No matter how hard I try, school still just seems like this extra chore that we have to do before we can have fun. It’s almost like it’s ingrained in all of us that school = boring. I wonder if I could shift our attitudes if I just started calling it something else. In any case we have at least made a few changes that make our school day more efficient, and we all like that. The first thing I did is totally scale back Alex’s History and Geography curriculum and I eliminated Art History. I swear if we did all the work his lesson manuals call for we’d be doing school 8 hours a day. So, I’ve made some priority calls. I decided that a large part of what he was getting out of these subjects in addition to the specific information (which I think is far less important anyway) was reading comprehension and critical thinking and inferring. That is, reading a topic and then answering questions about it that aren’t directly given in the text. I decided that between the other two subjects of Reading and Science he was getting enough of that skill development. So, now for History and Geography all we do is read the text so he’s somewhat familiar with topics, but we don’t do all the extra work or tests associated with it.
Another change I made is with the structure of our school day. We are now doing independent work in the morning and then lessons after that. This way, the boys are never having to wait for me to start their school day. They get up, have breakfast, and start their independent work. It’s making the school days end earlier in the afternoon.
I really enjoy doing school with the boys, but I have to say they aren’t that crazy about it. We’ll keep working on it as it’s all a learning process.
Gresham Family Exodus 