Rose and I had lots of fun reading, sewing, painting (only Rose painted today while I sewed) and playing Skip-Bo as a math exercise. She's an eager student. She also helped around the house with unloading the dishwasher, making pizzas for lunch, etc. That's another benefit of homeschooling--time for learning and practicing real-life skills.
Poor Eli was sick on the couch, coughing and still slightly feverish all day. He is doing better, though. He listened to me read the first chapter of The Family Under the Bridge with Rose (which is, predictably, all she could sit for), and he played his Nintendo DS a bit. Speaking of which, we knew he was sick the last couple days when he couldn't even play a video game.
Today felt so relaxing and, really, just natural for us. It's nice to have the kids home again.
Not sure how we're going to fit in all we/I want to do for homeschooling, though, since the kids will only be home in the morning. We may decide to go all day next year just because there's so much we want to learn and do. I am trying to make out a schedule for the rest of this year and realize how busy we are already.
I have been reading up on the Charlotte Mason education information on the web again, on websites like charlottemasoneducation.com and others by googling them. The CM style is one I researched a lot, from the time Eli was a baby and I was first interested in homeschooling. I like the short lessons, which will work very well for Rose whose got the shorter, more active attention span. Her interests are broad and short lessons give lots of time to learn a variety of subjects, like reading, spelling, math, art, music, foreign language, penmanship, etc.
For Elijah the short (15-20) minute lessons will work for subjects he's not particularly interested in and we just need to get through quick. Otherwise, he does best when allowed to fully explore the things he wants to learn about. He'll spend days and days on one thing, like learning magic tricks, or reading about math concepts, or making airplanes, or whatever strikes his fancy. His attention span is amazing! (As long as he wants it to be.) I think with Eli we'll include him in whatever Rose and I are doing that he wants to do, too, but other than that he's the perfect Unschooler and/or Unit Study learner.
On my part I mainly will need to provide him the resources, take him to the library, and let him have the time and freedom to explore his current obsessions. Whatever he does, he does it well and remembers every bit of it. He's a walking encyclopedia! No need to do things like spelling with him; he reads so much and if he's seen the word once, he can spell it. Do you call that photographic memory?
Our homeschooling will be a combination of the Charlotte Mason method, with short lessons, dictaton, narration; Unschooling which I take to mean following the child's natural learning interests rather than imposing subjects on them all the time; Unit study which seems to me a very natural way to learn, since taking a subject I'm interested in and exploring it fully is what I do as an adult all the time; with some Waldorf methods thrown in just because I love Waldorf Education, too. That includes natural toys and lots of playtime, watercolor painting, handwork like knitting and sewing, and an appreciation for the natural unfolding development of the child. We hope to spend more time outside too, but of course with afternoons at school that will be the hard part.
Mainly, as a mom with only two kids to "school", I can really listen to the kids and their needs and ways of learning.
We had a good first day and look forward to more!
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