(Home)"School" Sneaks Up On Us...

I could feel guilty about the lack of "formal schooling" that's taking place in my home. But learning seems to happen whether we plan on it or not.

Take the last two days...

Yesterday, I'm cleaning my office floor. (Found the floor, btw!) LilDude is hanging out with me. Out of the blue he says something about "even numbers." So I ask him what he knows about even numbers. He goes on to tell me that 2 is an even number. So is 6 because you add 2s to get there. Hmmm. So I toss out a whole slew of numbers--including hundreds--asking him whether they're even or odd. He gets them all right. I finally say, "So it sounds like you only have to look at the last digit to know if it's even or odd."

He grimaces. "That's what I've been doing!" (Duh, mom!)

To reinforce our little conversation, I pull out a book about even/odd numbers. After reading it, he does one worksheet...just to make sure that this is really down pat. Duh, again. He really, really knows this. So even/odd #s...CHECK.

Then, last night, Anakin (7th grade) is studying for a map test of the United States. I guess LilDude overhead some of this because today he walks to the kitchen table and pretends it's a map of the U.S. and points to where a bunch of different states are. Intrigued, I let him try a U.S. Map Test on the computer. I'm surprised when he gets 13 correct on a timed test. Something obviously stuck when I had him follow a map of our trip to a family reunion...16 months ago!!!!

About this time Anakin returns from school and tells LilDude to try a different state labeling game. By the time they're done, LilDude is able to label most states correctly.

But today the only "school" we did was one journal entry and a few autobiographical sentences. I also read aloud several picture books and a chapter from On the Banks of Plum Creek. And Nana came over and read to him from another chapter book. But he mostly just played. And played. And played.

Build a fort with the couch cushions. Went outside when the sun peeked through. Took his bro on a horsie ride down the hallway.

Grin.