Class Had Begun
One of the best parts of our year traveling is going to be the opportunity to teach the children ourselves. We can self pace their curriculum and teach to their level. Our main goals are to push them ahead of their peers in math, so that when they get to their new school next year they can concentrate more fully on their other subjects. Math is something Carl and I feel fairly comfortable teaching. How hard can it be? We’ve got the workbook and we can read.
We’ll teach writing and language via the kids web-log entries. They should get better as the year progresses. We both have to resist the urge to “help” them with their writing early on. The kids’ web-logs will thus be an English and Writing lesson combined. As the year goes on they’ll also be required to add the photographs to their text on their own.
History, social studies, geography are all covered through our daily lives traveling. Humorously enough when reviewing the curriculum standards for this year, we discovered the kids are required to learn about the people and cultures of Africa, Asia and Australia. Check, check, and double check. We should be fine there.
Our biggest challenges will be in Science. We’ll have to use the internet and get creative. Our first science lesson will be in wine making here in the Cape. There are so many great vineyards here. It’s tough, but we’ll soldier on.
So with much anticipation our first day of sit down school, in math, has arrived.
We cracked open the math workbook to page one. The first few pages didn’t look so tough. Today would be a piece of cake, or so we thought. After going over the directions and basic explanations, the kids retreated to their rooms to get started on the problems. After two hours, Connor had accomplished one page, and had managed to create nice deep lines across his face from falling asleep. Hum.
Alexa did better: it only took her until 2pm to get her problems done. Connor worked until 4, through many tears and fits. All in all, School Day #1 was a total abomination. Obviously we were doing something wrong and decided to make some course corrections the next day. The kids need to learn something this year, and at this rate it’s going to be a long year for all of us.
Tags: Education, Kids, South Africa, Teach, Travel
Administrator
Leave a Reply