Sharing my day using Enki Kindergarten

[Jessica Nichol]

Hi everyone, my name is Jessica. I have a son age 6.25 and a daughter almost 4. I hope that everyone I recently "met" via an online community (Tracei, Julie, Lauren, and Mindy!) made it over here to Enki Experience and will ask the more direct questions you have regarding Enki. I purchased the Enki Kindergarten package a year ago and absolutely love my homeschooling experience using Enki with my children. Mindy specifically asked about what my experience with Enki was like and I think the question is regarding my day/week. Please clarify if I'm off the mark Mindy. By the way, what age is your daughter or children? I'm guessing pre-K or K but I actually don't know! 

Ok, so this post is a bit of a teaser tonight. I'm realizing it is getting late for me (after already contributing a longer post to the Holistic Homeschooling: a gathering place Google Group regarding my decision to purchase Enki), so I will post an overview of what my week currently looks like using Enki within the next day or so! 

Hope everyone made it here to Enki Experience and will check out the abundance of info in the files if you haven't read it already!

Jessica

[Jessica N Colorado]

Enki focuses on having a rhythm to your day and week, and as every family is different, each family's rhythm is going to look different! My family's rhythm has changed numerous times over the past three years, which is how long I've been consciously working with the concept of having a weekly rhythm (I had already established a daily rhythm with my son since his infancy, though at the time I would have used the word schedule). I believe that many people reading this will already be familiar with the concept of rhythm and the fact that every family will have their own, but I wanted to clarify that this is what my family does.

Monday morning we meet up with local homeschoolers for Aikido and PE in a local high school's gymnasium (this covers our morning movement for the day), then we do our grocery and household supplies shopping and make it home for lunch. After lunch we do quiet hour, then we often have our 12 year old neighbor over, who is in transition between mother's helper and babysitter, to spend two hours with my children while I clean or have computer time. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are our more focused school days. We are early risers, so often up by 5:30am and the children play while husband and I workout, breakfast @7am, then shower. I have struggled and finally settled on starting our school day by 9am, so this gives ample time for my 6 year old son to bathe and play as he sees fit and be ready by 9am. My 3 (nearly 4) year old daughter still showers with me and has water play time, is dressed and ready in a flash, and can play as she sees fit until 9am. I sing our transition song and we come together for morning movement to start our school day. For me, this is broken up between walking (running!) in our neighborhood and a formal circle time (Enki encourages you to choose what works for your family for movement). We have snack @10am and then I read our core (main lesson) story and follow the 3-fold learning cycle, so may do an activity, seasonal craft or drawing related to it afterwords, this changes a bit and is kept light in Kindergarten. Then the children run off to play until lunch. After lunch I spend time with each child individually, settling into quiet hour in their separate bedrooms (earlier this year I used this time to tell my son an older K story, keeping the younger story in the morning. I have now combined my story again, as I always did when they were younger. This is completely related to where the child is in their place of individuation, and I recognize that it is a bit unusual that the stories for my newly 6 year old are meeting the 28 month younger sister at this time as well). After quiet hour we take our dog for another 10-15 minute walk and then depending on the day, may have painting, baking or other type of outing in the later afternoon. I'm finding this is also a good time for us to play boardgames. The children play while I get dinner together, and usually my husband arrives home at this transition time and settles the children with a story (this is an ideal day) while dinner gets to the table. We eat together and then husband goes upstairs for bed prep with the children while I (love this quiet few minutes!) finish the kitchen cleanup and then join everyone upstairs for family time which may be finger plays or other not too wild activity. Then if both parents are home I read to my daughter and husband reads to son and lights out @7pm. Friday is similar but we end our school day by snack time after we have our movement (walk/circle). We have transition songs (all Enki now!) that work wonderfully to mark the transitions throughout the day. Weekends we still use our transition songs where appropriate but have a looser day, either with outings or expanded play if we stay at home. I do my laundry on Thursday and Sunday during the morning, laying the children's flat and they fold their own clothes along with me as we settle in for quiet hour. I do most of my housecleaning on Monday afternoon and Tuesday during their play, and my husband helps with heavy cleaning when needed. I often cook, knit, read or other household projects during their play times. During quiet hour I use the computer, do finances, knit, read or do planning. I finalize planning or indulge in computer time or reading in the evening, balanced by evenings spent connecting with my husband (whether that is simply sitting together for a movie night or in-depth talk about all that is going on for each of us).

I'm already looking in depth at my Enki Grade One Curriculum and still in the process of deciding how many days we will do school. A 5-day and 3-day schedule is provided to suggest how the 3-fold learning cycle can work. I know some people do a 4-day week, so it is just a matter of deciding what will be right for us. 

Oops, late for my afternoon dog walk! The children will forgive me today I'm sure, after a busy weekend with some company in town and our busy Monday morning.

What else are people wondering about with pre-K and K aged children using Enki?

Jessica

[Brandy Nichols]

Thanks so much for sharing!  Our weekly rhythm has varied over the years, too.  I've been consciously working at one since 2012, I think.  We have a quiet two hours or so after lunch.  What time do your children go to bed?  And how do you stay awake after?  Sorry, I get so sleepy, but would like to have evening time with my husband.  Maybe I need to work on some sort of transition away from just laying down with them to go to sleep.  Mine are 5, 2 and 3 months.

