Accidental Homeschooling: Week 11
By: Sarah Cords
Tags: Parenting, Homeschooling, Mathematics, Education

Accidental Homeschooling: Week 11

I blinked and here we are again, at a Friday

I was just sitting at the computer trying, vainly, to finish a new work project, and suddenly I realized that tomorrow is Friday.

Okay, I lied. Twice. I’m sitting here trying to start a new work project that I have been avoiding, and I didn’t just suddenly realize that tomorrow is Friday; I had to pause and consciously think, what night is it? What day is it tomorrow?

And that pretty much sums up the week we’ve had in homeschooling.

Which is okay. It has been a week of largely similar, if exhausting, days, but they have been mostly good ones. I am still getting what our elders would have called a lot of “sass” when trying to get the boys to settle down to their lessons, but they have been settling down to their lessons, eventually, and that begrudging compliance feels like a win at this point.

Math worksheets were done, Khan Academy (for more math practice) was visited, and I also subscribed to something called Math Antics, because the price was right ($10 per year). Math Antics is a service where a lovely gentleman who really seems to enjoy math offers videos (you can also see them at YouTube) and practice exercises, and the eldest and I have been watching said videos, which has been helpful. I don’t know who this Math Antics guy is, but he taught us this wonderful thing called factoring, which I had never heard of before (I can’t swear they didn’t teach me this in elementary school, but I really don’t think they did) and is actually helping me understand fractions.

You don’t understand how big this is. Even my father, a (mostly) patient man with a wonderful math brain, struggled mightily to help me understand fractions, and he eventually just gave up (even though he was not known for giving up) on me, somewhere around fifth or sixth grade.

So, the eldest likes the videos and I like actually understanding fractions, so that was a very good development.

We had nice weather in the upper Midwest this week, too, so I’ll admit that I prioritized outdoor playground time again. I can’t help it. Soon we will be locked in this tiny house during whatever Polar Vortex winter decides to throw at us this year. Plenty of time then, I figure, for writing and handwriting classes.

Playing at the playground also led to one of our more interesting classes. While there, we found all sorts of bark on the ground, and it was covered with an interesting green lichen. (I think the parks department had been around, trimming trees, so I’m guessing that’s where all the loose bark came from.) So when we came home we watched some videos on lichen, and learned that the word symbiosis was actually invented to describe the interaction, in lichen, of its two component parts: a fungus and an algae. The boys brought home a sample, seemed to enjoy the research (“no, pick that video, that looks good”), and told their father all about it later that night.

I don’t know what the boys are learning, but I’m learning tons, way more than I have in years. It’s a weird, horrible year, no doubt about it. But my wish for you this week is that you can take a walk, and look around you in peace, and learn something new. There’s no time like the present.

Here’s all of our accidental homeschooling adventures: Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Week 10