Our Lives in Ornaments: 2013 Edition

In my last post, I described the many wonderful entries into this year’s Ornie Competition, leaving out only the three that belong to Jeff, Alexa, and myself. As the blog owner and author, I decided to reserve a post just for ours.

In the past, I have picked out Alexa’s ornament entirely on my own. Because I view these ornaments as memory keepers—visual reminders of the key themes and events of our lives, holding the memories and bringing them back to us each year—I didn’t want hers to be a childish “I like cats so mine is a cat!” theme when there have been more pervasive and meaningful currents running through the year. This year, however, I knew that she is old enough to have a preference, and she deserves to have her voice heard when it comes to the ornament that does, after all, represent her year. At the same time, though, I knew that we never would pick one for her—and if we did, it would be of the “I like cats!” variety—if I simply sat her down in front of a computer screen showing all of this year’s Hallmark ornaments and had her pick her own.

My compromise for her this year was that I picked two themes. Then I picked two ornaments, one for each theme. Then she picked the one she wanted from those two. The ornament that she rejected was a Noah’s ark ornament, complete with animals walking up the gangplank. In my mind, this ornament represented a couple of things—her love of all kinds of animals and the focus we’ve had this year on teaching the Bible as Truth, different from the other stories we read. It also represents both of our homeschool curricula, as Little Hands to Heaven has a week-long unit dedicated to Noah and the b-b-boat, and Sonlight P3/4 includes a Noah’s Ark graphic novel-style book.

(c) Hallmark. The ornament Alexa didn't choose.

The ornament that Alexa chose is a more specific representation of the beginning of her “formal” (to the extent that our homeschool is formal, which it isn’t) education. Her ornament shows a Mama Snowman … er, Snowwoman … holding a Baby Snowman … Snowbaby? … on her lap while reading to her. This scene represents the feel of our homeschool, though in our case, it’s more often that we’re lying on the carpet together while reading, rather than sitting in laps. And just like in our family, there’s a little cat sitting beside the reading pair. Oh, and do you want to know why Alexa chose this ornament instead of the Noah’s ark one, which I expected her to want because of all the animals? It’s because this ornament had a cat, and the Noah’s ark one didn’t—so Alexa got her “I like cats!” ornament after all. It paid off for her, too; she was the winner of this year’s Ornie Competition.

Alexa's 2013 ornament: Reading is "Snow" Much Fun!

Jeff’s and my ornaments appear very different from each other, but their themes are so similar that I will describe them together, at least at first.

This year was an odd combination of peace and chaotic stress for Jeff and me. It started out a little stressful, but nothing unusual or worrisome—we were in the throes of preparing for our third intercontinental move. Upon our arrival here in Kosovo, we settled in more quickly than we ever imagined we could. We made friends. We felt at home. It was amazing how peaceful our lives seemed.

Then, things began happening in each of “our” countries. The Egyptian army ousted President Morsi, who had been elected democratically but who was ruling dictatorially. The Muslim Brotherhood refused to go quietly, set up massive protest camps, and began attacking Egyptian Christians and their property. The Embassy of the United States underwent another mandatory evacuation, affecting friends of ours. In Cambodia, election results were disputed, protests—intended to be peaceful—broke out, and the possibility of violence loomed large. I received messages from friends there asking about how the American embassy would assist in case a mass evacuation of American citizens became advisable.

In the United States, continued leaks from a traitor damaged Americans’ perceptions of the intelligence agencies whose mission is to protect them, endangered those agencies’ ability to fulfill that mission, and caused a diplomatic furor that affects all Americans abroad, not just diplomats and their families. A political standoff resulted in a government shutdown, and the vitriol directed against federal workers—who did not in any way cause the shutdown; that was the politicians—was even more strident and widespread than I imagined it could be.

And, finally, here in Kosovo, in this place where the vast majority of the local population loves America and Americans; in this place where we met a young Kosovar man who joined the United States Marines out of a sense of gratitude to our country, who served honorably, and who even renounced his Kosovan citizenship in favor of American citizenship because it was asked of him in order to increase the ways in which he could serve; in this home where we felt (and still feel) such a sense of peace—here in Kosovo, two young American women were viciously attacked because they were here as missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS; known to most Americans as Mormons). In the aftermath of that attack, I became aware that Islamist extremism is on the rise here, and this place, though peaceful, is not as peaceful as I had assumed.

