3.15.2008

education

I have been thinking a lot about education, school, homeschool, public/private school, and learning more about the concept unschooling. I have a friend who home/unschools her kiddos for the time being (she is not yet sure what her long term plan is) She blogs about their life and their school, breaking up the 'report' about every two months. Here is (pretty much) her list for what her 6 and 5 year old are doing for January/February.

I am in awe of what she does with her kids. I wish I could be that disciplined. After reading this list I really feel like I need to get my REAR in GEAR (as we say).

Sledding: backyard, friends’ houses, large hills
Design and sew felt flower
Learning Cards :sequence, assembling words, rhyming, pattern, sight words
Read out loud: Little Bear, Green Eggs & Ham, Go Dog Go, Foot Book Hop on Pop, Race Cars
Watch women’s and men’s college hockey games
Make bead necklaces
Cut vegetables for dinner 3 times
Ice skating: back deck, college ice rink, outdoor town rink, frozen lake
Play Flower Power and Animal Rummy card games
Bake cakes, frosting, waffles, & pancakes
Listen to 50+ story books
Drawing, cutting, coloring
Sort laundry (colors)
See a show of the Peking Acrobats
Workbooks pages
Puzzles: 30-300 pieces
Listen to Charlotte’s Web & Where the Sidewalk Ends
Visit a sheep farm to get wool; see sheep, chickens, and a guard llama
Build with legos, Duplo, wooden blocks, wooden train set, & couch cushions
Verbal subtraction: 0 through 5
Color animal masks
First lost tooth and letter to tooth fairy
Cross country skiing
Ballet: 1 class & 3 sessions of home instruction
Make and play with playdough
Talk about seatbelts, car safety, & car accidents
Visit the science center
Pretend waiter and restaurant
Talk about the mechanics of baby-making & look at the book:
It’s So Amazing!: A Book About Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families
Dance/
Diabolo yo-yo/song/music/dress-up show, with ‘food’, seats, & costumes
Kids’ Yoga DVD
Talk about vowels, and vowel and consonant sounds
Talk about animal shelters
Shovel snow
Write a poem with invented spelling

Build snow people
Write numbers 1-100
Create and play own ‘pin the tail on the donkey’ game
Talk about what ‘food’ is to your body, including how it is used and what happens after you eat
Write and illustrate 3 letters to grandparents
Work on sign language finger alphabet
Talk about college, including dorms and medical school
Talk about college majors, and what jobs/careers do and do not usually require a college degree
Talk about sleepover camp
Get a library card
Town Figure Skating show, with skaters ages 4-22
Count out loud from 1- 109

Talk about Muslim head scarves, and full cover
Write full alphabet, capital and lower case letters
Make recycled block crayons
Talk about day & night, earth spinning on its axis and circling the moon, & the illusion of the sun ‘rising’ and ‘setting’

2 comments:

Unknown said...

We've always tried to be objective about the best opportunities for the children, comparing all the schools available--including our own home as one of them. This year was a bit of a shock when our home ranked first. It's been such a pleasure to school Aidan. It's given me much more confidence in our ability to provide an excellent education at home (or abroad, or whatever our location status may be). But it is a sacrifice and I make a terrible martyr. Like the public school system, this system's success relies upon the teacher having a natural, as opposed to learned talent. A gift for schooling. Count me among the hundreds of thousands of teachers in this country that burn out quickly. We'll be schooling him part-time next year and letting a 'school' do the rest.

Jen said...

I'm glad that list inspires you to get your rear in gear. It inspires me to curl up in a ball and rock back and forth. Then, when I finally get up, I get my kids dressed and send them off to school. I could never be a teacher!