Dagfari attended the last of his weeklong summer camps last week. Fifteen kids and one incredibly patient teacher came up with a screenplay of sorts and filmed a movie on school grounds. The result was entertaining, as one might expect, and D had a great time.
(The photo above is D at the Borders Harry Potter party. He's dressed as Nearly Headless Nick.)
Now summer camp is over, August is here, and ProfessorDad and I are headed into the always-busy beginning of another academic year. It's going to be strange not having D headed back to school too. But our homeschool curriculum is starting to take shape.
ProfDad ordered a laptop for D to use, so that we won't have to fight for computer time at home. I've ordered Singapore Math materials. This will probably be our only "canned" curriculum, and I chose it because it seemed to have the least bells and whistles of any ones I've seen recommended. D's school used Chicago Math, and he hated all the games and group activities. This is typical of D-- hates the things teachers do to make school "fun" (I was the same way as a kid). Must be darned annoying for the teachers.
We're also going to get some keyboarding software (again, he doesn't want any games!), so that he can learn to do his own typing.
I guess D and I will probably come up with a reading list of some sort. He's been very interested in myths, folktales, and fairy tales, and he wants to do a research paper on the Grimm brothers. I found a nice bio of them by Donald Hettinga, who was a very young English professor when I was an undergrad at Calvin. ProfDad might do a history study of Napoleonic Europe to complement this.
We also learned about some homeschool drama classes starting up in September, so we'll sign D up for a couple of those, and maybe an art class too. When it gets less hot outside, I'm hoping to take another stab at getting D on the dreaded bicycle. This should count as P.E.!
This should keep us quite busy, I think. The next thing we have to address is recruiting college students to look after D while I'm at work and ProfDad is teaching. Homeschooling with two working parents is apparently a very unusual concept. When I tell people we're homeschooling next year, most of them immediately ask if I'm quitting my job! But I think it will work out, and will even be beneficial to D, if he gets to spend time with some interesting people.
Now summer camp is over, August is here, and ProfessorDad and I are headed into the always-busy beginning of another academic year. It's going to be strange not having D headed back to school too. But our homeschool curriculum is starting to take shape.
ProfDad ordered a laptop for D to use, so that we won't have to fight for computer time at home. I've ordered Singapore Math materials. This will probably be our only "canned" curriculum, and I chose it because it seemed to have the least bells and whistles of any ones I've seen recommended. D's school used Chicago Math, and he hated all the games and group activities. This is typical of D-- hates the things teachers do to make school "fun" (I was the same way as a kid). Must be darned annoying for the teachers.
We're also going to get some keyboarding software (again, he doesn't want any games!), so that he can learn to do his own typing.
I guess D and I will probably come up with a reading list of some sort. He's been very interested in myths, folktales, and fairy tales, and he wants to do a research paper on the Grimm brothers. I found a nice bio of them by Donald Hettinga, who was a very young English professor when I was an undergrad at Calvin. ProfDad might do a history study of Napoleonic Europe to complement this.
We also learned about some homeschool drama classes starting up in September, so we'll sign D up for a couple of those, and maybe an art class too. When it gets less hot outside, I'm hoping to take another stab at getting D on the dreaded bicycle. This should count as P.E.!
This should keep us quite busy, I think. The next thing we have to address is recruiting college students to look after D while I'm at work and ProfDad is teaching. Homeschooling with two working parents is apparently a very unusual concept. When I tell people we're homeschooling next year, most of them immediately ask if I'm quitting my job! But I think it will work out, and will even be beneficial to D, if he gets to spend time with some interesting people.
1 comment:
Great work.
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