School 2012

I just discovered that this post had never posted for some reason. It was supposed to post back the middle of January, so for your reading pleasure~
School this calendar year got off to a rocky start due to a monster flu that attacked us the day we got back from Missouri. This week we have been doing a bit better with just a few digressions...
I was really excited as my MIL gave me a couple of folk/children's song books for Christmas. I have been wanting to include folk songs in our school curriculum for some time and have just not gotten around to it. But this gave me the kick start I needed. The kids and I went through one of the books and I let them pick out which one they wanted to learn first. And it was - "There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly". If you're not familiar with the song, she first swallows a fly, then a spider, a bird, a cat and it goes on from that. They are thrilled with the song and I just throw it in after our regularly scheduled Children's church song that we are working on learning. Reagan begs for more.Luckily too one of the books comes with a CD so we can pop it in the car as we are driving to appointments.
Recently I read an article (which I can't find to link for you at the moment), on how folk songs are disappearing and they are not being taught to children anymore. It talked about how this is one of the ways we pass on our culture to our children and it has been that way for 100's of years. But that is changing and I'm not sure that that is a good thing. Children should grow up singing Pop Goes the Weasel, and Skip to My Lou. It's something that crosses boundaries of time and connects us with those who have gone before. It also exposes kids to music in a nonthreatening way so that they feel they can participate and aren't worried about whether they sound good or not.
In other news on the school front, Daniel surprised me this week in knowing what 100 and 1000 are. So we have spent the week working on place value, and reading random numbers from 1-1000. I love the math curriculum we are using (Math On the Level) because when something pops like this that he is interested in we can pop over to that subject matter and learn it while we continue reviewing what we have already learned. I'm pretty sure place value for 1000 isn't going to come up in most kindergarten curriculum's. But he understands it so why not re enforce it and cement it now?
I've started prereading a bunch of his school work for next year and I am SO excited to share it with him, I can't wait for June! I'm learning so much myself. The curriculum we are using is Ambleside Online which you can find the link to on the right of the screen. It uses literature to teach most subjects and it is so rich! I've been reading Our Island Story by H.E. Marshall which we will use for several years for history, and I've learned a lot in the 1/8 of the book I have read so far. It is a book for children about British history which precedes our American history. We will also introduce him to Shakespeare next year which will be really fun and I can't wait to preread that. Reading is such a great adventure! It opens so many new thoughts and avenues.
I'd love to share more but the making of dinner awaits (and then I can indulge in a bit more prereading).