That Homeschool Chick: Learning Is For Life

It turns out the home-schooling part of my stay here at mom and Dad's has been easier than I thought. You know, I'm grateful for any break I can get! There are six kids (not counting the baby) to be taught and my eyeballs spin in my head after going from 'One, two, buckle my shoe...' to Algebra in 2.5 seconds or less. But to be frank, we have not been too structured since I've been here. We have been learning, though.

Even if some of us would rather be sleeping! My favorite part is when we all gather together for 'Circle Time' - usually in the morning. We say The Pledge, sing, and read from the Bible and the Book of Virtues. This time reminds me of the days when I was being home-schooled. It has a one-room-school feel and yet is more relaxed somehow. It might be because I don't go around slapping hands with rulers - most of the time. This is where we have had great discussions ranging from the deeply moral, "Is it still lying if you say you are kidding afterward?" to the mathematical, "How many seconds ago was Christ walking on the Earth?" and the grammatical, "Why 'built' instead of 'builded'?"

This is also where I have discovered a few holes in their curriculum, "What exactly is Where the Wildthings Are, anyway?"

 We have studied some basics:

 

Writing - Letters to some of our dear ministry workers

 

Health - No battery-powered babies here! 

Science - Experiment: How long does it take to burn garlic bread? Hypothesis: Not very long! 

Home EC. - Cracker, cheese, cocoa soup. The recipe did not get a passing grade. Although, the 'C' letter theme and the toxicity level of this brew bolstered their English and Chemistry marks. Note: Too bad there was no janitor to clean up the mess!

Art - This is everybody's favorite subject. It turns out I can get them to study about anything if I say they can draw a picture about it later. Tuck that away in your parental grab-bag.

Kit-Kat is even writing and illustrating her own book. But since 'Man cannot learn on art alone' - I could argue that but I'll leave it for another post - we have also enjoyed a full schedule of elective subjects this week.

  Architecture: The Megaduplic Period

Art history: The Icecreamtionist Era

Meteorology: Tornadoes

Photography: The Portrait 

Acting for Beginners- Lesson 896 - Facial Expressions: Can you look like Maurice Sendak's Wildthings?

Complex Physics - We discovered a universal law!

***

These kids are very normal children. I have seen many of the things you would see in a public school setting.

 

The class clown

More interest in socializing in the lunch room than in their classes.

And the perfectionist/overachiever who even labels her trash!

I should probably get back to my lesson planning. Tomorrow's schedule is still up in the air. It's a toss-up between...

A problem solving excercise - I Spy: Lan-the-Man's Bedroom Floor Edition and History: via a round of Pirate's of the Caribbean LIFE or it could be French day... "Okay, children, I'd like you all to open your notebooks and write the secret to French cooking. It's one word, BUTTER. You will all receive extra credit for speaking in a French accent for the entire day and now we will all go eat French fries, French Dip, French toast and French Vanilla while discussing Napoleon Dynamite Bonaparte."