There is much more to school than books. So much more! Our state has a required number of school days each year, with 6 hours of educational time each day. That does not mean that a homeschooled child has to spend 6 hours each day sitting still, working out of textbooks! A typical public school day has time for eating, music, gym, recess, games, library, etc. Our homeschool day is like that as well.
Alexander, my nine-year-old, does about three hours of actual sitting-at-his desk work each day. During this time, we cover the basics: history, geography, poetry, Bible, English, spelling, math, reading, and science. But there are many more things that Alex learns each day that don’t require a curriculum or a textbook. These other things most definitely count as educational time. What follows are five ways that we homeschool without books:
1. Chores
Every day, he is assigned two chores – one in his bathroom (which is also the guest bathroom) and one elsewhere in the house to help the family. Alex washes his clothing and his own bedding, vacuums his bedroom, and cleans various things around the house. Don’t let me fool you into thinking he does all this without complaint – he is still a typical kid who doesn’t appreciate this boring stuff cutting into his playtime, but it is worth it to us because he is learning to be responsible and independent!
2. Meals
There is so much to learn at mealtimes. Alex has been in charge of his own breakfast for quite a while, and he can even use the toaster by himself. He is learning how to cook things on the stove with supervision. He helps me cook sometimes, so he is learning how to read recipes and measure ingredients. We talk about nutrition and eating a balanced diet. A big part of growing up is learning table manners, and homeschooling allows us to reinforce them at every meal.
3. Shopping
Shopping trips are so much harder with Alex along (“Mom, can I have that?” “How about that?” “Pleeeease???”), but teaching him money management is worth the headache. He learns how to shop efficiently and within a budget. He learns that we don’t all get what we want. What we need is the priority, and we can get a want or two only if there is room in the budget.
4. Field Trips
Just like public school, homeschoolers can learn through field trips. We have gone to an apple orchard, pumpkin patch, zoo, aquarium, and a few museums over the past 1.5 years of homeschooling. These trips usually take the whole school day. We also visit the library to pick out new books, to play with the hands-on learning stations there, or to attend events hosted there.
5. The Internet
Alex started doing English and about half of his math work on the computer. There are so many great free resources out there for these subjects. It takes me a little more work to come up with the week’s assignments for him, but he responds to them much better than repetitive work in a textbook. I get ideas from All-in-One Homeschooling, but I don’t follow their schedule exactly.
This is a guest post by my friend Amy Babb. Amy Babb is the wife of Tim the Woodworking Maniak, mom and homeschoo
l teacher to energetic 9-year-old Alex, mama to miracle baby Sarah who just celebrated her first birthday, and blogger at House of Maniaks. (www.houseofmaniaks.com) Former electrical engineer Amy geeks out over cooking, writing, educating, cloth diapering, and being a pirate in her spare time.