Deborah's 2013 ornament: A Wish For Peace

My ornament for 2013 reflects the turmoil that our countries have experienced this year and the hope and wish that I have for them—for all four of them. My ornament is an amber dove, inscribed with the words “one hope … one wish … peace.” It is the heart cry of a mother, a wife, and a friend.

Jeff’s ornament this year is in honor of those who work to make my wish reality. It is no secret that we are political conservatives, and that there are plenty of federal jobs that we believe should not be federal jobs. But there are many federal workers who work quietly, in the background, for the same or even less pay than they could earn in the private sector, and their goals are to provide for the security of the United States of America, to protect her people from threats of which we may not even be aware. These federal workers—all federal workers—were demonized this year by people who don’t understand what they do or why they do it, but who would be severely and negatively impacted if they were to stop doing it. It seems only appropriate to me that Jeff’s 2013 ornament is a figure of Batman, swooping down to save the day, in a move that would be characteristic of him even during the events of the movies The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, when he was demonized by the people of Gotham City, on whose behalf he never stopped fighting. Likewise, many of our federal workers did not stop working—did not stop fighting—even during the shutdown, when they were being vilified and when they didn’t even know if or when they would be paid. Like Batman, they continued to protect us from threats, our blissful ignorance of which allowed us the luxury of demanding that they stop.

Jeff's 2013 ornament: Descending Upon Gotham City

A child’s pleasure in learning, in reading, and above all, in cats. A woman’s wish for peace. And a man’s determination to keep fighting the good fight no matter what others think. Those are the things for which 2013 will be remembered in our family.

Ornie Competition: Extended Family 2013

As long-time readers of this blog know, our family participates in an annual tradition known as “The Ornie Competition.” It was begun many years ago by the family of Jeff’s stepfather, and we’ve participated ever since our marriage in 2006, more often than not via internet-based video conferencing. Each member of the family picks out a Christmas ornament that represents his or her year, then presents it to the group. The patriarch (Jeff’s stepfather) decides in advance who will judge the competition, and a determination is made as to who has the best ornament that year. Criteria vary from year to year (often depending on the judges’ personal preferences), but factors that generally work in favor of particular ornaments include whether or not it was handmade, the ornament’s attractiveness, how well it fits the theme identified by the individual who chose it, and—the key factor—the quality of the story and presentation that accompanies the ornament. The competition traditionally is held on Thanksgiving Day or, in recent years, the day after Thanksgiving.

There were several amazing ornaments this year—I am grateful that I was not chosen as a judge! I don’t always tell about all the ornaments here on the blog, but they were so good this year that I do want to mention all of them.

The toddler's ornament, photo courtesy of my mother-in-law

Our first ornament was from our newest participant: the toddler son of Jeff’s stepsister and her husband. This adorable little boy loves to “cook”—he pulls out pots and pans, fills them with real and pretend food, and stirs away. His favorite toy is his kitchen set. This budding chef’s ornament was a highly appropriate pan, with a fish inside it. Since one of his few words is “fish,” and he says it excitedly whenever he sees the ornament, it was even more appropriate.

The father's ornament, photo courtesy of my mother-in-law

This little boy’s father is a television producer. He had a rough year, from late last year to earlier this year. We don’t know the details because of a nondisclosure clause in the final settlement, but he was sued by a very powerful man and spent the year working and hoping for justice and waiting for this difficult chapter in his life to close. Now, the chapter is closed, and he seemed satisfied with the (unknown to us) details of the final settlement. His ornament was an open book, with the scales of justice resting on the pages.

The mom's ornament*, photo courtesy of my mother-in-law

Jeff’s stepsister told us that she has settled into motherhood well. Her life and job are full of stress, and her favorite moments of the day are those spent with her little boy. He grabs a book, brings it to her, and sits in her lap while she reads it to him again and again. These moments of peaceful bonding with her son are commemorated in her ornament: a brunette woman reading to the little blond-haired boy in her lap.

