A Summary Of The First Few Days Of Our Schooly-Unschooly Schoolyear

My 3rd blog post tonight! Well, I had a lot to say and thought it would be best to break it up.

Padawan and I had previously talked about how he would like the first day of homeschool to go. We also determined the first day of Public School would be our last day of summer break.

In my Unschooler mindset this is mainly for record keeping purposes. It also lets Padawan define his own boundaries of school time and non-school time. We had an original agreement that he holds me to that school things can only be discussed during school time. I have yet to keep them straight 100% of the time.

What did we do on our last day of summer break? 

It started out with the two of us staying up all night, building with Legos and some other things I can't remember. Then around 5 AM, he spontaneously felt the need to teach me about the different stages of matter. Next, he read an internet article to me about plasma. After that he started to build some sort of Plasma Generator thingy-ma-bob on Roblox. (I forgot the technical word for it). He gave up on that after several attempts to get the motor to work the way he intended. Then we made breakfast together or whatever meal you would call it, and turned on a documentary about Deep Sea Treasure hunting, followed by an episode or two of Shark Week before I fell asleep. I woke up a little later and he was sitting in the recliner reading his Graphic Bible that I had bought for him last fall. He totally rejected it then, so I put it in the bathroom along with some other of the things I had from before. That was a pleasant surprise!

Whew! I'm glad we weren't doing school that day!


Day 1 of our official school year began with Padawan going to Waffle House for breakfast with his Dad while all the other kids were waiting for the bus. Then a little trip to Kroger to pick up some poster board for an art project.

Upon leaving Kroger, they stopped by Redbox to pick out a movie. He decided that would be a good alternative to the "finding your classes", "getting to know each other", and "telling about your summer break" that his BFF (if guys have BFF's) would be doing that day in Middle School.

After Kroger, they had to stop by Petsmart to pick up an aquarium plant for the first LifePac Science lesson. He came back talking about how great it was that he got to spend time with his Dad. (They haven't had much quality time the past couple of weeks.) He talked on and on about all about the different exotic pets he saw there, and how he fell in love with a Chameleon that they had for sale. He planted a seed with his Dad about possibly getting one sometime in the future for a "class" pet.

He learned that the guy at Petsmart wished that he would have been homeschooled, and thought it was odd a college graduate was working at a pet store. That led to a good discussion about our current economy. He also learned that his Dad was really into talking about homeschool to everyone they met while they were out and about.

After they got home, we did the first Lifepac Science lesson on Photosynthesis and set up the accompanying experiment.

To end the school day we watched the movie, Diary Of A Wimpy Kid- Roderick Rules. This should not to be confused with non-school movie watching, because this was "school time"

The next part should not be confused with "doing school", because our school day had officially ended. In his leisure time, he did some more typing, internet research, Roblox math, and watched some more Shark Week documentaries.


Day 2.

Padawan checked on his Photosynthesis experiment from the previous day and set up another science experiment that demonstrates how seeds grow differently dark and light. He has to check on them every 2 days.

After that, he thought it would be a good idea for to me to read some of our schooly stuff to him while he quietly played a game on Roblox. He said that he can listen and play at the same time.
Ha! I had already figured that out on my own a few months ago! Sometimes I are smart too! He can listen just fine- if not better- if his hands are busy with something else. I'm thinking that his Autistic trait of Delayed Echolalia has something to do with that.

So, I read some from Apologia's Who Is God series about building your life on a solid foundation, and a little from the Horizon's Health book about "What is Health" (physical, mental, social, and spiritual). We discussed the questions from health book, and he wanted me to continue so I read the introduction part from our Roots of English book. He was also surprised to find that these new school books mentioned God, and had bible verses in them. A concept totally foreign to him as a Public Schooler. 

He wanted me to continue, so, I read to him 2 chapters of a treasure hunting story that I got for free on the Kindle from BookRooster.

Later on we listened to the Photosynthesis song on YouTube and did the introduction lesson of the Meet The Masters art program. As we got to the last slide of Meet the Masters the doorbell rang. There happened to be a quiz at the end of the presentation that I had intended to ignore, but he jumped on the computer and the quiz while I was outside talking to the neighbor.

We also discussed future our game building projects on Roblox (of course). One is going to be a world tour that transports your character to different countries for our World Geography and Cultures study. The other one is going to be something to do with the planets and space travel. Because I'm the COOLEST Mom ever!

Later *I* cut out pictures of the artists we'll be learning about to glue the outside of his art portfolio folder that *he'll* be decorating next time he decides to do art. Then he told me that one of the pictures I printed out was wrong- its supposed to be an artist named Piet Mondrian, but he swore to me it was a picture of Hitler. I had to look it up to be sure, because in the picture he does look like Hitler. At this point, I'm not sure which one of us is really doing school. But we're having a blast!