Adventures and Home Schooling

Welcome back! It is time for another installment for our home school blog!  I have some great things to share with you, and I am excited for our upcoming home school adventures.

We are coming into the spring session, and while we have been plodding away at our work, there are times that I feel as though we are not really learning anything. That can get super frustrating, and make you question everything that you are doing as a parent/teacher. I was talking to another home school mom about a few things that we are going through, what we are doing, and what is and is not working. There are days I want to sit here and pull my hair out – in large handfuls. We all go through these moments, but we learn and move forward. Being able to relate to someone else that has been there (or is there) is a huge help!

As we begin to look ahead, there are some major changes coming to the way we school, and the way we are learning. I talked last month about un-schooling, and the benefits that go with that. While that is working for us, a new challenge popped up – namely, my kids wanting to play all day and not get anything accomplished. Now, let me share a couple tid-bits of info with you. I did some online searching and found a company that does FREE science based web shows. You can sign up, and they send you all sorts of information. There is also free downloads online that you can pull for just about anything you are wanting to study. Science is not my favorite subject, so finding these podcasts was a very welcome relief for me. We sat back and watched one that was all about marine life. Getting more information on whales, fish and the eco-system within the ocean was just as informative for me as it was the kids. They were hooked! We are going to be signing up for more of these shows! They have everything from DNA, to butterfly evolution, and so much more.

I still love the library for most of what we need, and most of the time you can grab kits from them that have experiments you can perform at home. Search as well for books on science experiments that you can do in your kitchen, there are several, and they are all great! Schooling at home does not have to expensive, and it does not have to be one worksheet after another. Kids all learn differently, and some kids are more hands on than others. Adapting each lesson to the type of learning style your child needs is amazing! I still use worksheets, but I love the hands on. My kids are learning to write, read, and decipher what texts mean, pulling important information out – but retaining what they need to know.

For those of you who feel like giving up – DON’T! We all have the trying days, but in the future, we are going to miss them (okay, far into the future, but still). We only have our kids for a very short time, and I love (almost) every moment that I get to spend with mine. Do not despair, summer is quickly approaching!