Friday


Mademoiselle has been homeschooling for 3 weeks.





So far, Mademoiselle has gotten to build symmetrical buildings, draw a map of our yard and house, cook dinner with me and measure ingredients, send letters to her cousins, sort some fun buttons and graph how many of each there were, then make a necklace out of them, play mailman, read a lot of books, help with taking care of the animals, make a dollhouse out of a cardboard box, play dress up in lots of different costumes, learn about a few different kids in Russia, the Phillipines, and China and what they do everyday, and more.



That's her school.

6 comments:

Real said...

How do you do it? That's just amazing to me. I can never figure out how to give so much to one child at a time. OR to how involve everyone and make it meaningful for anyone.

Katie Richins said...

I don't know. Some days just work better than others. The biggest thing is that homeschooling takes far less time than regular school, because each little lesson or learning experience basically involves just that child. There's no classroom management, or anything like that, obviously, but also, when she's ready for a break, there is just no reason to continue. She gets to go do something else for awhile.
But, the biggest thing for me is just having the goals written out. I review them in the morning and find a few I'd like to focus on, and create or build on opportunities to do that.
It's actually been great for Sam, too, and I think it helps me focus more completely on them/ less distractedly.
But, it's definitely not traditional education and there's a part of me that every once in awhile thinks that she should be sitting there with the pencil and paper more, because that's what school was for me...

Anonymous said...

Wow, good job! I'm so proud of you. I love all that you are doing. I love how you do not shirk the things that need to be done, but rather face them head-on and do your best. What a wonderful list! Thank you for sharing. Please share more as you can.

And what cute pics!!! L was so excited to see that they had the same doo!

Anonymous said...

No doubt endurance is a good thing to develop, as well as is non-avoidance. One of my peeves about classrooms is that some tend toward entertainment and the teachers toward success as popularity. Discipline (and the development of self-discipline) seem to be the opposites of these. I wonder if the joy of learning is truly squelched by a bit of drudgery, or if it is lost by stopping too soon. Let me know what you think. My prejudice is that discovery and hence joy of discovery come after keeping on keeping on. It's interesting that some kids - not yours! - don't seem able to get absorbed in anything, while others become so passionate that they can't be torn away. These passionate ones turn into the major contributors, I think. And a lot of it comes down to just plain sticking it out. Or something somewhat parallel to 'Faith precedes the miracle'.

This is thinking out loud, triggered by this most interesting of topics, learning. And education.

I just reread this and realized it could be construed as addressing the issue of taking breaks. Not so. The underlying thought had to do with recent thoughts around the subject of trying to figure out whether work for work's sake has merit, or whether free time is more useful. This is a debate that our companions at TsingHua and we had constantly. They raised 11 kids and made sure they had no idle moments - if there wasn't work at hand to be done, they made up something. And meanwhile I was striving to carve out free time for you all so you could discover discover discover. Probably there's some happy medium, or at least it's PC to suggest so. It does pertain to schooling, of course. I am not for largely child-directed education because a child is too ignorant of possibilities and resources to do a good job. I think where I've come to in this subject (which may interest only me) is that a typical day should have time for intense concentration on a new difficult task alternated with totally undirected time.

Hence the horror, to me, of hours of homework. But that's another story!

G of All

Tip Junkie said...

Keep up the good work! I'm glad she's doing well. Great pics. ;)

Anonymous said...

Is that a special friend who goes to school with her, sitting to her left?

G of All