This Homeschooling Life #10

Hello! Another month and another ‘This Homeschooling Life’. Another month of me thinking ‘eeep! what do I have to say/!’

I’ve said it before, but after 9 years homeschooling is just normal life for us – I don’t always see the differentiation between life and learning. Indeed, there often isn’t one. So much of my kiddos learning is organic and part of us living our lives. They don’t need to be sat at a desk with workbooks to be learning.

As the weather improves, we always find ourselves spending most of our time outdoors and often away from the house. Books and lessons get put down for the summer while we enjoy nature. The kids still learn while we’re out and about, just in a way that has no tangible evidence. Long walks see us discussing everything from why we don’t float off into the sky to what that flower/leaf/bug is. When I don’t know the answer, Google usually does! One thing I’ve been passionate about is teaching the children how to find things out for themselves. I don’t see the benefit of spoon feeding children and just giving them information. I think it’s really important to teach them how to learn. Give them the ability to find things out for themselves. In the 21st Century this often means googling the question that Mama doesn’t have an answer too. And actually, I think it’s also good for them to see that even me as a grown up doesn’t know everything! That it’s OK to not know the answer and give the knowledge that they need to figure out how to find things out.

Kiki and Baya have been doing lots of baking this past month {yum!}. They love to experiment in the kitchen and they learn so much – there is so much science and math involved in baking {changes of state, temperatures, measurments} – Plus reading those recipe books is great reading practice!

They’ve also been spending lots of time crafting. Baya loves Hama beads and spends hours making her own designs up and giving them as gifts! She also loves making paper dolls at the minute. Those two will happily spend all day long sat in the playroom, making something or another.

I’ve spied Lola picking up the guitar a few times, I think she’d like to take a few lessons which is something we’re looking in to. She still spends a lot of time writing and drawing – I’ve been scoping out a few new courses ready for September for her. We’re still undecided whether she will go to college/school in a year or so for her GCSE’s, whether she’ll do them at home or wait a bit longer. She’s also been studying some FutureLearn courses which she really enjoys.

Kiki and Baya asked to do a project on the Human Heart, so we dug out some books, watched some YouTube videos and then I found this great human heart lapbook that we did together over a couple of weeks. They really really enjoyed working on it – it was great to see them ask to do more each day! I did some lapbooks a few years back with Lola – I think we’ll be doing some more soon.

Kiki has also been enjoying practicing making fake wounds with special effects makeup! They’re a little too realistic looking for me…!! She’s even found recipes to make the make up herself! I think she may have a found a new career for when she’s older!