What School Looks Like

School has begun! It seems like just yesterday that school ended. Our kids are really enjoying themselves, and I am too. 

I missed out on taking photos of Home Ec, which included cooking, laundry, and various cleaning activities, as well as the sewing project going on in the basement. I also missed much of Science and Nature, Geography, and History. You see, we have grades preschool through high school here, and I can't seem to be everywhere at once. Thank God we have many awesome teachers on staff. Haley is the Queen of Home Ec; Zachary, the Master of Math; Coren, the Professor of Natural History; Alex, the Game Guru; and Alia, the Philosophizing Physiologist. 

First thing this morning, we learned about frogs and toads, with a little nature photography mixed in upon the discovery of this gem. Can you find it?

 

We moved on to Math for preschoolers through middle schoolers, including measuring, counting, translating block units of measure into inches, and so on. We used addition, multiplication, and division, as well as basic math and algebra concepts depending on the age of the scholar. We learned colors and patterns and how to build a tall tower with structural integrity - the base was redesigned twice by one of the five-year-old builders.

 

The Arts took part in our day as children created mixed media masterpieces of paper, stickers, glue, straws, popsicle sticks and other materials and played such instruments as recorders, harmonicas, drums, and sang a bunch, too. And then there was the magical performance of "The Princess and the Bee," an original play by Fiora and Alia. 

Math skills were also put into practice in the land of teens and tweens, along with strategy and other skills necessary in a Magic the Gathering battle. 

English was a lot of fun - we learned letters (and numbers!) from license plates and bumper stickers and parts of speech via Mad Libs. 

 

Then there were the endless books read (the count as of 4pm is 28, and that's just the books read to the littles).

Let's not forget phys. ed. Our walk today included biking, scooter riding, walking, "Follow the Leader," running through a sprinkler, running, and a few races.

All in all a day full of learning that looked a lot like life, and fun, and Mama's favorite part - cleaning the house. Just kidding ... but that part was helpful. I feel fortunate to be witness to much of my kids' learning, as well as learning much more from them than I can ever hope to teach them. 

School has begun! It seems like just yesterday that school ended, because it was - life is school, and learning never ends. I look forward to finding out where our adventures in learning take us tomorrow.