Progress Report

Do you ever have days, those fretful, overwhelming days, when you are worried that your kids won't know anything when they leave the house?  I do. When I started to write this post I was just rambling, more for my own sake than to write a real entry.  Now that I have finished it, I am back in my right mind, knowing I have nothing to worry about. I thank the Lord for his leading and for his working in my girls' lives, and in mine.  It is a wonderful thing that He loves each of us, that He is interested in the details of our lives, and that He is working in and through us.

Our schooling is a combination of workbooks, a bit of Charlotte Mason, and some unschooling. (By "unschooling" I mean nothing official or organized, but learning is still happening.) I am finally learning to school outside the box, which has not been easy for me. The box is easiest for me, but it just wasn't working for my students! Some days we do more unschooling than schooling, but it's been a good change, at least for the early years.  Don't your kids get dreadfully bored with the same workbook problems and the same KIND of workbook problems? Mine sure do!  (I think that is what they call "twaddle".)

Carrotlover spent most of a recent afternoon in the dungeon of despair, moaning over her math.  It wasn't anything she couldn't do, she just didn't want to. Why? Because. It was boring!  Not challenging, not fun. She's tired of being drilled over and over again on the same math facts. When she finally finished her laborious busywork assignment, I asked her if she would like to learn something new.  By her reaction, you would have thought I had offered her a hot fudge sundae! YES!!  So I showed her how to multiply two and three-digit factors, and why it works.  She tried one, then another, got them right, and was super duper delighted!  I don't know when her book introduces this skill, but it doesn't matter. So she's ahead, and she's happy, and now she LIKES math again, as long as there is no twaddle. A lot of days I let her skip the busywork and go on to something new. Some days we do twaddle just because -- life is full of things we don't like to do, but we have to do them anyway. Twaddle is just practice for real life: make the bed, sweep the floor,  pay the bills.  It's not fun, it's not challenging, it has to be done.

Alizona is also skipping way ahead into algebra. It's not that I think my kids are so smart.  It's just that there is no point in waiting to move on, as if thirty other kids need to grasp the concept before we can do that.  I have her do the chapter test first.  If she passes with flying colors we go on to the next chapter test.  If she misses some of the problems, I just have her learn or review the concept that she missed. This keeps math fresh and fun for her. (Well, fun after it is mastered.  The learning part can be frustrating! )  Alizona is also eight chapters into memorizing the book of Proverbs.  There is no philosophy or psychology class on earth that can beat that!

Booklover has fallen in love with the old Landmark history books. We bought several of them on eBay, and I am sure she is going to want to collect them all. This is great! I never could find a way for my girls to learn history in a way that was exciting to both of us.  In addition to that, some of you know that Booklover has become a real hand at HTML. She is having a ball designing templates and offering her free consulting services.  Since we aren't planning to go the college route, I am pleased that she is learning computer skills that may develop into income in her future. HTML is not in our curriculum, but it is teaching her order, logic, and cause-and-effect, and at the same time it is allowing her to use her creativity to do something useful.
 
Emily (who recently announced that she would like to be called Muddypuddle) is constantly asking me what words mean. "Mom, what does 'idiom' mean?" "How many is a few?" "What does 'famine' mean?"  I should write down all the questions she asks me in one day!  I read somewhere that the average four year old asks four hundred questions a day.  I believe it!  Yeah, I think I will do that.  Starting tomorrow, the instant Emily wakes up, I will write down every question she asks. Then I will post them.   She is reading Bob Books and other level one easy readers, and she is so happy with herself when she figures out a new word. Once a child learns to read, he can learn about anything he is interested in!

So hey, it's going okay here after all. I'm glad we have escaped the proverbial box.  I just had to show myself.  I am my own worst critic, for sure.