Well, as many of you know, Austyn has not been as interested in "Doing School" the past little while. Today he became interested and even told Daddy that he wanted to "Do School" all day long! I posted on a local forum about this weeks ago and I was given so much information from those who are more experienced than I am. Some moms shared the fact that their kids go through stages of not being interested and at Austyn's age it's okay to be more relaxed. He may still need to learn much of what he needs through play. Some said that if I didn't call it "Doing School" but approached it as a game or some other way he might be more interested as well.
What I decided to do was just let it go for a while. We homeschool all year and can afford to be relaxed. I want him to keep his enthusiasm about learning. I never want him to lose that enthusiasm so I don't want to push him. He needed a break and I gave it to him. As you can see from our posts he was still doing educational things. And as you can guess the posts only show some of what we do or what we talk about together. I decided that while I waited for him, I'd work on posts here, research what others are doing and read. I was mostly interested in reading about unschooling but the library here has no books on the subject. None of any depth. So, I will have to wait until I'm able to borrow something from friends.
The more I think about it and the more I watch him the more I think he really is a self motivated kid who really might excel in an unschooling situation. He still likes "Doing School" as I learned today, but he likes to do it on his schedule and the funny thing is, many of the lessons we looked at today we skipped over because they were way too easy! He has been teaching himself this stuff all on his own. I have left the printouts from the skipped lessons out for him to fill out on his own time for self esteem building. He knows it very well and it will be good practice for him to print the numbers out.
The great thing about homeschooling is that at anytime we can research and change our approach to suit the child’s learning style. This likely won’t be the last time I do this. We are just starting out.
What I decided to do was just let it go for a while. We homeschool all year and can afford to be relaxed. I want him to keep his enthusiasm about learning. I never want him to lose that enthusiasm so I don't want to push him. He needed a break and I gave it to him. As you can see from our posts he was still doing educational things. And as you can guess the posts only show some of what we do or what we talk about together. I decided that while I waited for him, I'd work on posts here, research what others are doing and read. I was mostly interested in reading about unschooling but the library here has no books on the subject. None of any depth. So, I will have to wait until I'm able to borrow something from friends.
The more I think about it and the more I watch him the more I think he really is a self motivated kid who really might excel in an unschooling situation. He still likes "Doing School" as I learned today, but he likes to do it on his schedule and the funny thing is, many of the lessons we looked at today we skipped over because they were way too easy! He has been teaching himself this stuff all on his own. I have left the printouts from the skipped lessons out for him to fill out on his own time for self esteem building. He knows it very well and it will be good practice for him to print the numbers out.
The great thing about homeschooling is that at anytime we can research and change our approach to suit the child’s learning style. This likely won’t be the last time I do this. We are just starting out.
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