My son has been learning about American history this year, and every week he has had one sentence to write as copywork and handwriting practice. He has written these sentences in a primary-grade lined book with a section on the top of each page so he can also illustrate it. The idea is that he learns about history and also has a book for reviewing all the things he has learned.
Last week, he lost his notebook.
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On the way home from Grandma’s house last night, where some “bunny” had left candy-filled eggs, a sleepy boy asked, “When we get home, can we search the house to see if the Easter bunny came?”
“No,” I said. “It will be late and I know he didn’t come to our house too.”
“How can you be so sure?” he asked.
(And this is where I decide it’s time to ruin his childhood. Really, Santa I don’t mind, but the whole Easter bunny thing really is silly to me. Bunnies don’t even lay eggs. Why isn’t it the Easter chick? Why do we have to pretend it is any one other than me, going in the other room which he saw me do to put the candy he saw me buy in to hiding places?)
So I answer:
“Because I’m the Easter bunny.”
There was silence for a few seconds. Was he surprised? Was he devastated? Then….
“How do you get to all the houses to leave all those eggs?”
For Easter, I spent some time with my mom and dad. The light was perfect in the music room and I got some adorable pictures of Caroline. These are some of my favorites!
Siblings
Why I don’t get a lot of pictures of both of my kids
Cutie Patootie
Piano Player
Daddy!
Mommy’s Girl
See more Easter pictures on Flickr.
So many friends are on Spring break this week, both homeschoolers and not. We might make it a lighter week, but I plan on keeping on going with our routine. We’ll probably have devotional, music/piano practice, 1 page of math, and a few spelling words and call it a day. Maybe we’ll watch Liberty’s Kids some more tonight.
I’m so afraid that if we do not do our routine of learning, we’ll get out of the habit again. This happened around Thanksgiving. We pretty much lost the groove of school between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Which is okay, I suppose, as Raisin was busy making Christmas presents instead. However, I’d like to keep up the rhythm right now.
A few homeschooling mothers mentioned to me that I should school year-round while it lasts. In other words, as Paul gets older, he will realize that other kids are not in school and resent it if I make him do school work. I don’t know about that, but I guess we’ll see. I try to make school fun enough that he doesn’t resent it at all! I believe he likes to learn.
The other good thing about schooling year-round is that I did not need to worry quite so much when we stopped our formal schedule before Christmas. I knew that we’d make it up at some point. It’s not like Paul is “behind” or anything. We just learn at his own pace.
Once warm spring weather gets here, we head outside to enjoy the sunshine. I posted spring pictures in 2011 and last year. Here are the early spring 2013 pictures!
See more spring pictures at flickr.
When I joined my homeschooling groups last year to begin this wonderful journey, I found that the first questions from other homeschoolers seems to be “what type of homeschooler are you?” They want to know if I follow a Waldorf or Montessori approach, or maybe a classical approach, a unit study approach, or just an all around eclectic approach. A good number of the people in my group also call themselves “unschoolers.”
From my limited experiences, the only thing I could say for sure was that I was not an unschooler. My understanding was that unschoolers were those who did not subscribe to any partiular curriculum and did not force their children to do any kind of school, but rather let them do whatever they want, letting them learn from those interests. I definitely am someone who believes in sitting down and having formal school.
And yet, as the months have now turned in to a year and we’re planning for the next, I’m finding that “unschool” in a broad sense is definitely what I do with my children for the most part. Continue reading
I have a son (Raisin is the name I’ve affectionately given him on my public blogs) who turned 5 last year and a daughter (Strawberry Shortcake) who just turned one. Needless to say, I’ve been concentrating on Raisin in terms of home education this year. But I am thinking I really should not neglect my daughter quite so much.
Strawberry loves books. I know my son did too, but it is so much fun to see my daughter embracing them because, having recently raised my son from infant to toddler to preschooler to kindergartner, I now know, better than ever, that her excitement about a board book is a significant step in learning to read. Continue reading
Posted September 23, 2013
Good Morning, Sunshine!
Caroline’s Birthday Breakfast
Paul and Caroline on her first birthday
Birthday Cake Time!
Wrapping Paper!
When I decided to homeschool this year, it was about this time last year. My baby was newborn and my son was in a local private preschool. He loved it! But every time I picked him up from his 2 1/2 hour class, he’d be tired. He wanted to learn more and I wanted to encourage his interest, but preschool took him away from me at his peak hours. I knew I could do a better job of taping in to his interests if I had him home for those morning hours.
We informally did school on demand during the summer, and then in September we started more formally with kindergarten. Here’s what we’ve been doing. My daily homeschool schedule and our curriculum choices for my gifted 5 year old (plus infant) are pretty enjoyable.
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The title of this post will be my mantra come this time next year. It is what a fellow homeschool parent said in response to my post in a forum saying, essentially, “how do I keep doing this?!” I like it.
It was just an awful week in terms of school. Three different Valentine’s day get-togethers with different friends. More than 50 valentines to color. (I didn’t make him color them all. It just was too much.) And a cranky kid who just wanted to play and whine about every little thing I asked him to do from collecting the laundry to clearing the table, not even to get started on SCHOOL. And the bottom line is we got NO school work done at home all week. Continue reading