Mixing subjects and more up in home-school

Just a happy, jumbled pile. A small part of today's "work."

Nearly every day of teaching home-school seems to bring a revelation. Yesterday, while doing research, I came across a great suggestion. Homeschooling doesn't have to mimic “regular” school. In fact, it shouldn't. The whole point is, after all, to get outside that blasted, 4 wall, regimented box. Because, for some people, “regular” school just isn't an effective learning method.

Now, if you follow my blog, you know that my last post was about adding fun to homeschooling and suiting individual needs. Yesterday, I figured something else out too. It's not necessary to have math class, then science class, then, language arts class, etc. In fact, mixing it up is actually more effective and less draining on both the teacher and the student.

It also inspires the student to get ready faster and more enthusiastically if they know something fun is happening first thing!

You see, although the lessons, assignments, experiments, related games and activities are all categorized on my lesson plans, that's not how I taught them yesterday. Nope. Instead, I shared my plans with Aja and let her choose what to do next.

The result was a beautiful mix that kept us from being bogged down in one subject. We did a little of each subject at a time, switching subjects randomly until all the work was done. Surprisingly, Aja didn't just choose all the easy stuff first. She instinctively alternated it with the tough stuff so that all the difficult assignments didn't have to be faced at the end of the day.

And of course, we also mixed in that fun I talked about last time. For instance, after our elephant writing prompt assignment (it was to write about trunks from the elephants point of view) we watched a few fun videos of baby elephants using their trunks for the first time.

Anyway.... Point is, this is OUR school. I don't have to be a Charlie Brown-like, wah, wah, wah kind of instructor, if you get my drift. Our school can be anything we want it to be, as long as the required material for each grade level is learned by the student.

When I first started this endeavor, I was determined to help Aja “be all that she can be” and I still am. I'm just learning that there's more than one way to do that. 

A personal note:

Folks, I went to Catholic grade school. I did learn and learn well. They made sure of that. I was also taught to be humble and make sacrifices for the greater good, etc. That's all fine and good except that it really wasn't good for me psychologically. 

Sometimes the lessons I learned in Catholic grade school came from fear and humiliation. Since I was already struggling with social anxiety, confidence issues, high sensitivity and what I now know was high functioning autism, that was a real problem. Having the subject matter pounded into me by force, well, it just made me withdraw further.

I don't want that kind of education for Aja. I want her to learn well because she wants to, because she's excited about it, because she's interested in it. I want her to learn with joy, passion and love. Not because she believes that if she doesn't live by the accepted standard, she'll go to hell. But because learning and doing the right thing makes her happy. 

Learning should be a joyful exploration, not an orchestrated brain washing session. So, from now on, we'll be mixing it up, making it fun and presenting learning options. Thanks, fellow homeschooling Mom for reminding me that this is OUR school and that the whole point is to learn and teach OUR way.