Aug. 26, 2008 - Feeling Guilty Tuesday
Well, our local PS has been back in session for 2 days now. And, even though we don't technically start until 9/2, I am already feeling guilty.
Yesterday we met a local homeschooling group for lunch and bowling to celebrate "Not back to school day." The girls had fun, and so did I. We also worked on our Webkinz unit study and lapbooks, and read.
Today we worked on our lapbooks a bit, and pretty much vegged out because it rained all day. Thus, the guilt.
Katie was on the phone with one of her PS friends this afternoon, and she said she had fun while her friend said she was bored at PS. Katie told them we went to lunch and bowling, and had been working on lapbooks and reading.
Okay, so why the guilt? I suppose I feel like we should be doing SOMETHING, anything, that resembles school. I mean, how do you tell if they are learning anything if you don't have a paper to prove you studied it?
Well, John did ask the girls their bowling scores last night at the dinner table. Then he asked Katie to figure out her average per frame. Can we count that as math????
I have read all the books, and know that Katie is going to have to decompress from PS, but what about me? Where's my PTA card???? Where's the sign up sheet to volunteer as room mom? Oh, yeah, I already AM the room mom.
Comments
Aug. 26, 2008 - Untitled Comment
Posted by tiarali79
RELAX! When I had just started investigating homeschooling, I got enrolment packages from all the christian schools of distance education in my state (I hadn't yet come up with the courage to do it alone).
One of them had an interesting statistic; in the average school day, a student spends about 40 minutes learning things. The rest of their time is spent lining up, waiting for the teacher to explain something, having recess, getting distracted, not understanding something the teacher has said, having finished their work but needing to wait until the rest of the class finishes before they move on, doing meaningless busywork, learning subjects to do with political correctness and humanism rather than academics, etc., etc.
Now, all the time that you do homeschool this year, your child will be learning, because they will be learning at their own pace, with individual teacher's attention, and without all the distractions of the classroom - and busywork! Therefore, you can do less 'school' in a year and get more done.
This time with your daughter is precious. Enjoy it, and don't feel guilty! And yes, any time maths comes up in your day, draw attention to it. Why let her continue to think that math is just an abstract concept with no relevance to the real world? When you go grocery shopping, have her estimate your total, and see which of you is closest when you go through the checkout. Try and calculate the change you'll receive for your purchases before the register does (great way to make sure you're not being ripped off too). Play board games during the day; they're practicing reading, logic, and maths (if there is money involved).
And when YOU have decided it is the right time to start your school, then start.
