Homeschooling Monday

Math - Started the review for the end of the book.

Poetry - Situations when you would choose to use Trochee over Dactyl. What sounds in nature sound like iambic, trochee, dactyl or anapest

Japanese - More katakana

Social Studies - How an influx of gold from the Americas disrupted and damaged the Spanish economy in the 1500's and the Spanish Inquisition.

Science - Swine Flu, mutations, outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics.



Reading - Swallowdale by Arthur Ransome part of the Swallows and Amazons series

PIano lesson - Her teacher wanted to talk with Zoe and me about upcoming competitions, music festivals, recitals, etc. There are two big competitions, The Stickley and Hoosier Auditions.

She decided to move Zoe up two levels. Honestly I don't really understand what the levels mean, I think it might have something to do with the Achievement in Music tests.

So she has a 4 page Bach piece and a longish Beethoven piece for piano and Bel Piacere by Handel for voice.

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So, all this means that Zoe will be getting more busy. At least 3 competitions the next school year, the Japanese Language Proficiency Exam in Chicago, several choir recitals, moving onto 6th and 7th grade in Math, Science and Language Arts, starting Hebrew School, plus whatever else she wants to get herself into.

But, it seems like it is still less than her school friends do. They all go to school until 3:30 and then come home and do homework and then practice for soccer or band. The friend Zoe has over today has soccer practice 3 afternoons and then games all day on Saturday . The neighbor girl, she's 12, has homework and practice for band (she is really good, went to the state competitions this year) until bedtime.

Not that it makes it okay for Zoe to be busy. I don't know. When I was growing up I was a latch key kid. I came home after school and read books or watched T.V. alone in the house until my mom came home. If it was early enough I rode my bike around the neighborhood, hoping to meet up with some friends, until dinner. Then I watched more TV until my mom sent me to bed. My mother wasn't about to drive me around to extra-curricular activities or pick me up at school late. I had to make sure I was on the bus home.

So yeah, other than musical theatre classes on Saturdays (That lasted all day, so it was worth it for my mom to take me) my childhood was lazy and unproductive. And maybe that is how childhood should be. Or maybe idle hands are the Devil's Play things. I wandered around dangerous woods, I rode my bike really far away, I read A LOT, a watched a lot of bad television and basically frittered away my childhood and then my teenaged years.

I was not involved in girl scouts, a Church youth group, ballet, gymnastics, soccer, etc. I tried a lot of things briefly,(guitar, modeling, karate) at the weird schools I went to. But, when I got older I was mostly a juvenile delinquent, with too much time on my hands.

Zoe... well I am trying really hard with Zoe. I've always wanted her to have plenty of free play time. That went south fairly quickly when she demanded instruction in foreign languages and a math workbook when she was two (No lie, no exaggeration.) Until last year I tried to keep homeschooling down to four days a week and done by lunch.

That more than reasonable and left her plenty of Free Time.

But then there were all the classes... Zoe tried karate, ballet/jazz, acting, musical theatre, Shakespeare, astronaut training, voice, piano, Japanese, gymnastics and religious school. She loved them all and cried when I made her choose a few to stick with. When we lived in Los Angeles she decided on Shakespeare, gymnastics, voice, piano and musical theatre with various short term classes thrown in here and there (yeah, that is one of the beauties of homeschooling.)

Now she has a weekly 45 min piano/voice lesson that is soon to go up to an hour, a weekly hour long Japanese lesson, Sunday School, and various Saturday acting endeavors that only come up a few times a year. Plus homeschooling that is now 6 hours a day (but still only four days a week)

So... is this a good thing or a bad thing? Does she have enough time to play? It seems like it. But it doesn't seem like she has enough time to complain that she is bored. We have board games, and a Wii, and coloring books, and Littlest Pet Shops, and bikes to ride, and anime to watch and many books to read. When school is over, around 2:00 p.m., she has plenty of things to do.

I don't know. I don't think she is doing TOO much. But, as always, I want to be careful and make sure she is happy and thriving and experiencing childhood.. hopefully a better childhood than I had.