What are you thinking as far as homeschooling goes? Is Cin any kind of school setting yet?
I am not sure what you mean exactly - We are following the Thomas Jefferson Education philosophy - which incidentally can work in a public school setting. We try to inspire not require - use classics - structure time not content - strive for quality not conformity - and use mentors rather than professors. The main point is that Mom and Dad try to be examples, learning all the time, reading, experimenting, asking questions and talking about what they've learned.
As far as method we have a devotional in the morning with scriptures, a song, a prayer, stories from The Friend or a classic book (ideally - the baby kinda threw a wrench in things) no TV or computer until certain time in the afternoon and no playing with friends until 1pm. That way we can spend the focus of the morning living and learning.
He learns through helping me cook, clean up, and take care of the baby. Also we play games try to explain and encourage questions all the time. In the evening when B puts the boys to bed he reads to them from a classic - they just finished Swiss Family Robinson and are now reading Tuck Everlasting.
We try to be examples in learning values and industry so that they can learn to be the same when the time comes.
Currently the kids are in core phase - which basically means you work on instilling right and wrong, values, manners, how we interact as loving people - and leave the academics alone - they come on their own.
Recently I have felt inspired to focus on teaching them the gospel (C will be 8 in 2 years!) right and wrong, how our bodies work, how to take care of them and good vs bad foods.
C LOVES to write and draw. Has picked up math on his own - he just asks a few questions and we answer and extrapolate if we see he is having trouble. 4 months ago he could count to 20 now he can count to 100 and probably up to 999 or higher if he wanted and picked up addition and subtraction concepts on his own. Brian recently showed him how to write them out in equations so now he is working on putting the concept on paper and he is starting to grasp the concept of multiplication and division and fractions. He is a rigid time keeper - traditional clock face too, he doesn't even want to look digital clocks.
He still loves to write and I think is fine tuning his handwriting skills. He used to say he didn't want to learn to read until he was 16 but he has started noticing that all of his friends are beginning to read so now he says he will learn when he is 6. He knows a lot of words by regognition but the sounding out is foreign to him - E sounds out letters better than he does.
But he has learned it all on his own - which WAS scary because you feel like you need to DO something but you don't you just have to be there and provide opportunities. I know it sounds like our little homeschool is perfect but rarely do all these things happen in one day but we try..
