Spring School

June 6, 2008

A couple months ago, when the first warmish days of spring arrived, we unceremoniously* dropped the more formal aspects of our homeschooling. Our idea of formal meaning setting aside time for scripture memory, math, spelling and handwriting practice, about an hour a few days a week. We have kept up our daily reading because what's life without books.

We never did pick up the pieces from that fall out but I've tidily shelved the workbooks away till September when the kids are ready for a change and I'm ready for more structure.

So, what are the kids up to these days? Lots of interesting stuff, as usual.

Celine is taking English style horse riding lessons.
Growing grass caterpillars.
Following directions and building paper airplanes, when the directions are tricky I get in on the action too.
The usual springtime activity of studying slugs & snails.
Laurent's doing the drawing tutorials on Jan Brett's website.
Brienne's writing every chance she gets, she especially loves her little journal where she writes pages and pages of random letters.
Visiting farms as usual.
And of course we're in the garden, going to the "lie-berry" and just hanging out.

A spring-full of learning.

*I use the word unceremoniously on purpose since we don't have any end of the school year ceremony or recognition. The kids are always learning and year round I record their major and often minor learning advances in a portfolio style binder. We don't track the kids learning in the school-type manner of passes, failures and promotion to higher grades. We evaluate based on the simple adages of "whatever you do, do your best" and "learn from your mistakes".