I need to take a break from blogging about the judges’ ruling on homeschooling. Since I still have a few snarky comments left in me, I thought I’d describe our day here in our uncredentialed life.

We couldn’t possibly try to teach our kids anything today since it is Saturday and, of course, we don’t have a multi-subject credential, so we are really toast.

Today, like most days we cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner from scratch. My 7-year-old has been pestering me because she wanted to learn how to make pancakes, so I let her do that for dinner. She usually makes most or all of dinner once a week. Tonight, she had the “help” of her 2 younger sisters and her younger brother, so it took about an hour to crank ‘em out, but she did a fabulous job. I showed her the recipe and then flipped the pancakes for her since she was a bit worried about burning herself. She did the rest. I’m afraid she didn’t learn a thing, though, since I don’t have a credential.

At lunch we all talked about how and why vegetables are good for us. Sometimes my son fills up on so much broccoli that he doesn’t have much room left for the main course. I feel like such a failure.

We spent a good portion of the day outside. While we were in New York, some of our chickens got out of the coop and met an untimely end. We came home to find only 3 hens, and one of them is determined to get some eggs hatched. Since we don’t know when the rooster died, our plan is to let the hen wait a few more days and then if no chicks appear we will try to slip some chicks in and trade them for the rotten eggs she is sitting on. The kids have been keeping track of the normal gestation of baby chicks so we’ll know when to make the big switcharoo. We’re pretty sure the hen will go for it–she doesn’t have a credential either.

If I did have a credential, I might have spent some time with the kids poring over textbooks to learn about environmental issues. The environment is a hot topic these days, and a lot of people will tell you it is important for kids to read about how to “go green.” Instead of doing that, we hung out our laundry instead of using the dryer. Then we took apart some baby furniture so we can pass it along to another family. After that, we gathered up some things we no longer use to take to Goodwill so that somebody else can make use of them. On a trip to a thrift shop today, we bought a used board game and I taught the little girls to play it. I noticed they had to do a lot of counting when they were playing it. Gee, I wonder if that is a good thing for them? If only I had a credential I’d know.

Brian started patching up the chicken coop today, and my teen learned to mend fence using the materials we had on hand. She also helped build some new nesting boxes using some old drawers. The younger girls cleared branches out of the goat pen. If I had a credential, I might be able to turn those tasks into a learning opportunity about animal care or money management, but I don’t. How ever will my children learn? Maybe we should by some textbooks about taking care of animals so they can read along and answer the questions at the end of the chapter.

In the garden, the younger children and I pulled weeds and did some early prep work to get ready for planting. In between, we looked for bugs and toads. I started talking about habitats, but then I remembered: I don’t have a credential. The kids will never learn.

I corrected my daughter’s grammar today too. Since she is only 7, I spared her an in-depth dissertation on proper use of reflexive pronouns. In my uncredentialed experience, it works just as well to remind kids at this age of how to use words properly. But what do I know?

I actually thought we might get to my weekend project of repurposing some old draperies. My teen and I are planning to take them apart and make some new kitchen curtains and then use the remainder to re-cover the kitchen chairs. I thought we could turn it in to a lesson on thrift. In between, she could work on her sewing skills and we could both learn how to fix up the chairs–that one is new to me, too.

By the time we got done with the rest of the work, though, we were ready for a break. We all took some time to do some reading. My daughter was struggling to sound out words in a chapter book, but since she is only 5, I didn’t worry too much about it. One of my daughters spent some time knitting, and then there were the preparations for tomorrow.

It is getting close to bed time now. We will try to fit in a lesson on daylight savings time since we’re adjusting our clocks tonight. Changing our clocks reminds us it is time to check the batteries in the smoke detectors which then reminds us to review our fire evacuation plan.

I know there are people out there who think we should just go get a credential and be done with it, but with all this going on, I just can’t find the time.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 8th, 2008 at 10:03 pm and is filed under Home Schooling, Large Families, children, education, family fun, homeschool, homeschool curriculum, homeschool fun, homeschooling in California, unschooling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.