[muez...@yahoo.com]

Thank you for sharing your experience and rhythm with Enki! I plan on beginning this fall and any insight into how it will look is much appreciated! Does anyone have children using the grades curriculum, especially with a younger child? My children are 7 1/2 years old and four. Really wondering how the days will look like with the different ages and needs. Can you do both?

Thanks so much,

Muezetta Cromer

Longmont, Co

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[Jessica N Colorado]

Hi Muezetta,

There are many using Enki with a child in the grades and a younger child (or several!). There are suggested schedules in the manuals regarding how to work with one in grades and a younger one(s). I know that families will find different answers within that, combining certain activities while remaining separate in others. I think that question will arise in homeschooling no matter what and is in constant exploration! With the change from Yahoo to Google Groups I'm not sure how many Enki package holders have joined here yet, but I will encourage people to join over here. I know Amy, who does the pre-purchase calls has great insight because she teaches two grades, as do many.

Brandy, my own journey towards less sleepiness began 2 years ago with morning workouts at home, starting with 3 days and sometimes now up to 6 days a week. The focused exercise and being mindful of nutrition has allowed me to get to a place where I can handle the physicality of my life. My children are in bed around 7pm, I always get a second wind at that time, and then my husband and I try to go to bed by 9:30 at least several nights a week, otherwise we end up in a vicious sleep-deprived cycle and don't feel like getting up @5:30am to work out. It took 3 months of whining children at the threshold of the workout room door before they moved away and began playing during this time. Now the children wouldn't miss this morning play time before breakfast. :)

Jessica

[Brandy Nichols]

I suppose I am sleeping about the same as you, just that my children go to bed later.  I don't feel as bad now. :-D  I've been exercising regularly (3x a week minus the postpartum recovery) for a year now and it does help.   Pregnancy didn't really get me down and I feel strong, even after spending a morning hauling firewood.  I guess my circadian rhythms are really strong.  To bed with the sun and up with it again. 

[Jessica N Colorado]

A bit of exciting news this week from my household… my son has learned to skip! Always strong in fine motor skills, his gross motor skills have been at the low end of the bell curve for his age. Since he was riding his pedal bike before age 4 (strider bike to pedaling, never did training wheels) and has shown good aptitude for swimming I have not been too worried over the years, but as he reached age 6 in November what I was seeing started to feel a bit more pressing. Right at this time some of the movement information I have gained thru using Enki clicked into place for me and I brought some new movements into our circle by mid-December. After a few days of struggling with the new movements something physically clicked for my son and I have been witnessing profound changes in him. He appears right handed but 2 months ago was completely left foot and left eye dominant. I know he is still young and I don't have to worry about dominance issues yet, but as a lefty myself I admit I do not want him to go through some of the struggles I went through with my own weak sense of left/right. He was so left leg dominant that he really had no ability at his 6th birthday to hop on his right leg or gallop with his right leg leading, and no ability to skip. From then to now I have seen him increase his right leg abilities and his current right leg hopping record is 42 (hey it went well with another passion of his right now which is kinesthetic counting). Hurray, now he knows the joy in skipping and will no longer yell at me to stop it when I skip home on our morning walk. 

Jessica

[Jessica N Colorado]

Beth has mentioned that it is normal to start seeing signs of readiness for the next grade around this time of year. I started bringing in a bit of number qualities stories before I heard this from Beth, so my children were already very excited about it. We've done literally just one number a week (except for 6/8/10 which all are together related to doubling) in 4 week "blocks" with several weeks of handwork/crafts/painting in between. We are fully immersed in the "messing about" stage with letters, but I did realize that I did not need to bring any of that into our school day until the fall when use the Gr1 curriculum. We've really been enjoying ourselves with this, and it is giving me a chance to focus in on certain handwork that we hadn't gotten to. As my intuition told me, my 6 year old son was finger knitting within one minute (he has always had strong fine motor) while I sat by my nearly 4 year old feeling less integrated than she was. A few days later I got my surprise! My son was not as confident that day, and my daughter was finger knitting away! We will be finger knitting again soon, I'm looking foreword to seeing how it goes with each of them. 

Jessica

[Julie Robinson]

Jessica, you are an amazing lady! It's so great to hear the details of your rhythms. I have been trying to utilize Enki principles for many years now, but still struggle with maintaining strong rhythms. Your post inspires me to keep working. And I love several of the details you describe... laying the laundry flat so they can help fold beside you, using a helper to give you a couple hours of organization time, exercising in the morning with your children whining at the door until they were able to sink into the rhythm--that takes faith and focus on your goal. Thanks for sharing what is working at your house!

[Muezetta Cromer]

Thanks for the feedback, Jessica! It's nice to hear there are lots of ways to do this, glad there is flexibility within the distinct ideas.
All the best, Muezetta Cromer

[Jessica N Colorado]

I'm thankful to be rereading this thread today as I am about to bring my Kindergarten year to a close. I am on a long trip in Arizona right now and have all of my finger-crochet supplies in my handwork basket, with me. Reading my previous posts not only reminded me of the importance I placed on continued finger-crochet, important enough to pack on my trip, but also what a journey this all is. Just because my school year is wrapping up, it doesn't mean that my learning and my children's learning will stop for the summer. I'm looking forward to each and every moment and the lessons learned throughout the summer as we, as a family, prepare to begin our version of Grade 1.

Beth has been invaluable to me through personal consultations as I explore combining my two, 28 months apart, incorporating K stories initially as we begin our letters, then later in the year bringing in Gr1 Fairy Tales and revisiting the letters in their entirety for an extended Gr1 year.