My mother-in-law's ornaments, photo courtesy of my mother-in-law

Jeff’s mother gave us all a scare a couple of months ago. She went into the hospital for an angioplasty, with the intent of having a couple of stents put in. The relatively routine surgery took a drastic turn for the worse, however, when her blood vessels demonstrated their fragility by breaking during the procedure. She was rushed by ambulance to a nearby hospital that was equipped to perform the emergency double bypass surgery that saved her life. She submitted two ornaments this year: an ambulance to commemorate her first (and hopefully only) ride in an ambulance; and a handmade one that shows a heart with a stitch in it (representing her mended heart) on one side and, on the other, the name of the cardiac center where the emergency surgery occurred. She showed it to one of her rehabilitation specialists, who asked her to make one for her as well. My mother-in-law’s doctors will be receiving these ornaments as a small thank you for their dedication and skill.

The husband's ornament, photo courtesy of my mother-in-law

My mother-in-law’s husband has been wonderful, both during the emergency itself and during her recuperation thus far. He ensures that she rests at home, with him doing the bulk of the household work, and that she gets the precise amount of exercise that her doctors recommend for her rehabilitation. He comforts her, reassures her, and encourages her. He already had committed to moving away from an area he loves so that she could be nearer to her grandsons, and now with her health situation, he has committed to doing even more of the work involved in that move (which has been delayed for an undetermined but planned-to-be-short period of time while she regains her strength and they wait for their house to sell). His ornament memorializes the work he has done as his wife’s caregiver since her surgery.

By luck of the random draw, our little nuclear family—Jeff, Alexa, and myself—were the last three to present our ornaments this year.  I could include ours in this post, but it’s getting a little long, and I’d rather devote one post to just our ornaments. Stay tuned; ours is coming up next.

Related posts:

A Family Tradition

And The Winner Is …

Malya’s Laughter

Our Year in Ornaments (2011)

Our Lives in Ornaments: 2012 Edition


* I edited the photo to remove the toddler's name. I'm just not comfortable sharing the names of children who don't belong to me. I left in the name of Jeff's stepfather, however, as it's been shared on the blog before and his wife told me it was ok.

Two Months

Hmm. Apparently it’s been over 2 months since I published a blog post. That may be a new record for me. There probably are a few reasons why it’s been so long, but the top two come to mind pretty easily.

The first is that it’s just so easy to live here. My most prolific blog-writing times are right after I move to a new post, as I process all the newness of the place. I did write several posts soon after we arrived here, but I don’t think it was as many as I usually write early on at a new post. Frankly, after living in Egypt and Cambodia, Kosovo just doesn’t feel “foreign” enough to inspire those getting-adjusted posts! My neighborhood feels American, the supermarket feels American (though I don’t use Google Translate nearly as much—read: ever—at American grocery stores), I no longer am a minority in terms of race, and to top it all off, I settled in socially much more quickly here, due to a great embassy community and quick contact with my traditionally sought-out group, the missionaries. So I just don’t have the amount of processing and adjusting to do here as I did in either of our last two posts.

The second quick and easy reason why I haven’t posted in so long is that I’ve felt very busy. Homeschooling only takes up 30 or so minutes each day, but somehow it feels like it takes much more time than that. And—at the risk of sounding elitist—it has been an adjustment for me to be cleaning my own house again. We were able to hire an absolutely wonderful full-time housekeeper in Cambodia for a price that inspired her to do a happy dance in my kitchen and that also was lower than we would have had to pay for a one-morning-a-week cleaning service in the States; domestic help here also is less expensive than in the States, but it’s significantly more expensive than in Cambodia, and we decided that it made more sense for me to clean the house myself here. But it does seem to take a lot more time than it really should, probably because I never really have focused a lot of effort on learning to be an efficient housekeeper. It’s past time to change that. In addition to teaching Alexa and cleaning the house, the active social scene here has contributed (in a good way) to my feeling of busy-ness.

