I am wondering if anyone has kids whose desire to learn something has put them in the ackward position of having to learn something completely foreign to them? And have you had to make a curriculum/lesson up for that topic? I find myself in deep right now and wondering if I am the only 'insane' person out there. lol.
LOL! A few weeks ago I made up this month's lesson for ds... all about prehistoric plants. I knew NOTHING about it. Didn't really drive me crazy, I suppose, but was a crazy amount of legwork, and then I typed something up and had to drag pictures up for it.... all foreign to me. But hey, I learned a lot :wink:
Ds (6) has already learned that homeschooling can mean learning about anything he wants, but that often times it is us studying it together. He will tell me to "google" whatever it is so we can learn about it. I had to laugh the other day thinking that my son says "google it". However, I guess that is a little better than a year ago when he would just tell me to go to www dot (fill in the blank) dot com. I would laugh because he would say he wanted to learn more about dinosaurs, so we needed to go to www dot dinosaurs dot com. I had to explain that sometimes that worked, but not always. That is when he started to learn about looking it up. I have also become quick to whip out a handwritten worksheet to "test" understanding of a book we read. You are not insane at all, just taking advantage of a perk of homeschooling...kid-specific learning.
Repeat after me: The librarian is my best friend.... Yes, Phillip wanted electricity. Unfortunately, I bombed. I tried...REALLY I did! But it really needed to be kid-directed, and he wanted someone with him.
A couple of years ago Ems wanted to learn about plagues and epidemics for health. I was able to also turn it into history. It turned out so much better than I planned. When she was younger I also put some of her science lessons together. It takes effort and research on the parents part and I have flopped a time or two. Still, it is worth trying.
My boys (7yo and 6yo) are interested in claymation and stop motion animation. I am learning with them as we go. Turns out, it's really fun and we are all really enjoying it! I'm sure I'll have to tackle more difficult topics as the years go by. My boys tend to like to learn about very specific things sometimes.
Whew I am so relieved. It just seemed like I was the only person. Everyone in my homeschool group seems to think that sticking to a boxed curric is great and why bother with anything else. So when I try to find anyone to talk to about it I get wierd looks. Right now I am sinking in Artifical intelligence history of. To make any sense out of such a weighty topic and then condense and reword for children is making my brain hurt lol. But I am giving it a valiant effort. Pat on the back for me Anyway glad to know I am not alone
I understand the draw of that, but I don't think I could do it. Every single time I buy a workbook/textbook and think, "THIS is going to make things easier!", it not only doesn't do that at all (because now I have to find some great stuff to flesh it out due to skimpy/dumbed down info), it frustrates me to no end. And even makes me a wee bit angry. With soooo much information out there, I just don't understand only teaching THIS little block or THAT little block. I'm too independent and too picky
I personally loved making my own unit study when the boys where younger. I would use my library/internet for sources.
