Wednesday, October 7, 2009

School at Home?

I haven't been posting as regularly because I think things have been going smoothly and we really have just been doing the same things as usual, with one exception. For the first few weeks, we tried to approach our "schooling" at home as just that, school. We have a room set aside for school with bookcases full of books, school supplies, maps, reference books, etc. We would begin our day with the regular things that you would find going on in a public school like the pledge, calendar, weather, etc. We also added singing, prayer, and then moved onto our subjects. Everything ran smoothly and went as planned except when we had something like library, field trip, or other things that just seemed to throw us off.



So I decided to take the approach of home educating instead. We still get all of the things done that we did before, but it is in a much more relaxed way. C9 and C8 can now get there binder work and reading done wherever they like whether that is downstairs in the "school" room or upstairs at the dining table or on the couch. They say they like it better this way because they don't feel as much pressure that it is a "school" thing, just that they are learning. They also said they don't get as distracted this way. I also think, that it feels more like a way of life and that is exactly how I think it should be. We'll see how this goes, but so far so good! How do some of you go about your "school" at home?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

When we first started homeschooling I tried the "school classroom approach." Then I realized that somedays we do better in other places. Sometimes the kitchen table, the bedroom floor, outside on the patio and sometimes we end up back in the "school room." Whatever works for you is what you do as a homeschooler. JN

Summers Family Blog said...

I found the same thing with my school at home-er. He likes to do any and all reading in his "cave". (the cave vairies, but is a snug comfy place) and will often read way past his assignment. On nice days we work out on the deck. What a life!