As if all of that weren’t enough—and it shouldn’t be, though it is—I’ve also been spending a good bit of time looking up recipes online. I’m contemplating a major change in my diet and have started taking small steps in that direction. I don’t buy into the pseudo-religious idea that our distant ancestors’ diet was perfect and that all modern innovation in food production results in poison, but I am beginning to be convinced that there is more about our food that matters than calorie count and whether it’s a protein, carb, or fat. It was an easy sell that whole, minimally processed foods are healthier than foods that are highly processed, added to and subtracted from. After all, it’s pretty intuitive that a whole apple provides more nutritional value, with fewer calories, than a similar volume of apple juice or applesauce that has had sugar and preservatives added and fiber removed; it’s also easy to see that refined sugar offers little to no value in exchange for quite a few calories. It was a harder sell, but I’m beginning to come around to the idea we may be better off limiting or avoiding specific other foods as well, in particular grains. The jury is still out, but I have been looking up paleo recipes—these recipes always avoid grains, legumes, and highly processed foods. They usually avoid dairy as well. I’ve found lots of good recipes and have started limiting grains—I’ve found that a couple of days without grains results in me feeling more tired but still better overall, with less stomach discomfort. (Every website I’ve read has said that it’s normal to feel tired and even headachy when switching away from a grain-based diet, as the body adjusts to getting more of its calories from fats than from carbs.) I’ve never had major issues with my stomach, but I have felt mild to moderate discomfort so often that it’s come to be normal, not even something I notice or complain about, but I do notice its absence when I avoid grains. I’m not ready to take the plunge into a completely paleo (or primal, if you prefer) lifestyle, but I’m gradually moving more in that direction. To be honest, I probably won’t ever go fully paleo, but since I do seem to feel better with fewer grains, that’s what I’m going with for now.

I also have spent some time recently looking at options for Alexa’s PreK curriculum next year. (I’m considering this year preschool, next year PreK, and the following kindergarten.) I like Sonlight’s P4/5 package as a base curriculum, but even if I add the kindergarten language arts to it, I think the phonics instruction will be too much review and not enough new material for her. So I’m considering purchasing a separate program to teach her to read, possibly All About Reading, or for a more economical option, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons or The Reading Lesson: Teach Your Child to Read in 20 Lessons. We’ll probably use Handwriting Without Tears PreK. I haven’t gotten around to looking at the math options yet, but we'll almost certainly work through some of the Mathematical Reasoning workbooks that are included in Timberdoodle's preschool and PreK curricula; we'll probably start those sometime this spring.

That’s most of what’s been filling my time lately and why I haven’t been posting much. I’m not sure when I’ll start having more time again—or inspiration—so I apologize now if it’s another two months before I post again.

Homeschool Update

It’s been a while since I posted here, and for the most part, I have good reasons. We were in the United States for the whole month of July, and I took a break from blogging in order to enjoy time with family and friends and to accomplish the necessary tasks associated with trips home—mostly shopping for various items that are difficult to obtain here. When we returned in early August, it was time to catch up on the housework, a task that was made more difficult by our worse-than-usual experience with jet lag.

And of course, we’ve started homeschooling. We started our year on Monday, 12 August, using the Little Hands to Heaven curriculum published by Heart of Dakota. Overall, homeschooling is going very well. When I asked Alexa, the first day, if she wanted to do school, her first response was “No! Lexa doesn’t want to go to school!” After I explained that she didn’t have to go anywhere, that we could do school right here at home, she was eager to try it. She watched as I took the curriculum guide and children’s Bible (The New Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes) off the shelf and excitedly announced, “It’s time to read!” I explained to her that we would read, but first, we would pray and ask God to help us learn, and then we had a finger play to do, after which we would read from the Bible.

Those always are the first three things we do—pray, do the finger play, and read the Bible. (The finger play is a rhyme that teaches the sound of the letter we’re working on that week and reinforces the Bible story; for example, the first one started with “A-a-Adam! Can you believe? God made the animals, and you and me.” It has motions to help the student both enjoy and remember it.) After that, the activities vary a little from day to day. Every day, there’s a letter activity of some sort, a Bible activity that teaches other skills while coordinating closely with the Bible story, and a musical selection from The Singing Bible. Once a week, there is an art activity, an active exploration (for example, during the second week—“B/Noah’s Ark”—we put different items in the bathtub to see what floats and what doesn’t), a devotion from Big Thoughts for Little People, dramatic play (in which we act out the Bible story), and a math activity that also ties in to the Bible story (but that doesn't always have much to do with math).

