Homeschooling Somewhere in Between

This week we haven’t really done anything structured and I decided to just jot down what my kids do to occupy their time.

Monday they spent a lot of time divvying up and trading a batch of Magic, The Gathering cards handed down to them from my little brother.   They also had gymnastics.  Jordan worked some on a reader’s theater adaptation of the Frog Princess that she has been working on.   Jordan rode to a friend’s house in the evening and her friend taught her to knit and finger knit.

Tuesday was pretty much taken up by their homeschool academy program, but we went swimming afterwards and Alex had soccer.

Wednesday has been more laid back.   Jordan has been practicing a lot on finger knitting.  While playing outside we found an interesting looking caterpillar.  She got on to my favorite bug site–What’sThatBug and determined it was a Hickory Tussock Moth.  He is currently residing in our critter keeper and she is hoping he’ll form a caccoon and overwinter there.    Alex and I played an electricity circuit card game and then he got out the macroscope and we worked at fixing the light (the connection was loose).   Then they started gathering treasures from the backyard to look at.   Alex had watched a Bill Nye episode that discussed money counterfeiting so we then looked at some bills under the scope.  Then off to gymnastics again.

Thursday… Jordan has been reading the Poppy series (by Avi) to me and she read to me in the car after dropping Aubrey off at the community college.  Then she did some math challenges on Matheletics and was excited that her ranking on her current level has been upgraded to “speed demon”.     Alex and I worked on an electricity kit and made an electromagnet and a telegraph.  Next up, a buzzer and a bell, but something wasn’t working and we decided we needed a break before doing some troubleshooting.     Jordan spent quite a bit of time working quietly in her room on a puzzle and Alex did his normal legos with an audiobook (The Thief Lord).     He also did some science activity modules on electricity on our adaptive curriculum subscription.

I find it harder to keep track of what Aubrey is doing with her time, but I know she did do some work on her online classes and spent all day Tues/Thurs on campus for her two community college classes.   She’s shown me some new artwork, and I know she is working on some stories.

We finished out the week going to a friend’s house to play awhile and they chased after snakes and frogs around their pond.    Alex spent a lot of time last night and today creating airplanes and spaceships with his aircraft designer workshop.   Jordan went to a pre-teen ice cream social while Alex had soccer.  Tomorrow all of the kids are excited about going to a Japanese culture festival–one for the anime, one for the samurai displays and one for the food.      I bet it wouldn’t be hard to guess which is which!

Looking back it seems like we did so much, but I’m wondering how much I would have remembered if I hadn’t made a concious effort to write down what they were doing.

Alex saw a picture of “that one dude” and said, “You know, Albert Frankenstein.  The one with the time machine.”

Endless supply of material, I tell ya.

You know the theory of TJ ed that says your teen will spend hours and hours and hours studying?     Mine is doing lots and lots of digital art.     That would be her form of studying. On top of her two formal art classes (one on drawing and one on computer animation), any waking moment not consumed by something else is spent creating digital art.   Here are a couple of tutorials she created recently.  I like how she broke the process down and how the pictures evolve.   And yes, I did point out some spelling and grammatical issues, but I’m calling that “style”, lol.

Jordan and Alex started a one day a week “homeschool enrichment program” where they will get to experience standing in lines, eating in a cafeteria, large groups of unruly and loud children being managed by an outnumbered teacher…. Oh, and Spanish, Science, Music, Art, Science and Computers.  They were excited enough to lay out their clothes and pack their lunch the night before and they even got up on time!  Wonder how long that will last.