As a homeschooling family, we've pretty much always just gone with the flow. Liam is advanced in his knowledge and Morgaine is still so young that I haven't felt the need to really have any schedule to our learning. Last year we left all the educational books down low and we just went wherever the kids wanted go. Sometimes Rome, sometime Egypt, sometimes on a study of the human body. It worked well for us and it felt like we were going places and doing lots of new, fun and exciting things.
This school year started off with a sick and exhausted Mum. Morning sickness hit in full force and I honestly could only spent and hour or two upright at a time or I'd be ill for the rest of the day. The only thing that was accomplished over a period of 6 to 8 weeks was the occasional worksheet that I would print off for Liam and Morgaine to complete while I rested. When I was feeling better I wanted to get back into homeschooling full force but felt really disorganized (as I hadn't really planned out the school year before the morning sickness hit). The children had also gotten REALLY used to occupying themselves with video games and television so last years "go with the flow" and learn about what the kids want to learn about was just not working. Why pick up a book? All Liam talked about was Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario (or any other various fantasy characters out there) and Morgaine couldn't care less what she watched as long as it was on TV. It was horrible and I had no idea how to get them interesting in learning again. Seriously, I started to question to whole idea of homeschooling and felt very much like perhaps I should just ship them off on a bus.
Slowly we weaned them off of TV and video games and back into some semblance of learning. We started doing the basics of math (with a variety of programs) and English (novel reading/comprehension, penmanship, etc) but that was about it. Because I was certain that we were going to get a science textbook to review I decided not to start a science program (we didn't get one in the end...more about that soon). I didn't have a big plan for history or geography either but we were making some progress.
Then December came and well, holiday preparation and baking and a lot of fun little Christmas worksheets and some Bible study. Nothing regular at all but at that point I wasn't going to force anything figuring that in the new year we'd start fresh and get back on the ball with self-directed learning (with a bit more direction from Mum to make sure that work actually got done).
The kids, however, surprised me yesterday with plans of their own that I will share tomorrow (my hubby needs to computer this evening so this novel of a post will have to wait 'til later). Yesterday was interesting and gave me some insight into how the children want to be taught. It was a good eye opening day that I can't wait to share!
Stay tuned!
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