My ideal balance for our homeschool (my ideal, and our homeschool, so other folks can certainly have different ingredients in their schooling) is to have some stuff the kids just Have To Do, some stuff that I sort of Strew about and let them do if they want, and some time to do whatever they want along with the supplies and help they need to get it done.
- Assigned tasks you must do
- Materials strewn about their lives that might spark something
- Time and Support to follow their on interests
That's the mix that makes our particular eclectic homeschool.
This week Carbon took the time to do things and ran with it. He had two main interests this week: sewing and origami.
After listening to The Strange Case of Origami Yoda (an example of something that was strewn for the kids), he was really interested in doing some origami. There weren't any books at the library when he looked, so he asked me to put some on hold for him, and this week they came in. With a pad of scrapbooking paper, he went to town.
He was also very interested in sewing, and this week he asked to look through my patterns. I helped him cut out a pattern, but that seemed a bit too intimidating to him, so he switched to making pillow cases and quilts. He made a pillow case for himself out of corduroy (Super Nice feeling to lie on), with help from me and his dad (who doesn't know how to sew either, so he was also a beginner learning) and now he's confident enough with the sewing machine that he's just making a crazy quilt top all by himself.
I love the spontaneous learning and how he uses his time!
Love it. We are selling our house, so I can't leave things about right now. Takes away that great creativity spark when we have to drag everything out and then put it back when done.
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