Thursday, March 10, 2011

Electives...

Homeschooling electives are awesome. Schools offer only so many choices at home the choices are endless. My oldest daughter was a bit saddened that she wont be able to take the new digital photography class her school is offering next year. I told her why can't we do it on our own. We have two cameras and endless amounts of opportunities at home and in the world. How many photos can you take around the school? We have the world. Being a homeschool mama at heart. I see all kinds of educational opportunities hidden inside this "home digital photography class" think of the nature studies, editing 'art', science projects, critical thinking type photo hunts... etc that can all be tied into simple photography.

Some other electives you can do at home are things like sewing, cake decorating, wood shop, auto mechanics, foreign & sign language, gardening etc.

while electives are not a mandatory thing I think these types activities are important breaks in the monotony that kids sometimes feel with school work.

I'd love to hear from you and what your elective ideas are please feel free to comment.

5 comments:

  1. While Melody attends school, we encourage her to pursue her interests. Right now she has taken over the care of her fish. She changes him once a week and needs to make sure that the ph level is right, he gets the right amount of food etc. It's been great for her b/c she loves nature and science.

    She's also a craft nut so we do our bible studies with crafts to reinforce scritpure. We did a mobile of the different days of creation. I cut out circles and hung them by ribbon. The scripture is on the back and a picture on the front.

    Can't wait to read more about how your journey in homeschooling is going Michelle. =)

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  2. We are trying to decide how we want to do electives... we have a Wednesday co-op which we hope to do alternating weeks of art and choir (we'll sing at old folks homes 6x a year)...
    Beyond that, i think I'm going to make my kids do at least one organized sport per year (last year, both kids did flag football) as well. As they get older, we might add in a musical element... DH played in band and I played guitar, violin, and piano as a kid, so I know that it's something at least a little important to both of us. :)

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  3. This is totally off topic but I love the look of your blog! Did you do it yourself?

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  4. Jenn we are music nuts here. I teach a bit myself. Aria started violin this year but Iknow nothing about strings.

    Yes suzanne, I will prolly change it a hundred times because I get bored easy lol I am a blue bird nut when I saw this tree I had to work with it.

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  5. I think your elective options sound great, and also I agree with Dee - pick some that fit your kids' interests.

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