New color scheme

I love fall! Even though it's over 90 here today, I am declaring fall on my blog.

Why I can never claim to be a pure unschooler

Some of you will be disappointed in me today. Others may think that I'm just starting to get a clue. And still others will recognize that homeschooling can be a very fluid thing, always adjusting to what is needed at the time.

Today is a bit of a cranky mom day. Choir started today, so Jonathan and Andrew have to be at a school 20 minutes away at 7:25. I hate 7:25! My rule is that if I am going to get up and take them to choir they have to remain awake for the rest of the day. Evil, I know. But I need to have some sort of waking and sleeping routine, so they're going to have to adjust to an earlier bedtime.

I decided that math would be a good way to keep them awake. So I decreed a math day. Everyone has to do math. How much? As much as I say. Arbitrary, yes, but it keeps them awake.

Why math? Because I don't like math. It is difficult to learn math without studying it. If I were a pure unschooler I'd say something like, "That's okay. They'll learn it when they want and need to." And truthfully, I know they probably would. Given the choice I'd have skipped math altogether, and Bethany probably would have, too. But the SAT doesn't care if we don't like it, and high SAT scores can lead to scholarships. So they have to do math.

It's a carnival

The 88th Carnival of Homeschooling is up at Consent of the Governed. I'm sure this carnival will be full of good things.

Explaining learning

People understand school. They understand "education." They understand teaching. But what I've come to realize is that very few people understand learning.

They have a hard time grasping the absorption and growth of knowledge and understanding absent coercion or the assistance of an outside expert.

I was trying to explain to someone yesterday that, yes, my kids have learned to spell from reading. My daughter--who is an excellent writer--learned that craft by reading excellent writers.

We don't go "back to school" and that confuses people. I try to explain that they never stop learning, but that seems to confuse people, too.

When people find out that I was an education major, but changed my major after my practicum because I realized I would hate classroom teaching, they always suggest that it's ironic that I am a teacher now. But I'm not. I'm a parent. I actively teach my children very little. What I do do is provide them with opportunities and resources. I surround them with books and maps and music and art. I take them to parks and museums and antique stores and church and zoos and Target and beaches and coffee shops and soccer games and grandmas house. I let them weed the garden and wash the clothes and help me cook.

And we talk. All the time. We talk about the news, the book they're reading, and what the lyrics to our favorite Rush songs mean. We talk about why things are the way they are and what we can or can't do something about. We talk about moving to the country and the animals we'd have and what we'll name our dogs. We talk about what we could possibly do with all of our tomatoes and why Amish chickens taste so good and why lightening does what it does when it strikes different structures.

I don't think I could keep them from learning, except maybe by sending them to school.

Not back to school

I've been hearing about all of the cool not-back-to-school activities that people have been doing. We did something really exciting this year. We went shopping!

Yup, shopping. We spent over six hours searching for three items: a pair of black dress shoes for #2 son, and a pair of tennis shoes and a pair of black dress pants for #3 son.

The tennis shoes were easy. The black dress pants were almost impossible. Apparently the folks who make kids' clothes don't understand that some of us still believe in dressing up. They also don't seem to understand that there are LOTS of skinny kids out there. For all the talk about childhood obesity, I know way more moms with skinny boys than fat ones! Most of the pants made Andrew look like he was trying to leave room for smuggling something.

And then we have the black dress shoes. Why oh why did my children all get weird feet? The kind of feet that cheap shoes won't fit? It caused me tremendous pain to have to spend $80 for shoes for a rapidly growing 14yo. But we tried on over 20 pairs at a number of stores, and these were the only ones that didn't hurt.

So that was our exciting NBTS adventure. Next, NBTS housecleaning!

Actually teaching

I am going to be teaching a class for homeschoolers this fall at our church. We are going to be using Around the World in 180 Days as the basis for the class. I'm excited about the class, because history and geography are my thing, but I'm nervous, too, because this is a very UN-unschoolish thing to do.

I'm planning for it to be fun and interactive. It looks like we could end up with a pretty big class, so I think I'd better start getting organized!

Books, books, books

I was debating which blog to post this on, and decided since I have some readers who read only one or the other to put it on both.

One of the great things about being a homeschool mom is that reading books is part of my job. I have been able to revisit some of my favorites from childhood and young adulthood, as well as encountering many wonderful books for the first time as an adult.

I love book lists because they help jog my memory; they remind me of those books that I want to read or reread, or that the kids have not yet read. Tonight as I was catching up with things at Mere Comments, I came across this post. This is a nice book list and the comments have more suggestions.

What books do you think are necessities that didn't make this list? Any on the list you think don't belong? On my book list that I used for my children's literacy talks I included a list for preschool. What would you put on that?

What books do you think are necessary for basic cultural literacy?