why are my epiphanies cloudy?

I feel as though I am on the brink of an epiphany but I can’t quite see it… All I know is that its related to the attitude in which we approach homeschooling around my house…..but I can’t quite make it out. Something about feeling as though we have to do something versus doing something because we want to, and how that relates to school - and my slackerish nature. Because if we go into a day feeling as though we have to get one math lesson done, one history lesson done, one grammar lesson done, etc., and when we don’t get them done (as is almost always the case) then we are that many lessons behind - and soon, that many years behind - and how when we sit down for a lesson, we are just trying to get to the end so that we can get to the next lesson and be done and how that attitude is certainly playing a role in our feelings towards school.

Must.Figure.This.Out.

Interesting article/study

Apparently students educated at home by moms that are dropouts/uneducated/socially disadvantaged fare better than students educated in public schools.

Interesting, no?

flickr sidebar

Ok, I figured out the flickr sidebar issues. I couldn’t understand why it didn’t update every time, well now I see that its updated with Gina’s new pictures, so now it clicks. I only updates when Gina adds pictures to the slacker school flick group and not when I do! How very odd. Guess Flickr doesn’t love me as much as I love it….

Thomas Jefferson Education

I truly am an eclectic homeschooler. I love Charlotte Mason, I wish I had been educated with a Classical method, and Unschooling really speaks to me. I try to incorporate all of these - so is it any wonder why I keep finding myself drawn to the Thomas Jefferson Education methods? It really takes the best of all of these approaches and combines it into a single philosophy. I just keep coming back to it time and time again.

I belong to several email lists. I belong to some CM lists, I belong to some unschooling lists, and I belong to some TJE lists - but I always get the most from the TJE lists. I have several homeschooling books. Ok, you caught me, more than several. I probably have 40-60 homeschooling books, but why do I keep rereading the TJE books (of which I have several and just ordered another)

Its just a very unschooly approach to a classical education.

Man, I hate labels. Why do we all feel the need to divide ourselves into groups and label ourselves? That said, I really do gravitate towards the theory of TJE most of all and perhaps I should just immerse myself into this label, philosophy, methodology, whatever.

Lydia’s Name

Lydia’s Name

Originally uploaded by deannajo

Lydia wrapped this present for a friend of Allison, and then created this tag by writing her "name" on a piece of paper. She did this all by herself and was very proud of it. So was I. I love seeing the prewriting stuff coming out in my kids. She really has a good grasp of some fundamental print concepts! Left to right, all the letters in a line, and most of those marks are actual letters. And she has received no instruction at all, this is just natural print development in action folks. Isn’t it cute???

Spring Break

Ironically, we got back to schooling during our local Spring Break this week. Of course I really couldn’t care less about when Spring Break falls except that we get to hang with our school-homies a bit.

Miche and I took the kids to the reservoir this afternoon for a little park time and picnic.

Rhys’s very favorite food in the whole, wide world is barbecue potato chips. Don’t ask me how that happened.

N in action.

Rhys contemplates the slide.

Miche and J getting ready for some slide action. (This is the baby featured on my birth blog banner, by the way.)

Quinn has a rare quiet moment.

Liam looking dashing (do not ask about the ensemble today–yikes).

Looks like it’s time for me to put the knitting down and put the running shoes on (okay, it’s partly just an unflattering angle, but yeah, really need to get back in the groove).

Next week’s plan…

While my “beastly rash of work” ended a couple of days before Deanna’s, I had two births in 12 hours and am in the midst of their subsequent postpartum visits this week. That being said, I am feeling motivated to do something school-wise this week.

As much as I like to get organized once in awhile, I do think I need to be authentic and admit the fact that we are really, really relaxed homeschoolers. Are we unschoolers? Not really. I want to be. It would alleviate some guilt I think. But I still feel I ought to be directing the children’s learning to some extent. That being said, I really do think that they learn best in real-life situations and when they are motivated to do so.

We own a rental house and it’s mid-turnover right now. My husband and father-in-law have been working hard to get it fixed up for the next renters, and I have been busy with births, so the boys have been accompanying them while they’ve been working. So, that will be the bulk of what they do tomorrow and Wednesday. But they have been learning and helping, and have formed some definite opinions about responsibility (i.e., what the renters’ responsibilities to us should have entailed for example).

I plan to get back into the saddle with our read-alouds that fell by the wayside: Farmer Boy and Pippi Goes Aboard. I am going to try to supervise both boys on Time4Learning so that I can be assured they’re at least finishing the activities they start. I want to get back into a phonics/math/copywork routine with Liam and math/spelling/writing routine with Quinn. Then they can supplement online. Quinn has started Redwall and I am hopeful he’ll get swept away in the story soon (he’s slow to warm up to new books). They also have their piano recital in a couple weeks, so they’re putting the polish on their pieces. I really want to round up Rosetta Stone Spanish to add to our computer-driven curricula as well.

As for me, I have the massage that I’d received for Valentine’s Day scheduled for tomorrow morning–finally. I have two postpartums tomorrow as well. And I am very much wanting to get back into my blogging/photography routine, because it does document our (imperfect) lives. And I am sure I will want to look back one day and remember what we were doing with our time. It’s harder to just let it slip away when one is paying attention.

That’s my plan and I’m sticking to it.

Just a test post

Just testing something here. Disregard this

 

 

The aftermath of crafts gone bad…..with the kids.

inspire, not require

So today marks the end of my beastly rash of work - I have a smidge of editing to do and then nothing. I am taking at least 10 days off - no work - did I say 10 days in my last post? Or two weeks? Am I contradicting myself? To be honest, I am a bit freaked out by having this time off. More on that later….

We are heading off to see Horton Hears a Who, but I was quickly checking messages and saw in my inbox a message title that reminded me of what I loved about Thomas Jefferson Education - the phrase “Inspire, Not Require” - I am going to work on that some during my time off. Explore what that can mean to us in our homeschool.

Now off to hear a who…..

doing school

This is how we’ve been doing school while I’ve been so busy….