Summer Schooling
I do not home school. In the summer I do summer school for my kids. It is simple and I think will give them an edge in school. (We’ll see since this is an experiment. My oldest is going into 1st grade.) Well, on Mondays I meet with a friend who has children about the same ages as my boys. We start with a Primary Children’s Song, then a prayer and a scripture. Then we are introduced to a theme of the week. Last week it was Flags (Flag Day) and Fathers. Then we learn a Spanish Word of the Day. After that we break up into groups and each mom reads a different part of a chapter book. After that the older kids do workbooks while the three year olds have a fun little pre-school lesson. Then the kids get to play board games or something fun.
On the other days, after lunch and after I put my 1yo down, my kids and I have a prayer and then we do workbooks. After workbooks I read a chapter book to them. Then they go to quiet time. During their quiet time (3yo sleeps and 6 yo plays alone) I tidy the house, read scriptures and get a few minutes of computer time.
Today I was supposed to work with my friend on our school, but her son wasn’t feeling well. Instead another friend and I took our kids to a supper fun park close by that has water squirting from the ground, a small wading pool, a bear cave, and a lighthouse and a maze to play in. It was so fun. We will do school with our friends tomorrow.
I have been working on saying, “Oh well.” This kind of makes me laugh because when I was in 8th grade my friends and I decided to skip school and hang out. Our favorite saying to ease our troubled consciences was, “Oh well.” I know for a fact that works well. In my situation right now it means, “I don’t like this, but I’m going to accept it and move on.” Back then it also helped me to not dwell on something and it meant, “I shouldn’t be doing this and I know that, but I pushed it to the back of my mind and moved on.” It just makes me smile to remember our saying and our little rebellious streak.
Today also focused on No Choice. It seemed to work well and I didn’t struggle much at all. I’m quite sure that was because it is the first day back on the horse, but I will definitely try again today. It also helped that 1yo slept his normal nap length. Lately he has been taking short naps and being clingy and grumpy so I wasn’t as tired as today mentally and I got a lot done.
4 comments:
Your work with you kids is inspirational! Keep recharging your own batteries every day, too. For me, it is easier to 'get back on the horse' if my batteries are charged...not with 'should' things, but with things I truly enjoy. I have fallen off the horse in the past couple of days... but today is my first day back,too...and I weigh in tomorrow... oh, dear... actually... I guess it's 'oh, well' Good luck getting rest with kids that are 1, 3, and 6 (this, too, will pass...all to quickly).
Emily
All I can say is I try. Some days a win and lots of days I lose and other days I'm not quite sure what happened.
Today I'm looking at my schedule and trying to devote more time to diet and by doing that I will be devoting more time to filling my bucket.
We do something similar, just to have something to keep us busy during the summer which seems to drag on when its too hot to play outside.
We sing a weekly primary song at night after scriptures, and every morning we do a 30 minute clean up of the house. Then DS practices his piano or I give him a piano lesson depending on the day, we read stories out loud, play on www.starfall.com for ABC practice and phonemic awareness, and work on a art or craft project. Most days we also look up something dinosaur related for science. My son has several workbooks, but he does those for fun, not as part of our daily routine.
Its not overly formal, but we try to do these things every day. I don't know if it will help them in school or not, but when I read homeschool blogs I always think-can't we combine the best of both worlds-learning & fun projects with the kids, plus the consistency and social involvement of public school...
I'm glad I'm not alone!
That sounds like a great plan Jen. I too have looked at the pros and cons of homeschooling vs. public school. There are strong feelings on both sides of the fence. I feel that if we all are trying to teach our children to be better people and contrubute to society then the world will be better for that and it won't matter if they went to homeschool or public. Each family has different personalities and circumstances and they need to choose what works best for them. I guess for you and I we choose both. :)
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