Whew.
This whole schoolteacher thing is wearing me out and it’s only been a
day. Talk about flashbacks. Zakary is a lot like his Daddy was when he
was being homeschooled. Hand him the
assignments for the day and he goes to town to get them all done. Quicker he finishes, quicker he can get on to
the real business of playing. Caleb
learns a lot like his Uncle Nathan did.
Hands on. Lots of breaks to allow
him to refocus. And once he “gets” what
you are asking for, he can answer almost by instinct. I always wanted to be able to do that. Even when we were teaching our boys. Of course the curriculum wants him to show
how he got there. Instinctual learner
vs. by the books curriculum. Never a
good combination.
They use a lot of media, which is a great
way to capture the attention of these youngsters who grew up surrounded by
iPhones and laptops and smart TV’s. Why,
I my day … OK I won’t go there. Bible
class was done through an interactive website, and today Zakary has an online
Latin class. It has an actual teacher, students
have to log in to the class, and she can actually see and interact with her
students through their webcams. Kind of
eerie, if you ask me, but it is way better than the alternative. Kel took Latin, and if it hadn’t been for a
retired high school Latin teacher wanting to keep his skills up, he never would
have made it through. But that’s one of the
plusses of homeschooling. You discover
resources you never dreamed even existed.
Next we had to take Zak to his piano lesson
out in the middle of nowhere. The
teacher lives on a ranch somewhere outside of Waco. The rest of us waited outside. I sat on the porch swing and read a
book. Caleb saved the world from evil
minions on my cell phone. This was Luke’s
time for school for the day, though. Science
class. He and Nani roamed around the yard
looking at rocks and water puddles and maybe even a bug or two. The learning never ceases.
After all that work, what else could we do
but head for Chuck E. Cheese? All three
of the boys were in hog heaven. Josh and
Christi might be in a pickle once Luke learns that the machines are really
rather like the computer and iPad that he plays with at home. He knows something’s up with the mechanical
monsters and airplanes, but he doesn’t seem to quite have the gist of it
yet. Thankfully the manager decided to
randomly turn on the little carrousel while Luke was standing nearby. Chris scooped him up and gave him a horse
ride. Lots of fun. However, it didn’t make for suck a pretty
picture when it came time to leave. Do you
realize how hard it is for a two year old to disconnect from all that media
stimulation? Two rounds of dancing with
Chuck got Caleb an awful lot of those redeemable tickets. Zak had his share of them as well, but they
came from a careful manipulation of key games that promised higher
rewards. Well, that and he learned to
follow the manager around when he randomly keyed games to pit out free
tickets.
Finally it was home for ice cream (Yes,
they have Blue Bell in Waco now) and a movie.
Luke watched his “Real Trains” movie.
He has just about worn it out, he watches it so much. Caleb and Zak agreed to watch Spy Kids
3. I didn’t remember ever seeing that
one, but it was hard to watch it with them.
They bounced around, skipping the background information parts (“That’s
too boring”) and fast forwarding to the battle sequences. Then they turned it off right at the climax
because “we’ve seen that part already.”
Chris must have seen the look of disappointment on my face, so she asked
Zak to let poor old DadDad see the very end.
Poor old DadDad was ever so grateful.
James 1:25 says, “But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom,
and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it — he
will be blessed in what he does.”
Father, thank you for the different ways
people can learn about your world. It
would seem no one way is better … just different. I like that.
Amen.
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