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February 18, 2008
Un-Weekly Un-Report
Where did the weekly reports go? Well, I got bored.
I still enjoy reading everyone else's reports. I was just bored of mine. In fact, I was bored with our homeschool, in general. Which means, of course, that my students were bored, too. Our days had become full of me making sure boys stayed on-task and completed assignments. The assignments were increasingly never completed anyway, and we were not having any fun.
I'm all about the education; however, I don't see the point in doing this if we don't enjoy what we're doing.
I chatted with a local homeschooling mom last week. We both bemoaned the fact that as homeschoolers, we are supposed to have so much freedom and flexibility, but then we make boxes for ourselves. I've always affirmed that a quality education does not have to take all day, and here I am, taking all day.
Enough, already.
We're continuing with math and Latin, of course! And soon I intend to start Greek. Everything else is up for grabs. I officially no longer care what they do or do not in terms of history, science, whatever. We have some ground rules: computer games and fluffy TV do not come out during the day. I may still assign reading at my discretion (mainly because the boys tend to enjoy my reading assignments, and don't generally see them as "work").
They're probably going to spend the first two weeks painting Warhammer models. However, Connor has requested to learn about physics, so we'll do that. Aidan would like to build a laser ... I'm sanguine about that, but only in the bloody sense. (But hey! We would most definitely have the coolest entry at the homeschool science fair!) Connor is reading "Lord of the Rings," and I am happy to let him spend as much time on that as his little heart desires. Aidan, meanwhile, has decided that "The Hobbit" is just not his cup of tea (whose kid is this??), but has asked me if fairy tales could be counted as "school reading." You bet, kid.
That's for the older two boys. The younger two are still all miiiiiiiiiine. However, their "school" takes a grand total of an hour a day for the nuts and bolts, and Griffin requests books about science and history as his fun reading. Done. Actually, it turns out that Griffin is the Well-Trained Mind dream child. He still can't actually read, but he loves nothing better than to have me read him a book, and then run off to draw a picture for it and copy a sentence from the book to go with the picture. Seriously. That was not my idea.
Anyway, now I hope to remember that I really do have time to take the kids on playdates, and leave the house for fun stuff once in awhile. Or, stay in the house and do, say, ART. Or show my children that they, too, can come up with an idea for a project and actually do it. Or just play games. Whatever. The kids are fine.
Posted by lynx at February 18, 2008 9:35 PM
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Comments
Dang, just when I was thinking "I need to be more like Mamalynx and stop blowing off everything but Latin and math".
Posted by: GailV at February 19, 2008 7:15 AM
We're having the same trouble with schoolwork. The days are spent with the kids messing around, fighting, bickering, complaining & whining. That means I spend the day nagging and reminding them to, "Please just finish your work." At least I can say that we're not missing out on anything because of their dawdling, because of the weather we weren't going anywhere anyway. Maybe that's the problem in the first place - lack of motivation to get finished and move on to the park?
Posted by: Heather at February 19, 2008 7:35 AM
Ah, yes, I have been feeling this way about the weekly reports too. I'm boring myself. And it seems a bit (okay, I'm only going to say this here) well, trite. Like I have to be accountable to someone. Is that wrong? At any rate, that's why I kinda tried to lampoon my weekly reports. And now it's starting to be less a lampoon and more a "have to" and I don't like that. It took only three weeks for me to get that way. Geesh.
Enjoy reading about your week, however. And it's mid winter. And we are all blah. Surely this will be something that will pass. I think.
Posted by: Maria ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.caerdroia.org/116/nav-commenters.gif)
at February 20, 2008 1:18 PM
Welcome to my form of relaxed...whatever.
I call it unschooling, but others would disagree because we are doing a Great Courses Math video.
The rest...we do get a lot done. But it's not what anyone over at the Little Old Schoolhouse would recognize as school.
Posted by: Elisheva Levin at February 20, 2008 3:10 PM