Friday, February 23, 2007

Day 26

After I got sick last week, I had to make an emergency trip to the dentist on Wednesday and then drive to town for a root canal on Thursday. I still have not recovered from whatever it was that brought me low last week. So we did not get to everything on our list… to say the least. AH… these things happen.

  • Sean finished book 7 of Key to Algebra.
  • I plan to do a couple of math lessons with Kieron which will bring him up to 52, I think…

We did Latin a couple of times and Greek once….

Also, it snowed quite a bit yesterday so today we all worked outside, and then we had Stations of the Cross in the afternoon (homeschool group). Wednesday after my dentist trip we went to the Ash Wednesday service “remember that thou art dust, and to dust you shall return” . I did feel very much like dust about then.
Sean is tearing through books. He read the White Stag by Kate Seredy, and then Augustine Came to Kent, and then The High Crusade by Poul Anderson, and now Son of Charlemagne.

Kieron worked a bit on the Drawing Textbook and had fun. We meant to do origami this week but didn’t get to it. Next week maybe.

Kieron read several of the Catholic Mosaic books. Both the kids read their Faith and Life.

I think I figured out one reason it is more difficult to record “unschooling” or alternative learning…. at least in my house. Probably not as true in more project-oriented homes. But around here…. learning takes place in micro-doses, most of the time. The kids learn things and it’s difficult to say where or when the learning took place. Sometimes I see learning behavior happening…. but more often, I don’t, unless I’m actually involved in it or they tell me something.

That sounds a bit obvious, now that I write it out. But the point is that “methods” like classical, or Charlotte Mason, give me a sort of framework for seeing things happening in the present moment. I apprehend learning taking place more in retrospect, when a milestone is reached. Then I think: What did I do, or not do, to make this happen?

I remember that Aidan couldn’t see our dogs, when he first came home from the hospital at age 7 months. He must have “seen” them but he acted as if they weren’t there. Later on he DID see them. We figured his brain must have taken some time to actually make sense of something so far outside of his experience up till then, and until that time, he simply didn’t acknowledge their existence. He’s done that several times since.

A rambling post, but there you have it!