Alexa always asks to read first, but I always refuse. The opening prayer isn’t part of the curriculum, but I believe it’s important, so we do that first anyway. I like to do the finger play next, as the curriculum is written, because it provides an overview of the whole week’s Bible lessons. The Bible story itself consists of what we adults would consider only part of the story—during week 2, we didn’t read the entire story of Noah in one day. Instead, we read it in five parts: Noah builds a big boat, the animals go into the boat, it rains for days and days, Noah and his family are safe, and proud men build the Tower of Babel (ok, this one didn’t totally fit the Noah-themed week, but I’m impressed with how well they’ve gotten each story into a five-day format). So by doing the finger play first, we get the overview; then we move into the specifics on which the rest of the day’s activities focus.

I honestly did not expect Alexa to enjoy school as much as she does. She often doesn’t like to do the wild, crazy physical play that’s typical of preschoolers, as she has an aversion to acting “silly,” so I expected her to resist the finger plays. Instead, she enjoys them, often asking to do them again, and she readily shows them to her Daddy in the evening. She also is learning from them—she already recognizes all of the letters, which limits the usefulness of some of the other activities, but she’s learning the sounds letters make through these finger plays. She also loves some of the other activities, during which she’s learning skills like cutting and gluing. And she’s still asking me to repeat last week’s active exploration activity—“Lexa wants to see what floats!”

I am happy that we chose to start school with Little Hands to Heaven. It’s very much the sort of activities I would expect in a good Christian preschool, but with the added benefit of being able to do it at home. We started out thinking of this curriculum as our test curriculum, to see if Alexa is ready for preschool (she most definitely is!), and as a supplement to whichever main (read: more expensive) curriculum we would choose. However, Alexa is doing so well and learning so much from this curriculum that I’m convinced it would serve well as a sole preschool curriculum.

We’re still not going to use it that way, though. The difference is that I’ve started thinking of the other curriculum—the one that was supposed to be the main one, with Little Hands as a supplement—as the supplemental curriculum, with Little Hands as the main one, providing the phonics and concentrated Bible learning that I want Alexa to have this year. I’m able to have this change in thinking because of another change we’ve decided to make.

Last time I posted about homeschooling, we had decided to use the preschool curriculum developed by Timberdoodle, although a strong part of me still wanted so badly to use Sonlight. Just a few days after announcing that decision, I met a mother here who uses Sonlight to teach her now-kindergarten daughter. She kindly offered to loan us the instructor’s guide for Sonlight’s P3/4 (3/4-year-old preschool) curriculum so we could look over it and make a truly informed decision about its strengths and weaknesses. She told me that her daughter’s favorite subjects are math and science, and as a kindergartener, she’s learning basic addition and subtraction. I gratefully accepted the loan, and as I looked over the guide, I was surprised. While there really didn’t seem to be much math in there, the science books impressed me: Our Animal Friends at Maple Hills Farm and The Usborne Flip-Flap Body Book. There also was a book for social studies—Richard Scarry’s What Do People Do All Day?—and there were poetry books. There even were a couple of games to help with spatial relationships (a math skill) and memory. The bulk of the curriculum did consist of fairy tales, classic children’s stories, and other literature, but the basic building blocks of science, social science, and even math were in there. Truth be told, I liked what I saw of Sonlight’s science better than what I saw of Timberdoodle’s.

As I looked through Sonlight’s P3/4 instructor guide, I felt more drawn to it than ever. I wanted Alexa to hear these stories. But I also wanted Alexa to have the best possible preparation for the most important task of school: learning to think critically—to understand, evaluate, and use information. So I looked again at the Timberdoodle curriculum, and I realized something: There are three reasons why I was so drawn to Timberdoodle in the first place. What are those reasons? Simply put, they are Language Lessons for Little Ones, Mathematical Reasoning, and Building Thinking Skills. There certainly are other things in the curriculum that look fun, educational, and interesting, but the main reason I had gotten hooked on the idea of Timberdoodle was these three workbooks that lay a groundwork for critical and mathematical reasoning skills. And I wanted Alexa to begin learning these skills early, just as much as I wanted her to hear and love those stories in the Sonlight curriculum.

