Homeschoolers are bound by laws that require the teaching of five specific subjects: math, science, social studies, reading, and writing. And that's not too hard to do. Both girls have those subjects. Teagan has the extra English class to teach grammar and writing, and I love it. Too many young adults have missed that in public school for some reason, and BJU's English is awesome.
The point is that I think I have become comfortable enough in my homeschooling that I can venture out to the lazy side of it---tap into my creative juices---and uncover a world of "fun" learning--the kind of learning that comes from just being a kid. Sure, we make things and "do" science, but it all comes with a worksheet or something school-like. And they all come with exams. Blah. Homeschoolers don't even have to use a standard exam. We can actually just right a statement of what the child has learned and use other means of assessment.
I think to start out this crazy plan of mine, I will allow one subject per day to be done outside of the classroom and the normal layout of teaching, and then add as many subjects as possible as time goes by. For instance, one day a week we are doing English in the living room. It may be that we play a some sort of game on the whiteboard where one of the girls write a sentence that's all screwed up, and someone has to fix the mistakes--me included. Maybe we'll play hopscotch with spelling words on a different day. Heck, maybe we'll play hopscotch with math problems....who knows! I just think it's time to get out of the classroom for a little while during the day. I am also going to stop following a science curriculum book for science. We are going to study 1-3 science experiments per week on the same subject-----with NO worksheets. How fun is that! So really, there's two subjects that will not be done in the classroom on each day: Science and something else.
I want to get away from as many worksheets as I can. If I can come up with something fun and game-like that covers all the junk on a worksheet, then that is what I am going to do. I saw this fantastic world map online that I need to start saving for. I don't spend a whole awful lot on homeschooling (except for maybe the curriculum itself), so the map would be something of a splurge. But, we could use a map for SO MANY activities. I have one in mind already-----another day, another blog.....
I really just want the girls to look back and think that it was so great to grow up as a homeschooled child. I want them to play, and get dirty and make castles out of rocks and unearth some massive treasure in the backyard that they found when their pirate ship hit land. I want them to play cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, and junk store. I want them to be the ones that say, "I don't even remember the class time we had, but I remember this one time when we.............."