3 Favorite Homeschool Things
Posted by Reagan on 17 Jul 2008 at 12:23 pm | Tagged as: General, HomeSchool
I got the idea for this post from my friend Karen in Colorado. Here is her blog on homeschooling.
My 3 favorite things regarding homeschooling:
1. Game Time: I am one of the biggest haters of the roll video games play in many children’s lives. However, we did step over to the dark side last Xmas and get an Xbox 360. Mason gets 20 min of time to play on weekdays and 1 hr on weekends. This is his biggest motivator in getting schoolwork done. The sooner it’s done, the sooner he gets “Game Time.” Maybe it is allowing the games to have more “power” in his life than it should, but whatever gets our stubborn guy on the right track.
2. Buddhist Stories Book, by Anita Ganeri: Mason loves to read anyway, thankfully. However, I brought out this book so that we could introduce him to Buddhism. I have never seen him so fired up about a story before! The book itself is beautifully illustrated (there are more on other religions) and the stories are meaningful without being too over your head spiritualism.
3. Freedom! : The freedom to travel. The freedom to not have to answer to a teacher or a principle every day. The freedom to let my son learn what he is interested in. The freedom to turn everyday events into learning opportunities.
I love the freedom, too! And whether it’s game time or going shopping, I think it does help to give them some incentive – something fun they want to do if they just get the school work done first. Of course we want them to learn to love learning for its own sake, but at this age a little external reward is sometimes a necessary prod.
So you have me curious now. Are you and Rich practicing Buddhism as well or simply trying to expose Mason to various religious perspectives?