For those that aren't aware, there really aren't any hard and fast rules about how to home educate - I'm speaking as someone based in NSW, Australia - it's probably different in other states & countries. Families choices range from "school at home" - eg sit down with school books and work through them, right through to "natural learning" - eg let the kids learn what they want, when they want by participating in "life". We're sitting somewhere in the middle - nicely called "eclectic" - in other words taking a bit of everything! There are set curriculums (curriculi?) you can purchase to work through if you want, or there are plenty of resources on the internet. I've decided to work in "integrated units" - think of a topic and then create activities around that to cover aspects of English, Maths, Science etc. I'm working towards covering the NSW Board of Studies outcomes for each subject over the year. We'll supplement with worksheets where necessary, and also just embrace any other opportunity that comes along even if it doesn't fit into the current unit. That's the plan at this stage, anyway - I'm sure it will change as we go!
We're just about finished the first unit we're working on - "About Me and My Family". Some of the activities we've done are:
* take a big sheet of butcher's paper, get Billy to lie down on it and trace around his outline. He then drew his face on and wrote words around the outside to represent himself & things he liked. He also did a hand & foot-print painting to go with it.
Billy buys
Ice-creams and
Likes
Lollipops and
Yellow.
As well as that, he's also done a lot of art & craft - created a puppet theatre out a box, a bird craft at storytime, a Xmas tree picture using scrunched up crepe paper bits, lots of painting etc; some maths & english worksheets; we've played board & card games eg old maid, scrabble; lots of play-acting play, lego etc; done some cooking; played lots of educational computer games and had lots of discussions that we've followed up with a bit of research. Eg "do ants have eyes?" - we caught some and looked in the microscope he borrowed from the library, and then looked at pictures in the encylopedia; and - "where did people come from before there were any people?" - discussed evolution and looked up an evolution of man chart.
There's also been a fair bit of social interaction - storytime, swimming, visits with friends etc.
2 comments:
Wow, that all looks amazing. I am looking forward to reading more of what you do.
Kate
Sounds great, Kez.
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