Homeschooling Somewhere in Between

Our homeschooling looks like the days in those magazine articles about homeschooling that either bring motivation or cringing.   Or disbelief.

We’ve been in a more laid back phase, though we do make sure we do some math and reading and writing most days.   We’ve been listening to Story of the World and made it to the two chapters on the American Revolution and I decided they needed a bit more.   So, we’re adding to it several of the Jean Fritz’ stories.   Last week we listened to “Can’t You Make Them Behave, King George?” and this week we’re going to listen to the one about Patrick Henry, Paul Revere and Sam Adams.   We’re also listening to Johnny Tremain.

We add a lot of literature connections to our studies, but lately we’ve been springboarding the other direction and launching discoveries from our reading selections.   When we read “Airman” we made diving bells using  jelly jars and a bowl of water.   We did some research on hang gliding, flying machines and paper airplanes.   This month we read “From the Mixed-up Files of Basil E. Frankweiler” for our Newberry book club and as part of that Jordan and Alex created maps of their idea of the perfect musuem to hide out in for a week.   And, for the first time ever Alex has shown interest in going to the art museum.  We’re doing that this week, before the inspiration fades.    They were interested in Michaelangelo and so we looked at some books with his works and that led to some talk about carving marble (vs the pottery craft in “A Single Shard” and we also talked about fresco painting.  I think this week we’re going to try painting upside down pictures by taping large paper pieces to the bottom of the table and I have some plaster of paris lying around so I think we’re going to do an attempt at fresco painting.

What I’ve been enjoying most is the conversations we’ve been having about our books.  Deeper discussions than who did what, when and where.   We talked about the feelings behind wanting to run away and why you’d want to reinvent yourself (Mixed Up Files).  We’ve talked about pride and humility (Johnny Tremain).   We’ve talked about there being two sides to every story (British loyalists vs.  American Patriots).

I’m seeing so much growth and maturity in Alex.  Of course, as with most wild little critters, it is two steps forward and one step back.   At a Magic Tree House book club meeting Alex and his fellow wild buddy actually pulled out a chess board and played quietly for a bit.  I had to snap a picture so I could pretend our homeschooling days are full of things like this.

Because Alex is in general a negative first responder, it has been hard to offer up projects as something that sounds like fun (unless it is weapon building of course).  But, we’ve been studying a bit of chemistry and now they are both all excited to make our acid base indicator and start testing acids and bases.

And we’ve been fostering more pups.  But now, according to the shelter, I am a foster flunkie.   Jordan shows so much responsibility and dedication to the foster animals.  And she has been saving money from allowance, her business ventures, and birthdays.   And we fostered the most adorable little puggles.    So, when the time came to take them back to the shelter to go to the adoption area, we said this one is staying with us.   She shelled out her own money for the adoption fee, a crate, leash, collar, microchip and yes, a sweater.     The number of critters living in our home is starting to alarm my hubby, who is less than an animal lover, but he thought it ill advised to take a “its them or me” stance.

How could we resist???

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