A little blogging break

I have been taking a little blogging break. Trying to wean myself off the computer and motivate myself to get up and do more. I have also been spending the time trying to put together our upcoming unit projects (still).

While putting these units together I have been thinking about our approach. I am still trying to decide what my work the best for us right now. I started off last spring just knowing that The Well-Trained Mind was the way for us to go. Golly, I love the idea of history and literature in sequence. The idea of learning facts and then building upon them.

I still like the classical approach and still plan on incorporating a lot of the ideas, but the amount of work that required sit down time for all us, the writing for MB just really made it difficult. Throw in the fact that MB loves science and that is her passion - we just struggled with it.

So, I have had to think about what is best for us in this season. MB, the kinesthetic, math/science thinker who has an independent streak. K, 3/4 yr old who yells at me when I try to read aloud, and who learns very well by herselfthank you very much. EM, the toddler who gets into - Everything. And me, pregnant and due in the middle of the fall.

I have had to think about why we are homeschooling, what is my goal when we are finished (2 yrs from now or 18 yrs). I want my kids to learn how to learn. I don't want to shove a bunch of information down their throats that they could find out anywhere later on. I want them to know how to find info on their own and enjoy doing it.

I am also not ready at all to turn the process over to them and unschool all the time.

So, for right now, we are going to have a science-centered approach to learning. Every month or so we will have a new science topic and that is going to be the meat of our day. We will still do math, but maybe only a couple days a week out of the math text - the rest active math or daily math. We are going to start grammar and Latin. And, I will still be teaching history in sequence by sneaking in books for MB. I don't have any idea how it will work. But, it is pretty close to what we have been doing this spring - only now I give myself permission (which, for some reason seems pretty important to me).

This week has been very good, since we have "kind-of" begun this. It has been freeing to me to no longer worry about the pages of SOTW I that are going unturned, I know that someday I will pull it back off and read a few pages. MB and I sat down and made a K-W-L chart for the Solar System Study (What I know - What I want to Learn - What I Learned). This gave MB some say in the direction of the study.

We are reading an easy 1st-2nd grade book we downloaded for free on the Sun. We have played with Google Earth to experience neighborhood, city, county, state, country, continent and earth levels (Yes, MB, we do look kind of tiny when pulled out to look as if from outer space). Math today was the playing of several games at the NASA Kids website. We actually pulled out the recorders and had an impromptu music lesson. We are using perler beads to create a solar system model (not to scale). And we are on Chapter 7 of The One-Eyed Giant from Mary Pope Osborne's Odysseus series - at MB's request. This morning before anyone else was up I had to read three chapters to her.

I really am loving the experience of all this. It might be turning my hair gray - but it sure is fun.

Peace,

Amy