Summer School

Hooray! We are almost at the end of our second year of home schooling. 

Well, actually .. as I am learning (yes, I too am being educated) there is no such thing as “end” or “beginning” when it comes to teaching your kids at home.

Not that it stops them asking. 

Child: “When does school finish?”

Me: “When you’ve finished the curriculum”

Child: “But I’m only on lesson 14 of 76 in my history!”

Me: Well, you’d better get on then hadn’t you”

(Sounds of lashing whip in background and cries of torment from captive children)

It’s a hard lesson. 

The idea that you just keep going ‘til it’s done.

Still, the onset of pool season has helped speed up the process. The knowledge that swimming only occurs when work is done spurs little minds to grapple with hitherto impossible multiplication problems at twice the speed as before. Suddenly that paragraph on hieroglyphics, neglected all morning, is now sitting on the table awaiting my perusal. The lure of the pool trumps everything.

Small child has also been promised a hamster when her math is all done. She is on lesson 74 of 118. The suggestion that she could do two lessons a day, and even work over the weekends, although initially greeted with enthusiasm, was ultimately thrown out. Some ideas look good in principle, but the practical application is SO hard! 

Last summer I sort of gave up once evaluations were done. It had been an exhausting year, as I learnt what home schooling was all about and as we adjusted to our new way of life.

This summer I feel more in control. I sort of know what’s going on. Sort of.

We are not organized as such, but there is a method (somewhere, under all the clutter in my mind and on the table) and I am happy with how the children are progressing.

So. We shall carry on. I think until August. Then we will all deserve a break.

I wont be the hard task master. Some math and writing every day to keep the brain ticking over. And reading ... always the reading. Books are everything. 

And the pool. The pool is more than everything.