The "home school" part ... well, that's harder to explain. It kind of makes it sound like we do "school at home," with me up front at a whiteboard leading daily lessons, or sitting at a table across from Wunderkind with a teacher's manual, and that's not what we do. (I admit I love the idea, though, which is probably why I cling to that word "school." Picture me making plans -- a whole scope and sequence! -- and imparting knowledge to Wunderkind in perfectly portioned segments, and Wunderkind whizzing through his lessons! But no. It's actually nothing at all like that.) I think we're unschoolers, but some might quibble over definitions, so let's never mind that word.
We read things, we watch things, we investigate things, we study things, we visit places, we do projects together and separately, we check out lots of books and DVDs from the library, Wunderkind takes weekly enrichment classes of his choosing, and sometimes I come up with a brilliant idea I want us to do, and then I find Wunderkind in the middle of a project of his own making -- making a model of a human body or something, or trying to multiply Roman numerals, or labeling everything in the house with English words (when he was five) or French words (more recently) written on sticky notes -- which turns out to be way better than anything I could come up with, and I let him be. Honestly, though, he's usually game to try whatever I propose. Sometimes, with me or alone, he'll work through a traditional curriculum: a Math-U-See grade level, a "Handwriting without Tears" or "Writing with Ease" workbook, a science workbook with lessons, a chess workbook, a French workbook. But I can't say those traditional-looking things are where he learns most of what he knows; by my observation, those seem kind of supplementary or incidental.
He learned how to add numbers, including decimal places, by counting up his dad's pocket change every day for years. At first they'd just put the coins in their proper slots in the coin keeper on his dad's dresser -- fun toddler activity, sorting things! -- and then his dad decided to start keeping track, on paper, of how much they were saving. So he showed Wunderkind how to add numbers in columns. One day a few months ago I decided he should learn how to multiply two-digit numbers on paper. He was up for it, so I showed him how. For several days, I gave him a few problems to solve every day. Then he got bored with that, so we stopped. One night around 10 p.m., Wunderkind wanted to know how to do "vertical division" -- long division. Not a bad excuse to stay up late! So I showed him, and then in the coming days, we practiced this new thing.
Sometimes people ask if we take a break from homeschooling in the summertime. It's a funny question to me, and I should come up with an answer because I never know what to say. I suppose we would take a break, if he ever wanted to stop learning things. But he just keeps asking questions!
* * *
A great many of the Cars cars:
Composition of the human body (inspired by a song by They Might Be Giants, I think):
[WK says, "Yes, it was inspired by a song by TMBG."]
An apartment building (with elevator) for Mickey Mouse & Co.:
Coloring page printout:
[WK says, "As you can see, I didn't yet know about the colon and double backslash, or how to end the URL.]
Pint glass xylophone:
Teaching himself a card trick by watching ActivityTV.com:
[WK says, "This card trick is called Jumping Coins."]
Drawing the seven dwarfs:
[WK says, "And eating yogurt."]
Drawing Winnie the Pooh characters:
[WK say, "I was drawing Pooh, Tigger, Roo, and Owl."]
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