It is technically my twins' first year of school. I've started semi-structured lessons, but they don't have to be registered with the state as home schoolers until august of next year. My (very loosely) categorized, dry-erase chart of lessons lists math, reading, writing, science, sign language, art, and culture. I also have a weekly planner in which I make notes of the specific topics we cover.
Last week, we did 12 lessons. Some of them were fairly pedestrian, like reading practice, addition and subtraction, and writing letters and numbers. But in other cases, they certainly blazed their own trail. We talked about reflexes and the difference between voluntary and involuntary movements, then had a breakfast lesson about the causes, physiology, and symptoms of cerebral palsy. They were curious.
This week, they asked me about where butterflies come from. We discussed the butterfly life cycle, cocoons and chrysalises, and watched a video of a caterpillar exposing its chrysalis. Then, this weekend, we took a field trip to the butterfly pavilion and they got to see what many different butterfly chrysalises look like, and saw butterflies coming out of them. They remembered so many facts about it, and even learned a bit more about how butterflies eat.
This, to me, is one of the beautiful things about homeschooling. They learn such a wide variety of new things because they're curious. I could dictate their education by scheduling what we will practice or discuss and when, but when they ask me questions and I answer, they're far more likely to remember what they learned. And I can offer them an incredible array of relevant field trips to help solidify the lessons.
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