April Homeschooling Miscellany

We didn't do much.  There was a lot of Horrible Histories and David Attenborough documentaries on Netflix, a lot of anime, a lot of discussion of character stereotypes.  13yo went through a period of refusing to go to bed, and when confronted on why, good-naturedly joked well he is a teenager, he needs to be rebellious about something.  I suggested that the stereotypical teen rebellion thing tended to happen because the children in question felt like they had no control of their lives due to spending large chunks of their day in school, then have to give up even more time on homework, and in order to make sure they're getting the study stuff done the parents are obliged to restrict the fun stuff.  He and his siblings however had due to the style of homeschooling we do, almost all the time in the world to do as they liked, and if he felt that bedtime or something else was cramping his style then he could simply bring it up and we could have a chat about it and either tell him why it had to be that way whether he liked it or not, or negotiate conditions that would work better for everyone.  He agreed that it might be better to do that instead.  The bigs wanted to decide their own bedtime and are doing so at a reasonable hour (though every now and again I have to poke them before I go to bed).

Other than that, 13yo, 11yo and some friends from gymnastics heard frogs after an adult gym class, and wanted my phone to take pics when they found some:

He took a few, this one was the best of the bunch.

We spent a bit of time with my mother in law who was looking after my sister in law's kids for a week while they attended a conference, and also has our other nephew once a week to help my brother in law out.  We don't get to hang with the cousins often so it was nice to catch up.

Finding cute little critters seemed to be a thing this month as 13yo found a gecko in his room and after requesting photographs and laughing at it ferociously gumming his hand (I asked him if he pretended to be hurt to make it feel better), relocated it outside. 

I may request he leave the next one inside to eat the insects, although then we have gecko droppings to contend with...

9yo "discovered" a new easy snack he could make himself:

and proudly blogged about it.  The best part was he did that entirely on his own, aside from asking how to spell some words.  Previously to try to encourage him I'd been scribing for him and then getting him to copy what I'd written.  I've since been told that typing counts as "writing" and that handwriting was something else, which has made a lot of things so much easier, as the only one with neat handwriting is 11yo.  13yo frequently types on chats and things and is more willing to type than write.  I've also been told by 9yo's psych that we should really be encouraging him to write by himself as the process forces the brain to slow down and concentrate on multiple things at once (holding on to a thought in the brain long enough to transfer it to paper/screen and simultaneously coordinating the muscles required to write/type it out).  That was an epic battle, so I'm glad it's happening naturally even if it's considered "late" by school standards, and better yet his confidence is growing, so hopefully he'll be able to progress towards longer articles on his own without getting too exhausted.