Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Part of the beauty of homeschooling is...

 
Making up my own classes!
In addition to the boxed curriculum we're using, I have added a class at the end of the school day called:  Home Ec.  So far, this is their LEAST favorite class. But I've explained to them MANY times that of all their classes, this one will provide the knowledge most applicable to their daily lives
 
 So often I tell them to clean their room "the way I would clean it" and apparently they have no idea what that means.  They know what it looks like when I clean it, but they clearly haven't the slightest clue how to get it to look like that. 
 
Each day contains one lesson and before we go to the next one, they have to repeat the previous day's lesson.  Yesterday, our lesson was on how to make your bed.  Their beds have only a fitted sheet and a blanket, so it really wasn't that difficult.  Honestly, the toughest thing was to get rid of all the miscellaneous clothes, toys, etc. that were on their beds.  Both older boys made their own beds, and then one of the little boys' beds. 
 
Today's lesson was cleaning the floor of the room - no small feat!  I showed them how I do it:  by gathering EVERYTHING that's on the floor into a big pile and then picking away at the pile.  I showed them how to sort things and THEN put them away, rather than take 10 different trips to other parts of the house.  I can't say they were enthused, but I sure was!  Here's a fairly dark picture of the finished product:
 
 
Just a note on the bins for their toys...over the years I have spent probably $100 or more buying different storage containers for their toys and within DAYS they would break them.  I finally got wise and bought heavy-duty dishpans.  LOVE them!!!

Well it was another great school day for us over here.  I am packing a ton in this week and we are hoping to be done completely by tomorrow at noon.  A wonderful client of mine from this past summer has offered to let us stay at her lakehouse this weekend.  It's about 10 minutes from here and the boys will LOVE this little getaway.  They always get so excited just to sleep somewhere different.  And, hey, maybe this way their room will stay clean! 

No comments: