Friday, November 20, 2009

Thinking Outside the Box


Lately it seems I've heard this comment about myself quite a lot. Someone was recently asking what our school year schedule is like. As I tried to explain it, her face looked more and more confused. We school year round. I don't plan breaks, we base our breaks on the weather. When it's nice, we slow down and sometimes even stop. When it's cold, hot, or rainy we get a lot done.

Other than a list of what all books I want us to read in a given school year, I don't have a detailed plan. Sometimes we're halfway through a math book when it's time to start a whole new time period in history. It doesn't all end neatly at the same time. And I don't care!

I have no idea what lesson we'll be doing in math next Thursday. I just know we'll be doing the lesson that comes after what we did the previous day. Same with history and literature. Tomorrow we'll read the next chapter. And so on until we finish all the books.

Now, tell me honestly: are you confused or are you relaxed as I'm explaining our laid-back schedule?



P.S. I'm not a laid-back person. Perhaps that's what is so flabbergasting about the way we school.

9 comments:

Nealy said...

I love the way you school. You take advantage of the simple things and study whatever comes up - isn't that resourceful? I think your P.S. says it all.

Lisa said...

That doesn't seem confusing to me at all. I cannot function with rigid structure and yet I am an extremely organized person who gets a bit beside myself if I don't have "a plan". Before I home schooled, I talked to a particular home school mom who could not give me an answer no matter how simply I asked (what kinds of things do you do? what would you recommend using to teach a child to read? etc - I was clueless back then). That frustrated me and made me feel like they did absolutely nothing when it came to actual school (I was only partially correct on that). The thing is, it's hard to describe sometimes how much your kids are learning if you're not setting up "measurable goals" and achieving them in a methodical fashion - that just doesn't work for many people (including me and my gang).

Anonymous said...

We do it the same way. Makes sense to me! ;)

Laura

Shell said...

Well,.. kinda both. I understand that you aren't rigid in your teaching and go at a pace the paticular child needs to go.

Then, I'm kinda confused. I'm new to this whole homeschooling thing and I have a curriculum set I'm teaching from and I don't know if I like all of it for one of my children. How do you get away with stopping sometimes and not have the child forget what you were teaching them?

I love you shared homeschooling with me and I do like to teach them. Just don't know what all I can do and not do without cutting the kids short. I'm still trying to figure out how to not Public school them at home.

Thanks for sharing.

Ginger said...

Shell, email me. I would love to talk to you about what you mentioned in your 2nd paragraph. :)

Angie said...

That sounds like a great method to me!!!!!!! :)

AngieDawn :)

MommaofMany said...

I'm the same way. It would drive me crazy to stress about being on a certain page on a certain date. How could you ever live life and enjoy being with the kids?? That rigid-schedule school is just a method of corralling and documenting the "learning" of 30 or so kids in one class. 'If we've covered it,they've learned it' so to speak. It's just not applicable to a family-centered school.

Kidcraze said...

That is Exactly how I homeschool!
Makes perfect sense to me :)

Meghann said...

Sounds like us as well! Isn't homeschooling grand?!