little c: I want to get you diamonds for Christmas.
me: Wow, that sure sounds nice.
little c: I want to mine for them.
me: Oh? Where would you go to do that?
little c: Detroit
Huh?
My mom explained to little c in the car that diamonds are often found in S. Africa. Big C told little c she would die if she went there. My mom asked why. Big C said "mosquitoes". Lots of malaria in Africa. I 'think' she told me one time that mosquitoes are the deadliest animals.
They sure are fun girls and keep me on my toes. There are some days, especially when the roads are bad, when I yearn for a little QT in the car. Less hard questions to answer as I am trying to focus! I call what we do car-schooling. Just last week as I was driving alone in the car with little c we talked about prefixes, suffixes, pronouns, and adverbs. Our conversation was all based on me listening to a simple question little c asked me and running with it. Other home-school mom friends have said some of their best 'teaching' comes in the car too.
Have you heard of the girl who was 'car-schooled' alongside her mother as she drove truck? She went on to graduate from Harvard! Crazy, huh?
Cab-Schooled
When the girls tell strangers and their doctor that their mom makes them do school all year long, you have to remember we see school a little differently than most people. We learn all the time. It never stops, not in the summer, not over Christmas, it's just part of our every day life. But it's sneaky learning, not forced on them, and it is working! The girls think they have rough, I guess.
Kids are born being curious. Think about how much they learn from the time they are born until they first go to school. And none of that is from textbooks or worksheets. It's from time to explore their environments, be with their parents, mimic adult behavior. And then they go to school and it's no longer child led. It's teacher led and administration led. They can't go at their own pace and they can't choose to learn what interests them. And we wonder why they are sort of miserable? And many grow to hate school. How would you like to be really 'into' something and be told it's time to move on to something completely different. And to feel like your day exists with little influence or control of your own. I recall when Big C was at school and struggling with the boring, way too easy work given by her teacher. The one thing that made a difference in her attitude was when the teacher told her she could pick the order in which she did the work. Even though it continued to lack challenge, having that tiny bit of control over her life made it easier for her do. She was happier, more agreeable.
I believe the reason my girls remember as much as they do is because their education is primarily based on their own curiosity. I don't have a timeline as to when I expect them to learn things. I have faith it will come together and if we start to see gaps we can expose and introduce different topics.
I haven't figured out the high school years yet. That requires a little more research on my part....
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