I told Jeff what I had found in the Sonlight instructor’s guide. I told him what I had realized about the attraction that Timberdoodle held for me. I asked him to look through the Sonlight materials and to look again at the Timberdoodle website. I wasn’t confident that we had made the right decision, but I also wasn’t confident that we hadn’t. I needed his wisdom and his direction. Jeff looked at all the information I had found, and he agreed with my conclusions: We want the Sonlight curriculum, and we also want explicit teaching of those reasoning skills from the Timberdoodle workbooks.

So we have a new plan: We’re currently using, and will continue to use for this academic year, Little Hands to Heaven as our primary phonics and Bible curriculum. We have ordered Sonlight's P3/4 curriculum, and when it arrives, we will add it as a literature and science supplement; of course, we’ll use the full curriculum, so there will be more than literature and science added. Whenever we decide all three of us are ready—probably sometime next spring or summer—we will add the three workbooks from Timberdoodle as a critical thinking and mathematical reasoning supplement; we're not convinced that Alexa is ready for workbooks just yet. We don’t have a concrete plan for next fall, the beginning of Alexa’s PreK year, but there is a good chance that we’ll continue using some pieced-together curriculum consisting of parts (or all) of one or more curricula, plus an early handwriting program and possibly a beginning math program. We’ll decide the specifics of next year’s curriculum after we’re farther along into this year and can see more clearly what works best for our little learner*.

*Part of seeing more clearly what works best for our little learner will involve applying information that we expect to gather from Cathy Duffy’s book 101 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum, which I ordered last night on the recommendation of a friend who’s been homeschooling successfully for years. She told me that the first half of the book helps the reader to determine the learning styles of both the student and the teacher. It also introduces the reader to different philosophies of education and how those philosophies work with different learning and teaching styles. The remainder of the book reviews homeschool curricula with various approaches. After reading this book, we may decide to forsake all three of our current curricula, we may decide that we stumbled upon the right mix from the start, or we may decide anything in between.

Our New Adventure: Choosing a Homeschool Curriculum

When I first started reading about homeschooling on blogs, there was one curriculum that seemed to be incredibly popular. Over the years as I’ve continued reading about homeschooling, that same curriculum keeps coming up. In Cambodia, I even met two moms who use the curriculum and love it. So of course it was one of the first ones that I looked at when we decided to homeschool Alexa for preschool. Despite all the positive things I’d heard about it, however, I had some reservations, so I decided to see what else was out there as well. Within the space of about 15 minutes, I had tabs open on my internet browser for seven curricula, ranging in price from free (assuming access to a public library) to $549. One was completely online. Two were literature-based. One was classical. One was kind of eclectic but had strong Montessori elements. Most were Christian, but not all. I quickly realized that I needed to talk to Jeff and clarify what type of curriculum we were interested in—every one of the seven had something going for it that would make it perfect if we were interested in that educational style or philosophy.

We first agreed that we don’t want something that is entirely online, despite the convenience. We don't want Alexa glued to electronics any more than she already is. Goodbye, ABCMouse.com, at a cost of $79 per year.

Then we agreed that although we both love reading and want Alexa to love it as well, we don’t want a curriculum that is primarily literature-based. We actually like the idea of textbooks and workbooks—maybe not so much textbooks at this age, but workbooks now and both textbooks and workbooks when she’s older. This elimination was difficult for me, because one of the literature-based curricula, Sonlight,  is that curriculum to which I referred in the first paragraph—the one about which I’ve heard such glowing reviews, the one that’s having such great results for people I’ve met in person and through blogs, the one provided by a company that consists of such amazingly caring people. I want to want to use a Sonlight curriculum (despite the fact that I can’t seem to type its name without first typing “Songlight” and then fixing the typo). But it just isn’t a good fit for us. Their preschool curriculum ($285) consists almost exclusively of storybooks and compilations of fairy tales or other literature, along with a parents’ guide that reviews say mostly is a list of the books in the order in which children are developmentally most able to appreciate them. There doesn’t seem to be the pre-math, pre-reading, or tactile skills that we want the curriculum to help us develop in Alexa. So, unfortunately, despite my predisposition to like the curriculum, and despite my true desire to expose Alexa to that literature, Sonlight had to go.

