I have seen the same with ‘work’ and ‘play’ now being very divided for my son. However, I have also seen him go more deeply into his play now that he has the work happening daily as well. That is neat to see!
"In a very exciting and inspiring way, not a crushing and defeating way, there is so much to learn! It’s like the world’s biggest chocolate box! I want to take the children out of their comfort zones, gently and kindly, and introduce them to things they might never explore by themselves." Love this.
Also, how does Charlotte Mason have ENDLESS gems?? She was prolific.
Charlotte Mason and The Well Trained mind are such great resources and inspiration.
We also do a list for our just turned 8yo, it looks something like this: math, spelling, handwriting, history and grammar a couple times a week. We do lots of literature read-a-louds too and we do reading practice and he reads recreationally for at least an hour most days. We would like to introduce spanish as a living language and latin as well but I'm still trying to figure out where/how to start.
We encounter a fair amount of whining/complaining too and we just talk about how we all have things we have to do and things we want to do and we need to complete our have to do list first. This doesn't always go over well...it's all a work in progress.
My family’s homeschool journey, and our impressions of the pros/cons of structured learning, are very similar to what you describe here. Unschooling was a great place for us to start when we withdrew our boys from their Waldorf school 3.5 years ago, but we’ve gradually introduced more goals and structure. My boys are now 11 and almost 14, and this year we took one step further and are experimenting with a Charlotte Mason curriculum (the CMEC). Reading in their free time has decreased markedly for both of them, so I’m thinking about how to tweak our approach for next term. On the plus side, they have learned so much in just 6 weeks and remain very enthusiastic about their weekly timetable and their “lessons.”
I have seen the same with ‘work’ and ‘play’ now being very divided for my son. However, I have also seen him go more deeply into his play now that he has the work happening daily as well. That is neat to see!
"In a very exciting and inspiring way, not a crushing and defeating way, there is so much to learn! It’s like the world’s biggest chocolate box! I want to take the children out of their comfort zones, gently and kindly, and introduce them to things they might never explore by themselves." Love this.
Also, how does Charlotte Mason have ENDLESS gems?? She was prolific.
Charlotte Mason and The Well Trained mind are such great resources and inspiration.
We also do a list for our just turned 8yo, it looks something like this: math, spelling, handwriting, history and grammar a couple times a week. We do lots of literature read-a-louds too and we do reading practice and he reads recreationally for at least an hour most days. We would like to introduce spanish as a living language and latin as well but I'm still trying to figure out where/how to start.
We encounter a fair amount of whining/complaining too and we just talk about how we all have things we have to do and things we want to do and we need to complete our have to do list first. This doesn't always go over well...it's all a work in progress.
My family’s homeschool journey, and our impressions of the pros/cons of structured learning, are very similar to what you describe here. Unschooling was a great place for us to start when we withdrew our boys from their Waldorf school 3.5 years ago, but we’ve gradually introduced more goals and structure. My boys are now 11 and almost 14, and this year we took one step further and are experimenting with a Charlotte Mason curriculum (the CMEC). Reading in their free time has decreased markedly for both of them, so I’m thinking about how to tweak our approach for next term. On the plus side, they have learned so much in just 6 weeks and remain very enthusiastic about their weekly timetable and their “lessons.”