Wednesday, January 20, 2010

No Child Left Inside

Some days I just feel so thankful to be homeschooling. I'm thankful to God for this blessing. I'm thankful to my husband, who goes to work every day and makes it possible for us to be home. I'm thankful for the freedom we have.
The people who make homeschool regulating laws just don't seem to fully understand how it works. All of this took place AFTER "school" was over. The workbooks were shut. The pencils put away. The math practice done. Of course, if I lived where I had to count minutes of instruction, this would totally count.
For some inexplicable reason, it was 70 degrees today. Of course, the kids went straight outside when school was over. They decided to begin a club.
Every club needs a flag, right?
I'm not sure ducks will be part of the rescuing, but still.

They created a lot of habitats, with a little help from their Littlest Pet Shops. Those are real live snails above that they rescued. From the horrible dirt they were living in under the tree in the backyard. Poor things.
You'll be glad to know some earthworms were also rescued. And taken very good care of.
After I took these, I showed them a library book that told how to make a bug observatory in the yard. You dig a hole, drop a yogurt cup inside, put some food in there, and cover the thing. They covered it with a frisbee propped up with some balls. Then you check it and let the bugs go and try another food to see what kind of bugs it draws.

That's a whole lotta science for little bit of work. And no planning on my part.
I LOVE days like this.
And I'm reminded that these things don't happen very much when we are running around. We've been staying home a lot lately. AND we got rid of all TV service. There are so many good things out there to do, but when you don't really have the money, it makes the decision easy.
And the results are good.

11 comments:

  1. This is such a neat post. So many children now days just don't get those kind of days and congrats on the TV decision.

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  2. I need more details and pictures of the bug observatory, please! :) I have a little boy who lives to learn about bugs.

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  3. Absolutely! I'll scan it and e-mail it to you!

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  4. Even when a child goes to school they can have days like this. I had plenty of them and I went to school.

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  5. I love it B! Look at how happy they are : )
    It was un-seasonably warm yesterday. It almost felt like Spring!

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  6. Mrs. W---my kids DO go to school! :)

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  7. We have spent most of this year staying home and avoiding activities. Not because we wanted to be antisocial, but because I needed to get a handle on home, and the schooling part. The social part was getting in the way of the school. I have been very surprised. There is so much more just "natural" learning that is happening. I think its because we aren't rushing anywhere, or having to rush school because we were out all day. The kids have the time to be, well, kids. I read while i was teaching that kids brains develop the most during freeplay and daydreaming. I think I had scheduled that right out of our day. I'm glad it's back.

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  8. I agree.. with all of you! and yes my children go to school too! :) But I dont think children who "go" to school cant have these days I think that the amount of these days they can have are simply less becasue of logistics, same as if we home schoolers are just shuffling our kids around all the day long! I also feel like there is a greater chance of the LOVE of learning to wiped out in them at an earlier age. I also believe that your new TV situation is a huge part of it and TELL ME HOW YOU DID IT!!!!!!!!!

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  9. Oh, thank you! My email address is on my blog. :)

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  10. Carrie, S just finally said he didn't think we needed it. He's been so busy he hasn't really had time to watch it. I don't watch anything anymore. Sweetheart was the one most affected, but she knows she can run down to grandpa's for a cartoon fix when she wants to. That's like a savings of $60-70 a month! We have internet, we can get weather, etc. S has been going to bed earlier. It's been nice. And no more "turn off the TV and go play".

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I don't get to talk to a lot of actual grown-ups during the day, so your comments make me really happy! :)