When I mention home education, one of the most common questions is how many hours do you teach? (That usually follows on from do you do the teaching. Which is one that makes me wince slightly.)
It’s difficult to explain. There’s very little teaching here. Learning happens as and when it happens – it requires the children to be interested in something, for me to facilitate that interest or, more accurately, to seize the moment.
Like tonight, at the dinner table, with a potato.
This is not just any old potato. This potato is the world. More accurately, it’s the world spinning around the sun (played in this picture by an AA dynamo torch), demonstrating the tilt to its axis that cause the difference in the length of days in the northern and southern hemisphere depending on the season.
And how did the conversation come about? I was quizzing the children as to when Christmas happens in Australia. It turns out they didn’t really know – Big knew that it happens in summer instead of in winter so after some collaboration with Small and counting on her fingers she decided that July 25th was a likely candidate. I could see where she was coming from – so this led on to a discussion of timezones around the world and then on to discussions on longer and shorter days, with quick sidetrips into mentioning Norad tracking Santa and the shape of planets’ orbits around the sun. (Elliptical, which they knew, birthday walks and all that.)
And that was dinner. With added science, bits of history, occasional eyebrow raising moments (apparently Small is of the opinion that Scotland barely has television yet, probably only having up to three channels) and of course, good food.
And all of that was at the end of a home ed group day. Starts with music theory, goes on to music practice, has a social lunch and then today was art with Kandinsky style circles.
As well as art there was plenty of time to play impromptu games of catch, memory circle games (can’t believe how long they went on with that, and they did a recap after we’d tidied up!) and Small did very much reading. More reading for them both after tea, and it’s a very full day.
How many hours do I spend teaching? Next to none. How many hours do they spend learning? I’ve lost count.
Nice post. Like the pics, circles look fab.
Thanks @Nic – circles were first inspired by Merry I rather think!
sounds like a fab day, and a great post 🙂
Mostly fab anyway 😉 @Helen, glad you liked it.
super post. potato pic ace.
Thanks @Michelle. Potato pic taken with HTC desire HD. I’m going to really miss that phone.
You can tell Small that she’s close, we have five channels up here. BBC1, Dave, MTV, Sky 1 and CBeebies 🙂
.-= Vonnie´s last blog ..What to say =-.
rofl @Vonnie!
You make it all sound so perfect and easy. Every time i read one of your home ed posts im sat at the computer with my bottom lip out like a toddler, thinking ‘i wanna do that’!
.-= BumbleBecki´s last blog ..Thankyou =-.
@BumbleBecki it ain’t all roses. Or if it is, perhaps I’m glossing over the thorns a little too much…Some of it is easy. Some of it most definitely isn’t, I do tend to miss out the tantrums, the fact that we rarely, if ever, arrive anywhere on time. The way that it’s next to impossible to find a group or activity that suits both the older children at the same time (not the faults of the groups or activities, but down to having two radically different children). I hosted a bad day carnival a little while back, may be worth going back and reading through those posts as well. Does that make you feel any better?
I still wouldn’t give it up easily though.
excellent post! We’ve just been discussing the moons poles, and whether a standard earth compass would be able to detect them :/ I don’t know where these things come from half the time!
.-= Tech´s last blog ..Great Expectations welovehomeed =-.
Fascinating question @Tech. What was the answer? I’m guessing not.
Compasses work because the earth has an iron core. afaik the moon is pretty homogeneous rock.
.-= Jan´s last blog ..Cribs and friends =-.
Lovely post Jax, wish our mealtimes were more interesting and less of a battlefield! Happy New Year to you all x
I don’t blog the battlefield bits… happy new year to you too. Lovely to hear from you.