School friends

Liam has become one of Bens favorite friends. It works out well cause I really like hanging out with his mom, Becky. She home schools too and has taught me a lot about classical home schooling. She's been great about listening to my concerns, offering advice when Ben is driving me crazy and reminding me what is and isn't normal for a five year old.

Ben and I got in a home school rut not too long ago. Partly because I'm a bit paranoid about the whole thing. Our typical routine was reading, calendar review (what is today, how many weeks in a month, year, what date is x amount of days/weeks from today etc), math, which ranged from making pictographs to "buying" things with change to tangrams and writing/copy work. I tried to throw in something fun so we did a lap book each month. We did Curious George, The Giving Tree and holiday related books. Then I started to stress about the state standards and if I was doing enough "real" teaching.

We took a break from the lap books and each week we would go over a different standard the state thinks a kindergartener should know. It quickly became monotonous and frustrating. Ben wasn't having fun and was shutting down. I was annoyed he wasn't participating and it started the day off on the wrong foot.

After stepping back and remembering all the reasons I want to home school, I decided to revise the routine. Right now our routine is reading and what ever comes up next. Last week, we were reviewing continents and Ben asked what was in South America. I said Rio, like the movie Rio. He responded with, "Oh thats in Brazil. Argentina is by Brazil." When I asked him how he knew that he told me he learned it from his Cars (the movie) map. Lightening McQueen has races there. He is learning about South America from a movie! We spent some time looking at a map of South America and the different countries there. Then we listened to a few of Beethovens symphonies. Ben can now tell me some basic Beethoven facts.

My favorite change is a mini co-op Becky and I have started with ourselves. We are discussing science, art, learning french and last week we spent some time talking about nature. We checked out animals, talked about bugs, drew some pictures, read some books and had fun learning with friends. Sam even enjoyed discussing ants and checking out some owls. For a kid that rejects basically all things learning related, it was really cool to have him ask questions. We still make time for math and writing, but we no longer do the same subjects, the same way every day. I'm trying to relate the topics to things Ben likes. He is much more excited and willing to write about a video game than he is a Bible verse--although we still do those too.

While I do expect to have a (tiny) bit more structure for first grade, I have realized Ben often knows more than I think he does, he really is a smart kid when he puts forth the slightest amount of effort, learning can be fun and (school) rules are meant to be reevaluated, bent, adjusted, moved and often broken!