It also was at this point that we eliminated another popular homeschool option, A Beka. I believed it was primarily literature-based as well, as that was how a review described it, and I wasn’t looking carefully for reasons to keep curricula in our options list at that point; I was looking for reasons to close the tab. In reviewing the website again for this post, however, it looks like maybe A Beka shouldn’t have been eliminated at this phase for this reason. Looking at it more closely, they seem to have a preschool Bible-only curriculum kit ($233) or a purchase-each-item-separately complete preschool curriculum with supporting materials ($293). Rightly or wrongly, however, A Beka was eliminated at this point, and looking at it again now, we may re-evaluate it at a later time, but I think that, for now, we still prefer the one we chose.

Then we looked at the free options—free meaning that the curriculum itself is available online at no charge. Those are great resources … if you have access to a library. One of the free ones listed almost 200 books that were recommended to be read along with the curriculum—and although you could choose just one book with each unit instead (for a total of 26 books), that’s still a lot of books to look through and decide which ones to purchase online and have shipped here. If we had access to a library, it would be no problem. I’d just check out as many of them for each week as the library had, and I could decide on a weekly basis which one or ones to read to Alexa. That doesn’t work so well, though, when you have to buy them in order to read them. For this initial foray into homeschooling, we really just want to buy a package that includes all the necessary materials and that does not require me to spend a lot of time reviewing lesson plans or collecting materials. So, reluctantly, goodbye, Letter of the Week and ABC Jesus Loves Me.

That round of eliminations left us with four options from three publishers … and other than the two from the same publisher, they couldn’t have been more different.

One choice, the one that came to mind immediately after Sonlight, was Calvert School. Calvert School was the only completely secular option we considered. We first heard about Calvert because it’s a homeschool curriculum that often is used among Foreign Service families who decide to homeschool for a time because the educational options at a given post don’t work well for their family; I've seen reviews from Foreign Service parents who happily state that "it's like school, but at home." Calvert is a well-known, highly-respected, private school in Maryland that provides a classical education for children up to the eighth grade; its homeschool curriculum is used by people all over the world, and even is provided as a free public education option in several American states. The Pre-K curriculum, including all supporting materials, costs $380, though the price goes up dramatically for kindergarten.

The budget-friendly choice was published by Heart of Dakota, whose Little Hands to Heaven curriculum is appropriate for ages 2-5 years and costs $45 just for the curriculum. If you purchase it that way, you must own or acquire a few books and CDs separately, or alternatively, you can order a set that includes the curriculum, one of two recommended children’s Bibles, one of two recommended children’s devotionals, and a set of 4 music CDs, all for right around $80, not including shipping (the price varies slightly based on which Bible and devotional book you choose). This curriculum has the benefit of being the most Bible-centered of the four we were still considering. It’s also pretty simple, taking only 30 minutes a day to teach all the basic topics you’d expect in a preschool curriculum, plus Bible stories. It’s ready to use straight from the box, though the art projects do require supplies that people are likely to have on hand or be able to find easily, at least in the States.

The third and fourth options, both from multiple publishers and put together as complete curricula with a “scheduling helps” book by Timberdoodle, were a bolt from the blue for us. The sets are very similar to each other, except that one is a preschool curriculum appropriate for ages 2-3 and the other is a Pre-K curriculum appropriate for ages 3-4. As Alexa will be in the overlap age, we looked at both sets. Each set had three options—Basic, Complete, and Elite—with prices ranging from $219 to $549, making this potentially the most expensive option we considered. Timberdoodle is a Christian-run company, and the curriculum packages for older grades include explicitly Christian material. That advantage was minimized, however, by the lack of Bible resources in the preschool and Pre-K curricula. I’m not certain what educational philosophy is best exemplified by these curricula, but for right now, I’ll go with eclectic with a bit of Montessori  mixed in, as much of the learning occurs in hands-on ways. However, there are several workbooks, too, with titles such as Language Lessons for Little Ones, Mathematical Reasoning, and Building Thinking Skills. The curriculum descriptions state that they “stress critical thinking skills and, even at this early grade, work towards independent learning.” This approach definitely is not classical, as the classical approach to education emphasizes mostly the acquisition of facts in the early years; this approach assumes that the child can do more. When looking at these curricula, I quickly eliminated the Pre-K one, because many of its titles are meant to be used after the ones in the preschool curriculum—Language Lessons for Little Ones 2 is in the PreK set, for example, whereas Language Lessons for Little Ones 1 is in the preschool set. But I was intrigued by the preschool curriculum.

