Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Mother's/Teacher's Instincts

Sometimes you just have to trust your instincts.
Especially as a homeschool teacher. Especially as a homeschool teacher!

On Monday, we had our official first full day of school.
On Tuesday, we were burnt out.
Already?!? After only one day?!?


Well ... yeah. And since it's just me, myself, and I running this school (with hubby's limitless support), it's up to me to analyze why.

Let's see, on Monday we did a full day of schoolwork. We stuck with it and got it all done during the day. We made progress in subjects the schools measure.


Hmmm, maybe I see the problem here. I think my brain was in "public school mode." And the results: burn out.

I changed tactics for Tuesday. I let the kids lead the day. What they ended up doing was "playing" with the Legos all day. These kids are 10 and almost-9. 5th grade and 3rd grade. They did not just "play" with Legos. They CREATED with Legos! If you could only see the things they created! Amazing!

I went with my instincts of just backing off yesterday in order to avoid having us burn out before the first week of school is over, and it paid off. They worked cooperatively, creatively, & created masterpieces (they are not the type to build Lego kits from beginning to end; they just use the pieces from kits because those pieces are more fun and interesting than standard rectangular Legos). They also problem-solved. I can truly see where days like yesterday will benefit them as adults in the workplace. Can you?!?


In the spirit of full disclosure, I must admit that they also did their math and Andrew did his phonics lesson and Annie worked through a bunch of standards-based activities in some great computer software we have.

We didn't do history or science or grammar or writing or spelling ... but my instincts tell me we still did school.

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