Saturday, September 15, 2012

A different kind of learning...

I cant remember the last time I sat down with Yusuf to do math, or science, or english, or even deen studies/Arabic/Quran.
Yesterday I had a slight case of Mommy-guilt in the morning, but when the kids were asleep, I reflected over our day and concluded that we have indeed been learning a lot.
Baba is travelling overseas and we spoke to him on Skype... we learned about time differences and saw how it was dark there when it was light here.
My mother in law came down to spend some time with the boys and they spent a half hour building a tunnel out of crazy fort sticks.
When I was sitting feeding the baby, Yusuf offered to do the dishes, and actually did a pretty good job.
I was laying down in my bed with a headache and the boys excitedly got cream from my dresser and gave me a foot massage.
When I went to the washroom, the baby started crying, but by the time I came out, she was calm... her brothers sat beside her and soothed her back to sleep.
The boys have grown out of some of their clothes so I spent over an hour going through their clothes and sorting it... the boys helped me by comparing sizes and deciding what well do with the clothes (hold onto them for their younger cousin/ or for Ibby or give them away).
While I was sorting their clothes, Yusuf sat on his bed and read a book to his brother mashaAllah.  Even though we haven't been sitting to read together much, his reading has really improved.  I always heard of kids learning how to read on their own and didn't really believe it until Yusuf did.  When I tried to teach him how to read when he just turned four, he was very slow at it and it was such a chore for him.  But I left him and he did eventually learn because he wanted to!

So there you have it... people have been asking me how homeschooling is going, and I tell them were taking a break right now. 
Were not focusing on any of the main subjects these days, but we are learning, its just a different kind of learning.