The oldest came down stairs this morning, his arms laden with light sabers, saying he couldn't find the blue one.
Me: We don't have Girl Scouts today, honey.
Me: We don't have Girl Scouts today, honey.
Him: Why not?
Me: Because they went camping over the weekend.
Him: Yeah, but they came back!
Our schedule has changed dramatically this year. Mondays we have an afternoon playgroup. Tuesdays are still Girl Scout days and my boys play with the siblings of the leader's scouts. Thursdays we have Writer's Workshop and Fridays we have Roots&Shoots. Then we have dance classes locally three nights a week. Aside from that, we are working at home.
This is the first year we've required things like spelling, grammar, handwriting, literature, history, and kept track of the time they spend on their work. They've always done reading and math and have always had a love for science. We did science and math classes through our homeschool group last year. We have actual structure to our days. The kids do seem to like being on task, but they complain about how long things take. We are usually done by noon or early afternoon. We've also been making a field trip every other week to museums.
They still have plenty of time and opportunity to explore their own interests, which speaks to the unschooler in me. Before we went to bed last night, PBS cued up a program about Christopher Columbus - we didn't make it through the whole program before falling asleep. But I remembered that Little Missy wanted to do a BrainPop (http://www.brainpop.com/) about Columbus and asked her about it. She said "Oh, I did Solar Energy instead!" and worked her eyebrows up and down to show her excitement.
The kids have had input into their spelling, math, grammar, history and literature programs so it's not imposed on them. They like the sense of accomplishment and the lack of busy work.
What they have a hard time understanding is how their schooled friends can be gone all day and come home with more work to do. Why didn't they just do all their work at school? I can't explain homework either.
Our schedule has changed dramatically this year. Mondays we have an afternoon playgroup. Tuesdays are still Girl Scout days and my boys play with the siblings of the leader's scouts. Thursdays we have Writer's Workshop and Fridays we have Roots&Shoots. Then we have dance classes locally three nights a week. Aside from that, we are working at home.
This is the first year we've required things like spelling, grammar, handwriting, literature, history, and kept track of the time they spend on their work. They've always done reading and math and have always had a love for science. We did science and math classes through our homeschool group last year. We have actual structure to our days. The kids do seem to like being on task, but they complain about how long things take. We are usually done by noon or early afternoon. We've also been making a field trip every other week to museums.
They still have plenty of time and opportunity to explore their own interests, which speaks to the unschooler in me. Before we went to bed last night, PBS cued up a program about Christopher Columbus - we didn't make it through the whole program before falling asleep. But I remembered that Little Missy wanted to do a BrainPop (http://www.brainpop.com/) about Columbus and asked her about it. She said "Oh, I did Solar Energy instead!" and worked her eyebrows up and down to show her excitement.
The kids have had input into their spelling, math, grammar, history and literature programs so it's not imposed on them. They like the sense of accomplishment and the lack of busy work.
What they have a hard time understanding is how their schooled friends can be gone all day and come home with more work to do. Why didn't they just do all their work at school? I can't explain homework either.
2 comments:
Isn't it amazing how much they don't miss?
You mean the classes and things we did to run myself ragged last year? They don't miss that. They still get to see their friends a couple times a week and are still learning what they want to. They don't miss the time in the car - and neither do I.
Or did you mean that they didn't miss that it was Tuesday and we should have been in the car? They remember what's important to them about our schedule. And Girl Scouts is very, very important to them. I just love that a couple of the older girls decided not to go to high school this year because they would miss GS! What an amazing troop.
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