Disney Countdown: 116 Days
So it started last week when Julia, now 12, announced to me that school was not “fun” anymore. I was devastated! But the final blow was her next admission which was that she felt like she wasn’t learning anything lately. WHAT?!? How could this be? Of course you are learning! Of course school is fun! That’s why we homeschool!
I remained calm and let her get everything off her chest. When she went off to read and Hope was playing Starfall, I looked through Julia’s workboxes with new eyes. It was 10 drawers of workbooks: reading, writing, spelling, math and even science, history & religion. ALL workbooks. I don’t how it happened. I never intended it to… One reason why I would never put her in school is because of all the mindless, busy work – but here we are. And I felt like a hypocrite.
I remained calm and let her get everything off her chest. When she went off to read and Hope was playing Starfall, I looked through Julia’s workboxes with new eyes. It was 10 drawers of workbooks: reading, writing, spelling, math and even science, history & religion. ALL workbooks. I don’t how it happened. I never intended it to… One reason why I would never put her in school is because of all the mindless, busy work – but here we are. And I felt like a hypocrite.
The truth is that as Hope gets older I find she needs me more for her work and therapies. So little by little, I added “just one more” workbook for Julia to work on independently. Alas... 10 drawers of mindless, boring busywork. I can’t blame her for feeling the way she does. I knew I had to change something and immediately.
So I took to the Internet and “hit” the blogs. Soon a solution caught my eye. Notebooking. It seemed like a very simple yet brilliant idea. Would it work? I explained it Julia and I saw her eyes light up with excitement. “YES!” She exclaimed, “Let’s do it!”
I didn’t have any extra binders laying around. (I’ll explain why in a later post.) And I have a strict rule that I force myself to adhere to: When I want to try something new that I find on a homeschool blog, I am NOT allowed to purchase any new “system” unless I know it will work for us – or at least give it a try.
So while I didn’t have binders, I did have a ton of 3 prong folders. That would work. I set up a few into a notebooking / lapbook combo folders. I forced myself not to get fancy and refused to have to have it be “perfect”. When I was done, I was happy. So was Julia!
So I took to the Internet and “hit” the blogs. Soon a solution caught my eye. Notebooking. It seemed like a very simple yet brilliant idea. Would it work? I explained it Julia and I saw her eyes light up with excitement. “YES!” She exclaimed, “Let’s do it!”
I didn’t have any extra binders laying around. (I’ll explain why in a later post.) And I have a strict rule that I force myself to adhere to: When I want to try something new that I find on a homeschool blog, I am NOT allowed to purchase any new “system” unless I know it will work for us – or at least give it a try.
So while I didn’t have binders, I did have a ton of 3 prong folders. That would work. I set up a few into a notebooking / lapbook combo folders. I forced myself not to get fancy and refused to have to have it be “perfect”. When I was done, I was happy. So was Julia!
Today is day four of notebooking and school has changed – along with Julia’s attitude & work schedule. She is now actually excited to open her drawers and complete her work. At first, I don’t think she really knew what to do. I noticed that a lot of her writing was just copywork from the book. On day 2 , I explained that I was interested in her words – not what the book said, but what she “learned”. On day 3, her work exploded; not only in her notebooks, but in our conversations. She was telling me so much about the things she was learning. WOW- what an eye opener! I think Notebooking is here to stay for a while!!!
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