In the last couple of days, the girls have pursued the following of their own initiative:
Anne:
Copywork that consisted of the scientific names of a variety of animals, done after perusing the National Geographic Encyclopedia of Animals.
A science notebook
Coloring a picture of an Edouard Manet painting, found in a "Masterpieces" coloring book
Betsy:
Writing her own Penderwicks story
Perfecting her drawings of bunnies
Making sock dolls
Ramona:
Her main talent is making us laugh, of course. Today, she asked me to read "the joke book" again. I wasn't sure what she meant until she got out Famous Poems Old and New and handed it to me. Then I remembered: when I read from it last week, I read a few Ogden Nash poems.
All of them:
Playing Penderwicks
Playing Little Women
Playing Redwall with friends who visited today
There's one common thread that runs through our homeschool, our unschool, and our schizophrenic school: we read. We read together, we read alone, we read all the time. And we talk while we read.
It's an unbeatable combination.
7 comments:
I don't understand something - what do you mean by your "schizophrenic" school?
Helen in California
We're a bit schizoprenic too. For us that is a sporadic mix of structured and unstructured homeschooling. Sort of like un and not un schooling.
Meanwhile we listen to lots of audio books as well as read.
Yes, David, that's it exactly! "A sporadic mix of structured and unstructured homeschooling" is what I mean. Does that help, Helen?
I have an article coming out soon in "Home Education" magazine in which I say "Label Me Schizophrenic" because I don't claim any one label or method. Our homeschool is too much a mix, a place of seasons, highs and lows, intensity and relaxation.
And yes, we love those audio books, too!
Gee Karen,
I think you've caught our method! When my daughter describes homeschooling to her friends it always starts out with "Well Mom would make us cocoa and toast and we'd go to the living room and she'd read to us." There was so much more of course, there were kitchen chemistry experiments, math books, and French tapes, homeschool art class, the Indian hut in the front yard, the family newsletter (all two issues of it!), but at the core we read and read and read.
Of course daughter's friends are incredibly envious. One of them said that homeschooling was like school with all the bad parts left out. Why of course, what did they think we had in mind?
The interesting thing is that even now that they are adults it still goes on. They teach me, I teach them (although not much anymore!), we share new books, movies, websites etc. with each other.
I'm not sure that a canned curriculum would have produced the same result.
And I agree with you about life. To this day everyone gets excited over new baby lambs. You'd think it would be old by now. There have been hundreds of baby lambs in our lives, but the new ones are always a fascination.
Liz
I would love to be in your schizoprenic homeschool. What does your school district think of your methods? That is one of my problems with uschooling. I have to do quite a bit of paperwork to keep the state off my back. They want plans and quarterly progress reports and lists of books read, chapters covered....yada yada yada. It would be hard work to unschool with those requirements. I am attracted to the unschool thinking but need the structure for myself and the dictator who runs our school district.
I love this Karen, especially because my daughters are always looking for kids who will play The Penderwicks, Little Women, and Redwall!!! There aren't too many out there!
Liz, I think we literally "caught your method." As I just posted, you were definitely one of my most influential mentors. :-)
Mary Ellen, we have nothing to do with our local school district. We do have to report to the state once a year, and tell them what curriculum or books we plan to use, how many hours we plan to school, and things like that. But there are no quarterly reports, etc., so that does make it easier. Still, I keep pretty good records -- for myself, for "someday's portfolio", to give ideas to others, to use ideas down the road with my littlest. Well, you get the idea. I think that detailed record-keeping of an unschooled life can look pretty educationally daunting on paper. :-)
And Alice, if you're ever in our neck of the woods, you know where to come for playtime.
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