Week 1 Lesson: Aa

All of these lessons are meant to be used throughout the week, just whenever it fits into your schedule. To me, it is more important to have fun with it and pay attention to your child's cues. If they aren't into the lesson, try again later. Also, if they aren't quite getting it, modify it to fit their needs.

Language Arts: Big A, little a
Materials—Paper
Introduce the letter A by printing up a card with the letter Aa and a picture of an alligator. Alligator Ann is an animal whose name begins with the short "a" sound.

Music: ABC Song (Learning Letters)
Work on the ABC song sung to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. If they don't know the song, work on it until all the lines are memorized. Sing the song throughout the day as you do things. Even if your child doesn't sing with you, they will listen and pick it up.

Music: Ants go Marching
Sing the song and talk about the letter.

Science: Alligators, ants, astronauts, acorns
Study alligators. Go to the library and check out age appropriate books about alligators, etc.

Cooking: Applesauce
Applesauce begins with A. Show them the letter on the jar of sauce. Let them wash up, set a place with napkin and spoon, serve applesauce for snack time, and clean up the dishes. Use a play/pretend set (like the tea party dishes) for extra whimsy. Ask them what letter applesauce begins with and what applesauce is made from.

Math: Graphing apples
Print up a page full of varying sizes of apples. Let the kids color them and decorate them with whatever graft supplies you have on hand. If your kids are old enough for safety scissors, help them cut out the apples and sort them according to size.

Language Arts: Letter Lion (Letter Recognition)
Materials—box, paper, markers, scissors, letter cards (buy these or make them yourself, I like the cards that have both the big and little letter on them)
On the paper, draw a large lion's head. Cut a big hole for the mouth. Put the lion's head on the box with a hole cut in the position of the lion's mouth. You can hang the lion from a door, if you want. In order to feed the lion, the child will take a letter card and identify the letter. If the child gives the correct answer, the drop the card into the lion's mouth. If they miss it, just put the card at the back of the pile so they can do it again later. Here's how we made ours.

Physical education: Pretend play
Play at being airplanes, ants, alligators, apes, angels, aliens, etc. Play the Simon Says game with the new "a" words you've learned. Have the kids walk slowly or fast from one point to another while they pretend to be all of these things.

Physical education/science: Nature walk and acorn art
Materials—plastic sandwich bag, paper, aprons, tempera paint, small bowls, trays/cake pans
Take a nature walk and search for acorns. Talk about how acorns begin with letter "a". Point out ants or other things that begin with the letter "a." Encourage your child to collect as many acorns as will fit in the bag. Explain that acorns are a kind of nut that people do not eat but that some animals like to eat. Talk about which animals they think might eat acorns. Birds, mice, squirrels, etc. Even pigs, bears, and deer eat acorns. Take the acorns back. Put on your "a"prons and place the acorns in a bowl with a bit of paint. Roll them around to coat. Place a sheet of paper in the bottom of a cake pan (trim the paper, if necessary). Drop the coated acorns onto the paper and shake the pan from side to side to make acorn (like marble) drawings.

Social studies: Astronauts
Talk about what an astronaut is, explaining in your own words and words your child will understand. An astronaut is someone who travels in space. Space is way up high, past where regular airplanes can fly. Airplanes cannot fly into space. Astronauts ride in rockets or spaceships to get to space. You have to wear a special suit to travel into space. The suit is called a space suit. Play Astronaut, Astronaut, Alien just like duck, duck, goose. Print up a picture from the internet of an astronaut and let your child color/paint it.

How it began: The idea

From the beginning, we have been following our hearts in raising our kids. When I say we, I mean myself and my three co-parents--my husband, my sister, and my brother-in-law. Maybe I should go back to the beginning and tell it all as I see it.

I was raised in a small West Texas town in the 80s-90s where keeping up with the Joneses was par for the course. None of the parents I knew were particularly worried about making connections every day, moment on top of moment, with their children. Having kids was just something our parents did, something expected of them. I'm not saying they weren't great parents or didn't love us... I'm just saying that from my perspective, there wasn't a whole lot of freedom in their choices.

My sister and I wanted something different. We never even imagined that it would bring us to this place and frankly, we didn't care. We didn't set out to homeschool. We never even heard of Attachment Parenting. The only thing we did on purpose was to follow our hearts and trust our instincts. So, the most important thing I think we ever did was to wait. We waited to have children until we were in a good financial place. We waited until we'd sort of sewn our wild oats, climbed the corporate ladder, seen the world (so to speak). We waited until we were in a place of freedom to choose.

We are blessed with husbands who love us and all of our insane, sometimes brilliant, ideas. We are blessed with husbands that are full partners in this journey with us. We are blessed with parents and siblings and extended family that are supportive and giving and available. On top of all that, we were blessed with each other, my sister and I. And so, when she told me she was pregnant, my husband and I got right to work. 9 months later, she gave birth to our beautiful Lillie and almost 3 months after that, my amazing Jacey was born. We set out right away just doing what felt right. We breastfed, we strapped the babies to us wherever we went, we paid attention to their cues, we co-slept, etc. etc. We did a million things that we never imagined doing. We found ourselves identifying more and more every day with that group we'd always called "crunchy granola."

And then, one day, I realized that all my plans for sending Jacey off to school and having another child that I could bond with while he was in Kindergarten, just didn't feel right anymore. I couldn't imagine sending him off to school to learn from people that may or may not have his best interest at heart. I couldn't imagine not seeing his face the first time he learned about butterflies and the awesome transformation they make. I just thought of all the things that I would be missing, that someone else would probably not even notice or appreciate, if he was in school away from me. And so I started doing research.

And here we are. Just doing what feels right for our family. Searching, like so many other parents, for the answers that sometimes come easy and are sometimes elusive. For me and mine though, at the heart of it all, is a need to revel in connections with one another. We will go to the ends of the earth (or just Round Rock, Texas) to make this happen. We will follow our hearts, not even giving audience to boundaries that might take us from our goals.