Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Homeschooling

I have noticed that homeschooling has given us some very interesting children. A couple of months ago, I was returning from the store with Daniel. He asked me what *I* would do to fix the economy if I were the President. Very thought provoking, and there are no easy answers.

Yesterday, Dan was working on some grammar worksheets. He was requested to write a sentence telling what a pronoun is. I asked him to tell me about pronouns... and he did. But that didn't answer the worksheet question. I told him that a pronoun replaces a noun in a sentence. This he knew. "But Mom, that is what a pronoun DOES... the question wants me to tell what a pronoun IS." Very astute. He had me there... so we resorted to the answer key. Sure enough, the answer that was wanted was really what a pronoun does. (I began thinking of the song "Running on Empty" by Jackson Browne. Never confuse who you are with what you do...)

I was going through some nooks and crannies, digging out some books I had intended to incorporate into lessons several years ago. One was on "Great Composers". I left it laying out so that I can put it to use once Tom goes back to work... we can't deal with too many distractions at a time. Talk radio is on when Tom is home. That is distracting. If I put on the music CD to play a track of each great composer... it would be chaos. Mr C will mock my efforts. That's just what he does.
Anyway, Sam saw the book laying out and asked about it. He flipped through a few pages, then announced that the only Great Composer he recognised right off was Bitch.
I am sure my jaw dropped, as he turned the book to show me BACH. He knew it wasn't pronounced exactly as it looked... but he didn't quite remember which letters were pronounced differently.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I say go for the wet basement!! What you save on gas, wear and tear, etc. you can fix the basement problem, floors are easy to cover or replace, and having a fenced in place for the dogs is worth a lot. Hugs MOM

Truth said...

Oh I love the questions and observations. Isn't it delightful to get to hear our children learn and how they think?