they even have a timetable

and they stuck to the timetable.. (they must be French as there is no school on a Wednesday)

Perriod one: Technology. The top photo is the big kids class where they got nets of cars to cut out and assemble. The bottom is the junior class where they made sculptures out of the tiny triangle cut up bits of icecream container plastic..

It’s Monday. So next was science…

The juniors did the human body and made models of the heart… the seniors “probably did something boring with someone just talking to them”.

Next was English and the Juniors did handwriting and the letter C.

For art the Juniors did abstract portraits and the seniors drew cats…

Then it was actually home time for the teachers…. (several hours of sustained cooperative play for the 3 of them) later.

This is the junior class with their seating arangement and their favorite things drawn on their table tops. I think the children may have realised that the preparation time is some what longer than expected and can be longer than the lesson time – which is actually true. They learned that there is never enough time to fit everything in and often you end up having to truncate a lesson – also true…

I have put this in the social studies basket as school as they are doing it is a cultural concept. How will kids playing of school change as schools change (if they change)? They are playing school in a very similar way I did as a child. Aparently kids at school play school while they are at school. It is not like homeschool kids don’t know school exisits as they have seen it on TV, H has even been for 7 weeks of her life (and in a mixed age junior class, and a senior class!!). I wonder if future kids will play school by sitting kids infront of a screen?

I think playing school fits in the box of playing at weddings, cops and robbers, babies.. all those role playing games where they are trying the role of teacher on to see if it fits, if they like it, how it works. It doesn’t surprise me that H would want to try this out. She gives me homework.

Education does interest her, she watches people “teaching’ others and can articulate what she feels was them making a mistake, she is reflective.. (and ever so astute). I wonder what schools will be like when (I don’t think it is an if anymore than it was for me) she becomes a “teacher”. I wonder how being homeschooled will effect her? My not so positive experience of primary school certainly affected me.

She has made herself a personalised timetable complete with a sticker chart.