Thursday, September 15, 2011

TOS Crew Not-Back-to-School Blog Hop

Crew Blog Hop

The TOS Crew is doing a blog hop, and the topic is "Not-back-to-school". Because, you know, everyone's talking about going back to school but us homeschoolers aren't sending our kids back to school . . . so, in honor of the not-back-to-school theme, I thought I'd share a few things that we get to enjoy doing this time of year that would be hard to do if the children were in school:

  • Going to the beach
  • Spending a gorgeous, not too hot, not too cold day at the playground with friends
  • Helping Papa build the playhouse
  • Picking tomatoes in Grandma's garden
  • Time to read for the fun of reading . . . right now they are both reading Louisa May Alcott (ok, to be fair, I have to confess that I found TONS of time to read when I was at school, but still . . .) 
  • Junior Ranger programs
  • Apple picking is on the agenda if it ever stops raining
  • Teaching Little Bit to swing on the big kid swing
  • Vacations when everyone else is stuck in school, none in the works this year (except the above mentioned beach trip), but if we go to Williamsburg or Disney or wherever else sounds fun, we tend to do it late fall or early spring. Less crowds, nice weather, it's lovely!
  • Traveling with Daddy, and otherwise adapting to his schedule - this is a HUGE one IMO, dh loves his job but it requires lots of travel and lots of working evenings and weekends. If our children were in school, there would be days, weeks, sometimes it seems like MONTHS when they'd barely see him. Since we homeschool we can go with him when he travels, and we can spend time with him on a weekday morning if that works better for his schedule. 
  • Selfishly, I love that *I* get to do all the fun stuff with them, instead of a teacher getting all the fun.
  • We can work WITH their natural learning styles instead of them having to learn to work around them.
And that's just what I can come up with off the top of my head. We love homeschooling, we love getting to learn together as a family, and we love that this time of year is not "back to school" time for our family!

Be sture to go here, to see what others have to say about not-back-to-school! And if you'd like to join in on the fun, here are the rules of this blog hop.




4 comments:

Angela said...

Isn't homeschooling great? Wouldn't trade it for anything!

Angela

Catherine said...

I feel the same way. I'm so glad that I'm getting to share all the special moments, and that we can do what we want when we want to!
I don't even remember some of my school teachers now, and they got so much time with me. :(
-Catherine

Rodna Allman said...

Those are some good points. There are many things we wouldn't be able to do if the kids were in school.

Heather @ Marine Corps Nomads said...

I love the freedom that comes with homeschooling. It's also one of the reasons that we've given up many outside activities that are tied to the traditional school year. ;)