Wendy Silver

HI,
This is from a friend of mine not on this list, but she didn't care if I
shared it, and I enjoyed reading it.
Wendy
>
>
> Here's what I realized about the homeschooling that's been going on around
> here. I allow myself to get negative and down on myself sometimes for not
> doing enough, but then certain things happen, certain conversations, that
> remind me that things do work out, and for the better usually. I realize
> more and more that we are definitely unschoolers. Sure, we do some of the
> curriculum stuff sometimes, mostly with reading because I realize Oliver
is
> ready to read and needs some pushing/guiding. But it's unbelievable what
> he's learning.
>
> First of all there's the socialization he's getting from being around good
> friends, new "friends" that aren't quite friends yet, and adults I meet
> with. It's so important that children be around people of all ages and
not
> just 25 kids of the same age for 6-8 hours a day. But here's what he's
> getting from his passion, baseball.
>
> The most obvious is the math skills. I've told some people about how he
> organizes his baseball cards in his notebook - by batting average. He
> starts his notebook with the highest average and works his way down.
> Whenever he gets a new card, he takes as much time as he needs to get it
in
> the right place. His attention span is huge during "baseball card
> organization" time. I knew he was (further) developing his incredible
math
> skills already. Lately more things have come to me. He's learning how to
> write. This is something he hasn't wanted to do until fairly recently and
> I've never pushed him in this area. (Mostly due to my belief in children
> not being ready to write until they're ready to write.) He copies stats
off
> the internet, he finds world records from his baseball cards and copies
> them, and the other day he started a channel list (we have a satellite
dish
> and have a zillion channels and it gets difficult to find the channel with
> the Braves game on sometimes.) The channel list has channels we go to
more
> frequently but forget later - name of channel and number is what he
writes.
> He's learning to read - names of teams, players, words pertaining to
> baseball. He's learning geography by having a huge interest in where the
> Braves are playing each night. He's learning how to look at weather maps.
> He tunes in to the weather channel and looks to see if it is raining in
the
> city where the Braves are playing. Just yesterday I realized something
else
> he has learned - the days of the week in the correct order. Previously
he's
> had a mental block about the days of the week. All of a sudden,
yesterday,
> he said, "Sunday, Monday, Tuesday..." and went on to name them all. When
I
> asked him when he learned that he said, "The Braves aren't playing today,
> Tuesday, and I heard the announcer yesterday say that they were playing
the
> next day on Wednesday. So now I just know all of them."
>
> So there you go. I average about one hour per week of formal teaching.
He
> is so bright, he is learning so much, he has such love of learning. He
> would be "learning" to read and write and do math problems and read maps
in
> school, but would he love it so much? Would he have time and energy at
the
> end of the day to pursue his basebal interest? No he would not. I'm
> completely satisfied with our homeschooling life, at least for this
moment.
>
> Amy
>
>
>