One reason I love homeschooling is because there is no need to stick to a rigid schedule...we can "go with the flow" in a way that an institutional classroom setting could never accomodate. "Classroom Management" strategies are not meant to focus on an individual's needs. Dilara finally got some Sea Monkeys when I found some half-price the other day. We bought some a few weeks ago for one of her classmate's birthday and she was very interested in them. We did "step 1" of preparing the water Saturday night and Sunday night we added the eggs. She is already wanting to draw pictures of them, even though I don't even think they have hatched yet, so she drew a picture of the little aquarium they are in. We read all the information in the kit and were looking up information about them online and we were reading about "the Instant Life crystals in which they eggs are enclosed" and she said, "That sounds like shark egg cases!" and so I looked up "shark egg cases" which led us to page that showed a lot of different shark and stingray egg cases and she pointed to one and asked me what creature grew in it, and it was an egg case for a "Spotted Ray," so I googled that and when she saw a picture of it, she said "It looks like it has eyes on it, like an Owl Butterfly!" and I googled "Owl Butterfly." We did make it back to the Sea Monkeys, but what a wonderful detour! I pointed out to her that that was something nice about homeschooling. I used to teach preschool and I know how in the interest of "Classroom Management" you can't really let kids chime in and take you down "rabbit trails" like that during class time, or else you'd never get your plans for the day accomplished. It is actually "disruptive behavior." Dilara told me about when they were in circle time and her teacher was talking about things that float and how boats float, Dilara raised her hand and said, "People float!" and, of course, the teacher said something like, "We're not talking about people floating, we're talking about boats floating." Why should I limit my child to that kind of "traditional" educational experience when I have a better option???
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