Last weekend we were enjoying a leisurely weekend of letting the kids play in the backyard while we visited with family. Caleb, who loves all things science-related, asked Alan if he could show him how to use the sun’s light and a magnifying glass to make fire. Deep down, I guess we are all like cave-men because every one of us was full of joy to watch this happen. I had never actually seen this done before. The sun was […]
» Read moreIt was an unusual week of home schooling, mostly because Alan insisted I spend a large part of it teaching standardized test-taking skills. I made a go of it, but you can’t teach someone how to have a type-A go-getter personality. Either you have it or you don’t. My second child does not. “Caleb, you missed every single question about this story. You did not read the story. You absolutely did not.” Caleb replied, “Well, it had a picture, so […]
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I feel like I will have an extremely firm grasp on my science plan by the time I finish poring over all these books! One interesting thing about the classical approach to education is that we pull the focus AWAY from good ol’ textbooks and look to real life experience and “living” books instead. (By living books, I just mean books that are not sold as textbooks.) However, I do actually have several ‘textbooks’ that we will reference this school […]
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Home schooling may be one of the greatest challenges I have taken on as a parent. One of my biggest struggles is making learning fun. If the boys spend all day doing seat work, writing, and listening to me teach them, they start to become unmanageable. A house of unmanageable children will wreck your day in a hurry. I figure if it is hard for me to find ways to make it fun, it must be hard for other parents […]
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