Jeff and I fairly quickly made one decision. We very much wanted the Bible stories and lessons that are included as part of the Little Hands curriculum. However, we also very much wanted more in-depth academics than we would get in this 30-minute-a-day curriculum (this judgment was verified when we looked at the sample lesson plans available on the website). Luckily, Little Hands is relatively inexpensive. So we ordered it. Our original intent was to use it as a supplement in order to add Bible stories and songs to the more academic curriculum yet to be chosen, though I predicted that I’d use the whole curriculum, since even the letter-learning activities revolve around the Bible stories.

The next decision felt monumental, though I comfort myself by saying that this is only preschool, and she’ll only be three years old; if I do this wrong, there’s plenty of time to fix it later. Our next decision was the choice of our primary curriculum.

Calvert felt like the safe choice. It’s endorsed by several state governments, because if the educational authorities in those states didn’t think it was good, it wouldn’t be offered as a state-provided option. The Department of State refuses to recommend any specific curriculum, but it’s pretty clear that Calvert is blessed by those in authority in the office that deals with the educational benefits for Foreign Service children. It’s a classical curriculum, and classical education is blessed by history and makes a lot of sense to me. And despite what my parents would say, my natural tendency is to submit to authority and to respect the judgment of authority figures, unless I have very good reason to do otherwise. It would have been so easy to choose Calvert. But we didn’t.

(As a side note, now that I've reviewed A Beka more thoroughly, I realize that it should have been the curriculum to which we were comparing Timberdoodle; it would be a better option for us than Calvert. It seems more academically challenging, and although the website never says that they use a classical model of education, their materials do seem to lean that way. They also are explicitly Christian, which we prefer. After reviewing their website again, Jeff and I have decided not to revise the choice we made for this year, but if we decide after a year or two to switch to a more traditional model of education, A Beka will get a very close look.)

Despite going into this decision believing that I wanted a classical education for Alexa, I was drawn to the Timberdoodle curriculum. I don’t want to teach Alexa just facts. I want to help her learn to think critically. That’s really what it came down to. And it helped that Calvert boasted that at the end of the year, students would be able to “recognize and write the numbers 1 through 10,” expectations that just seem too low to me, especially in a program designed for children a year older than Alexa. So we chose Timberdoodle. We aren’t sure yet which package we’ll order—I know I want almost all the items included in the Basic package, and several of the ones in the Complete package. I’m not sure if I want those Complete items enough to pay the extra cost, though, since I think we’d do just fine with the Basic kit. As for the Elite package, well, as much as Alexa would enjoy it, I’m not paying that much money to add several more toys—educational or not—to our collection, even if one of them is a super-cute, looks like super-fun, sit-n-bounce Wahoo Puppy (that has no weight limit—so even adults can play!).

We did make one additional choice, however. We’ve ordered the Little Hands to Heaven curriculum. We are not going to order the Timberdoodle one just yet. Little Hands should be here, waiting for us, when we return from home leave. We intend to start using it immediately upon our return. We’ll use it both to teach Bible stories to Alexa and also as a test to see how she does with a short, structured, daily school time. If she does well, as we expect, then we’ll order the Timberdoodle curriculum soon thereafter, adding it to her daily school time when it arrives. If its delayed arrival means that we don’t start our primary curriculum at the same time when the traditional academic school year begins, then so be it—that’s one of the benefits of homeschooling; we have as much flexibility as we want, and there is no requirement to begin or finish the year when traditional schools do. If, however, Alexa struggles with 30 minutes a day of school, then we may choose to wait longer before we order a more expensive curriculum.

Our new adventure is in the works. Late this summer, we’ll start a structured preschool curriculum consisting mostly of Bible education: Little Hands to Heaven, published by Heart of Dakota. If that goes well, then early this fall, we’ll add the preschool curriculum compiled by Timberdoodle. Alexa will add the role of “student” to her life, and I’ll add the role of “homeschool teacher” to mine. Look for updates sometime in the next several months …

Lest anyone misread this post and believe that decisions at any point were made unilaterally by the First Officer, please be aware that the Captain was involved in and approved of every step of this decision-making process.