Metamorphosis Part 3: How we are doing school now...

As I look back at this week and the last several weeks I see a progression of how we are "doing school". I shared in my last 2 posts about how my homeschooling philosophy is developing.

This past summer I printed out our local school districts curriculum targets for K. (Dad is not yet committed to this homeschooling thing) I read reviews and carefully chose curriculum. Holly had asked to "do school" 2 to 3 days a week in the summer so we even started some of our books.

When we started kindergarten in the fall Holly immediately became resistant to handwriting. She had taught herself to write capitals but she didn't want anything to do with lower case. She also balked at phonics. Although she was more compliant when I replaced the boring primer with some garage sale workbooks. But she loved math. She did math with delight. She was half way through 1st grade math by December.

In January she suddenly became interested in handwriting. She pulled out a handwriting book I had set aside and worked through all the lowercase letters in a couple weeks. At this time she disliked doing any math in her workbook and she whined about doing phonics workbooks as well.

At the end of February she was officially 5 1/2 years old. I started to look at the big picture. She had met most of the K targets already. Although she isn't a fluent reader, her handwriting and math skills are well into later 1st grade level. But she often resisted school time. She made the most progress when it was her choice. So I decided to experiment.

I haven't been making her work in specific curriculum for school. I have read the curriculum so I know in my head some of the things she needs to progress. For example, in math she is learning place value and adding and subtracting 2 and 1 digit numbers. I have been delighted to see how often this actually comes up in real life, if I pay attention. I try to make sure we do some reading, writing, and math every day. This is not a problem. Reading and writing and math come up naturally every day, even Sunday.

Yesterday I had to work and we had a dentist appointment. I was not thinking about school. But I discovered lots of learning went on.





The girls were running out of their special toothpaste. So Holly took it upon herself to write it on my grocery list (whiteboard on the fridge). She copied the brand name, Toms, and told me she wrote "toothpaste". We had a fun little lesson in how to spell toothpaste. Diagraphs, long vowels, and compound words just happen to be things she is working on.

At the dentist office we counted our teeth, adding the top and bottom teeth together.

That evening I decided to pull up Starfall, an internet phonics program. I am realizing that Heather has a lot of reading skills. They both played with this for a while.

Holly decided to bake cookies. I was brave and let her do as much of it herself as possible. She cracked her egg perfectly. I dug out the recipe (I have it memorized). She practiced reading, and learned about fractions and measurement. She did 90% of the work and they turned out great!

So learning happens all the time. But I do have to be aware to truly capitalize on those opportunities.

Coming soon...thoughts on relaxed homeschooling and unschooling

Linked to Homegrown Learners Collage Friday