our day unravelled a bit because of circumstances out of my control, but hopefully tomorrow will be better.

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