Sunday, January 30, 2011

Homeschooling 101

Homeschooling (for us) is such a transient journey. I used to rely on a "curriculum" with worksheets and workbooks. And when any of the kids did not want to do something, I would get frustrated.

I also noticed that when they were interested in something, they could do it for an hour or more, completely engrossed.

And so we have begun leaning toward the child directed, Montessori prepared environment approach where we make every opportunity a learning opportunity and move in the direction that the kids are interested in.

It has worked amazingly.

My big guy is very interested in the Jewish kings and so we have started learning about the Kings of Israel, starting with King Shaul (from The Family Midrash- Kings 1). He finds this so fascinating, we can read about it for hours. He's 5.

We also have a garden that the kids enjoy working on. Here are some photos of some of the things we have:

wild rasberries
our avocado tree
parsley
basil
broccoli
We also have carrots, cabbage, zucchini, lettuce and beets. Its great for them to pick it, wash it, prepare it and eat it.

Here's a little chart we have that we update every morning. On the bottom is a moon chart, we mark off what the moon looks like during each phase:
Here's to a great week!

2 comments:

  1. we're definitely learning about how to follow along with our children to avoid the fight. The moon phases chart is great! I recently saw someone make an embroidery very similar--this is something I know our girls would love.

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