Learning comes in many forms
My first son attended elementary school through the second grade before I began homeschooling and he was pretty regimented in his expectations of when we were supposed to do school. He is a creature of habit and feels secure with routine and he liked his homeschool day to begin at 9am, continue until lunch break from 12 to 1 and then we were finished at 3. He played alot of sports, which kept our evenings busy and we traveled and had lots of fun on the weekends. On our unconventional school days, walking through the park catching bugs or letterboxing at the state park, he would always comment on how great it was to be a homeschooler and get to do these things during the day, but come 3:00, he never really considered anything to be "school".
Son #2 has never attended public school. He thinks that "school" is either the time spent at the table working on writing and math etc, about 3 hours 3 days a week or the hours we spend at co-op on Thursday mornings. He doesn't consider any of the other things we do to be "school". They are play, and at six years old, I can see his point. I see things differently this time around too. I do not feel confined by the hours of the school day. I don't kill myself to start at 9am every morning, but on our days at home I try to get him at the table for two hours in the morning, usually from 10-12, because he works best in the morning and enjoys having the afternoons to himself. I, however, see our day as a big picture, finding that we do alot of "school" throughout the day, much like unschoolers do, I suppose. We have great science discussions in the car. My son spends hours on his own creating new games, drawing, designing new "inventions" and doing crafts. He likes to play the math game or the spelling game while we travel. I give him a word or problem and he answers and then he makes one up for me. We spend many nights as a family at the state park or the park down the street from my house. We talk about everything we see. We find wildlife and observe them. We talk about the moon, the trees, the seasons, the animal habits and homes.
Last night we had another of our "famous' family game nights. For three hours we played Apples to Apples, a great game that has you choosing one of your cards that you think mostly closely fits the description of the judges card. You have to be creative because you only have 7 cards and many times the obvious definition of the judges card has nothing to do with what's in your hand. You also have to know the meaning of all the words and phrases on the cards. You really couldn't ask for a better vocabulary and critical thinking activity. Dakota's played this game about 5 times now and I have seen a huge improvement. Last night he was right on, needing little help and doing as well as every adult at the table. We certainly didn't call it "school", but he was certainly learning as much, if not more than any language arts lesson I could throw his way. So we live and we learn, as the saying goes. Don't pigeonhole yourself into only looking at school as those few hours between 9 and 3. Open yourself up to the things you most likely do with your child everyday and see the education in your life. You'll be surprised at how often you are sharing your knowledge with your child and you'll be doubly surprised when you realize how much of his knowledge he is sharing with you!
Son #2 has never attended public school. He thinks that "school" is either the time spent at the table working on writing and math etc, about 3 hours 3 days a week or the hours we spend at co-op on Thursday mornings. He doesn't consider any of the other things we do to be "school". They are play, and at six years old, I can see his point. I see things differently this time around too. I do not feel confined by the hours of the school day. I don't kill myself to start at 9am every morning, but on our days at home I try to get him at the table for two hours in the morning, usually from 10-12, because he works best in the morning and enjoys having the afternoons to himself. I, however, see our day as a big picture, finding that we do alot of "school" throughout the day, much like unschoolers do, I suppose. We have great science discussions in the car. My son spends hours on his own creating new games, drawing, designing new "inventions" and doing crafts. He likes to play the math game or the spelling game while we travel. I give him a word or problem and he answers and then he makes one up for me. We spend many nights as a family at the state park or the park down the street from my house. We talk about everything we see. We find wildlife and observe them. We talk about the moon, the trees, the seasons, the animal habits and homes.
Last night we had another of our "famous' family game nights. For three hours we played Apples to Apples, a great game that has you choosing one of your cards that you think mostly closely fits the description of the judges card. You have to be creative because you only have 7 cards and many times the obvious definition of the judges card has nothing to do with what's in your hand. You also have to know the meaning of all the words and phrases on the cards. You really couldn't ask for a better vocabulary and critical thinking activity. Dakota's played this game about 5 times now and I have seen a huge improvement. Last night he was right on, needing little help and doing as well as every adult at the table. We certainly didn't call it "school", but he was certainly learning as much, if not more than any language arts lesson I could throw his way. So we live and we learn, as the saying goes. Don't pigeonhole yourself into only looking at school as those few hours between 9 and 3. Open yourself up to the things you most likely do with your child everyday and see the education in your life. You'll be surprised at how often you are sharing your knowledge with your child and you'll be doubly surprised when you realize how much of his knowledge he is sharing with you!
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