Homeschooling Doesn't Have to Take Up A Lot of Time

It seems like our school day was over before it even started.

The older boys played a multiplication game called Polar Products that I printed off the teachers pay teachers sight.  They had no problem at all with this quick game and asked me to save it so they could play again another day.  That's when I know they really enjoyed something we're working on/with; then they ask me to save it!

Polar Products game

While they were working on this, I had Evan working on, what I thought, was an addition game with penguins.  After reading the directions I realized it was basically a roll and cover sheet-- but he LOVED the addition of the penguins.  He had them talking, skipping over ice floes, swimming between ice floes and so much more.  Who knew a few pictures of penguins would make math so fun!

Big dice and penguins make math fun!

Once math was over the older boys did a word search paper on arctic animals and Evan read me another small printable sight word book called Winter Is Here!

Evan also worked on a color by sight word family sheet.  Next thing I knew they were all done and schoolwork was all finished.  It was light a flash of lightening today-- here and gone before I really even realized it!  I don't even think the work lasted an hour today.

Word family coloring

I don't stress when our days are shorter than usual because homeschooling doesn't always need to take a lot of time.

Sometimes those lessons go really well and we finish up quickly because no one needs help or added time.

Sometimes we don't have a lot planned so our days are nice and short.

But they are always learning so that's OK!

We finished up our day by reading a few more sections of The Last Gold Diggers and a few more short stories from Stories of the Billabong.  We also glanced a book called An Australian Outback Food Chain. We talked about predators and prey, photosynthesis, adaptations, carrion, and much more as we looked through parts of this book.  Alec is very interested in food chains and put the book up in his room so that he can read it cover to cover at his leisure. 

I can drill facts, spelling words and grammar components all I want but it won't ever really stick until it becomes meaningful for them.  I kind of like that school didn't take much time today and now they're free to unschool!

That's where the real learning happens.