In the movies, when the long-lost father/mother/brother/sister/whatever crosses paths with their kin, directors show us the visceral connection. Look in their eyes; they know something just happened. Nice for story lines, but no connection to reality.
Tag: school
What About Socialization?
Not only are we homeschooling Fiona, we’re traveling while doing so. The question of socialization comes up again and again. Who will she play with? How will she learn social skills?
Hopefully by the time a child is ready to start school parents have already taught them social skills. Fiona was taught to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ at two. She had plenty of opportunity before starting school to learn how to behave around other people, younger and older, and to be polite.
As far as playmates, I think she’s probably played more with children since we started traveling than when we were ‘home’ in Roseville. Everywhere we go she meets new friends and hates to leave when it’s time to go. Now that we’re settled here in Quebec for a few weeks with Cristina and family, she has three little kids to play with every day. She’s getting outside more since there’s a nice large, safe yard for her to play in.
So for any of you that were worried about her socialization, don’t worry. She’s fine. And if you’d like to read more about homeschooled children and socialization, check out this article.
Homeschooling: 1st Grade – Day 2
Today is Fiona’s second day of first grade. We homeschool through the Horizon Charter school program. Since we’re still traveling and are in Surrey British Columbia right now, you may wonder how this is working.
Well, right now we’re all sitting in a Wired Monk coffee shop in Surrey. We walked here from the place we’re staying at. So there’s P.E. – walking the neighborhood.
When we got to Wired Monk Fiona found an abacus. She thought that was a lot of fun to play with. She took a piece of paper and made up her own addition and subtraction problems and then used the abacus to figure out the answers. There’s Math!
She’s read some books and magazines – Reading. We did one spelling worksheet – Language Arts.
Later we will get out her Science book and do some science and some other things.
She’s been sipping on a Cherry Italian Soda all this time, had a cinnamon raisin bagel for breakfast and seems very happy. So far homeschooling while traveling seems to be more fun than when we’re at home.
Oh, and for a bedtime story last night she wanted to do something with maps. So out came her History/Social Science book with an atlas of North America. We traveled on the map from California to Canada, Alaska, Hawaii and across the U.S.
Do your kids have this much fun in school?