How To Tuesday
>> Tuesday, December 29, 2009
This week's topic:
How To Suck the Joy Out of Learning
These are the conversations that have been happening around here lately:
Peyton: Mom, can I spend some time working on the story I've been writing?
Me: You can work on that on your own time. We've got school to do right now.
Luke: I'd really like to read more about WWI and WWII.
Me: Well, we're not there yet. We'll be studying the Civil War soon. How about that?
?????????????????
It seems that my carefully laid plans of homeschooling haven't taken into account the fact that I am teaching actual people. People with interests and personalities, strengths and weaknesses. People with preferences and insight, and even wisdom!
Our blunders mostly come from letting our wishes interpret our duties. ~Author Unknown
It's fortunate that they still enjoy learning. It's unfortunate that they still enjoy learning in spite of me rather than because of me.
So I've taken a step back and looked long and hard what we are doing and how we can make this whole homeschooling thing make sense for us.
What Bud and I have determined is that these kids have got to know math and be able to communicate the spoken and written word in a somewhat intelligent fashion. After that, everything else is pretty much gravy, as long as they learn and grow. Who am I to say what exactly that looks like? Why is the Civil War so much more important than WWII right now? Why is filling in a grammar book more important than writing a story in which the use of grammar is necessary? I cannot answer those questions.
So, because I know homeschoolers, and I know homeschoolers like to know the names of the curricula, the schedule of the learning, and all manner of detail, I'm going to share what I know so far about how we are going to change things up.
Each day from 1:00 to 3:30 (roughly Romy's naptime) we will be doing our sit down, hardcore schooling as follows:
Luke, 11 yrs old
Math - MUS Zeta and Life of Fred Decimals and Percents (about 40 minutes)
Grammar - Analytical Grammar OR Writing - Classical Writing Homer (about 40 minutes)
Spelling - Megawords (10 minutes)
Latin - First Form Latin (20 minutes)
Discussion - Discussion on a topic of my choosing (history, current events, science, etc.) (30 minutes)
Peyton, 9 yrs old
Math - MUS Delta (40 minutes)
Writing - Classical Writing Aesop (40 minutes)
Spelling - Megawords (10 minutes)
Latin - 20 minutes of review
Discussion - As described above (30 minutes)
The rest of our education will be achieved through unschooling.
Don't judge me.
Goodness, that was hard for me to type. But now it's out there and you all know about it. A weight has been lifted from my shoulders.
More about this whole unschooling thing right here.
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9 comments:
Good for you! We unschooled pretty much everything except math until Luke was in the 7th grade and Cassie in 5th and we joined a homeschool co-op. Then we added Latin to our formal sit down together time and each year we did one other class together (geography, logic, I forget what else.) They both did high school science through the co-op and another two classes each, each year.
Sometimes I regretted doing anything other than science (which I would not have taught on my own!) through the co-op because it was too much like "school" and as you said, sucked the joy right out.
Are you using Memoria Press's First Form Latin? That looks wonderful. I'm sorry it wasn't around when we were studying Latin.
I am enjoying your new format and hearing from you again.
Blessings,
Sandy
It sounds divine. I might be a wee bit jealous.
Oh Sandy it is so nice to hear those words from you! Your children are doing so well out "in the world" so I love reading about them and knowing it can be done well.
Yes, we're using First Form Latin and really enjoy it. It's far better than Latina Christiana in my opinion.
Daisy, thanks for coming around. Yours is oen of those blogs I hit and miss. I've added you to my google reader so I won't miss any more.
Hi Amy!
You know best what's best for your family.
Love ya!
Donna
I love it!! This is very much our philosophy for homeschooling. Thank you for letting me know that there is someone else out there with similar thoughts. Very encouraging!
Donna, always the encourager!
Mimi, I'm glad that you were encouraged and I'm even more glad to know you're out there and thinking the same things. It always helps, doesn't it?
Sounds great! We each need to do what works best for us, in different times of our lives. :-)
Kim
www.homestead-acres.com/blog
I am chiming in late. Just getting all caught up since finding your blog.
I love your plan. Mine are little right now, but getting a second chance at homeschooling with the little ones. I plan to do must the same thing. We will make sure and cover the essentials, Reading, wRiting-language and aRithematic.
Leaving tons of time to explore other subjects freely. I will use the 4 year rotation of WTM, but won't dictate that it must be learned chronologically. That is what timelines are for IMO.
Chasing those interests and rabbit trials are awesome.
Thanks for educating me a little more on the benefits of unschooling. One of the joys of homeschooling is being able to custom fit our methods to our students.
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