My Little Helper
My eldest son, Vincent who is almost eight, gets an extra long Winter Vacation from school because his (public) school offers the option of attending “Year Round”. He has the same number of days of school as the Traditional kids, but with vacation time spread out throughout the year. When I was working and payed for a sitter, it was financially convenient because the extra cost of having him not in school was broken up into several more affordable chunks. The school year ends in June, at the same time as the Traditional kids, he then gets six weeks off and starts the next grade in mid July. Then he gets two weeks off in September, two weeks at Christmas, and two weeks at Easter. Now that I’m at home with his little brother, we get to do fun things at home together. This break we have been watching Fragle Rock on Netflix and I started reading “Farmer Boy” by Laura Ingalls Wilder to him. I felt that I need to increase his dose of “Quaint” after all the video games he gets for Christmas. My dad got him a chemistry experiment set for Christmas, so we have been doing some educational activities too. I also make a point of the two of us cleaning his room together at each break. I found about a dozen lost school books this week alone! This break I also thought we should work on his handwriting, so I bought a work book for K-3 on handwriting. Half the book is printing, and the other half cursive. I try to make him do any two printing pages every day, and when he gets all the printing pages done, we will try the cursive.
Your probably wondering why I don’t home school, and trust me I’ve thought about it, and I can’t come up with a good reason not to use public school. Anything they don’t teach that I think he should learn, such as religious literacy, we can learn at home and at our Unitarian Universalist Church. And just because I do not home school does not mean that I have chosen not to take an active role in his education. I’ve taught Vincent that school is not a place where we talk about religion, just like Daddy doesn’t talk about religion at work, and we have probably avoided most friction with peers that way. He did come home one day complaining that the boys at school told him “Flower are for girls!” and I emphasized to him that Nature is for everyone, not just girls! If we ever did have a problem at school, it would be easy enough to change our minds and try homeschooling. Sometimes I wish the UU had parochial schools, but in all honesty it’s better for Vincent to be exposed to a diversity of people and their cultures and to learn to “agree to disagree” with people who are not of a like mind.
The Quaint Homesteader 