at the end of my kindergarten year, i played goldilocks in our school play. goldilocks happened to be the teacher of all the other nursery rhyme characters. (i thought this part was so awesome. i had so many lines!)
i remember playing school with my younger siblings and the neighbor kids often - i think i was always the teacher - i couldn't really stand not to be.
all through school, i loved helping my peers with their homework and during study times in class. i remember thinking a concept through and explaining things in my own words, in my own way - and being stoked when my classmates would get it.
when i was in high school, i did math tutoring for elementary students. i loved putting together fun worksheets for them and making up games to reinforce what we were working on.
while i was in college, i worked in our campus writing center, helping to re-teach grammar and writing skills and doing editing work. i also worked on basic english speaking and listening skills with some of our foreign exchange students.
i focused on education while i was in college and absolutely loved writing lesson plans and pulling together ideas and texts and projects for our assignments and to use in my practicum work.
when ben and i got married, i decided to put finishing my degree on hold because i knew that i wanted to be home with the kiddos we would have and i didn't want to keep adding to my student loans.
fast forward some years of not playing school . . . and there i was, with two kiddos, contemplating homeschool.
I said I would never, nEvEr, NEVER homeschool when I had kids . . . {read more about this on my blog, back in March of 2009}
never say never . . .i ended up loving learning with my kids, playing school with them.
i continued to write about my curriculum choices and how it was working for us here, but some of the best parts are these:
I also make some of our letter cards and charts and even work sheets. Maddie really likes this, and so do I. I know that Isaac will appreciate it if I make him worksheets that have heavy equipment and tools and hunting motifs. As in, if Isaac has one dump truck and buys one more, how many dump trucks will he have? Or, if Isaac shoots 4 ducks and Dad shoots 5, how many ducks can Mom cook for supper?
For reading and writing practice, I often write sentences for Maddie to read and copy. Things like, Dad will kiss Mom. Maddie is a fun girl. The doll is big. For Isaac I will write things like, The fork lift is fast. Mom's hammer is small. The dog runs and hunts. (Sometimes, I even draw pictures . . . )
and we kept at it, for three and a half more years. i kept making worksheets and incorporating all sorts of fun ideas into what we were all learning together. i kept playing with my kiddos and using pieces of the curriculum and adding in all sorts of other books and ideas and projects.
then maddie and isaac and i had an opportunity to do some different things. maddie and isaac attended public school - a public school where they could be outside for half of every day - doing their science and art and language arts and health and some social studies. it was so great for them!
at ben's encouragement, i lined up what i needed to finish my bachelor's degree, and i did it. four classes, online, in one semester. this was not playing school. this was digging in and working so hard. i was also subbing in our school district. and as soon as i graduated, i went to work full time at the school.
early this summer, we moved. and i wondered if i would homeschool maddie and isaac again. we moved into a tiny little town. a tiny little town with a two-room country school. i still thought that maybe i would homeschool, but, after learning about the school, and finding it to be more and more the perfect fit for maddie and isaac, ben and i decided to enroll them in school.
in july, i participated in a workshop entitled teaching in the outdoors, because i like to learn.
at the end of the workshop, i was writing some reflections: i need to do teaching - not in a school building, but i need to teach. i got to learn that i can't do traditional school in the last two years, i can't be stuck inside a building with windows that don't open, windows that i can't even see out of most of the day, but this - this outdoor teaching - this breathing, touching, delving, freeing - this i need to do.
i thought that i would return home and offer to do some of the outdoor exercises with the kids, possibly in both rooms, at the school. maybe i would get to implement some of the things i had learned. maybe i would get to work with maddie and isaac sometimes.
two weeks ago, i found out that there was not teacher for maddie and isaac's room - the upper-grade room - at our country school. ben's boss encouraged me to go talk to the superintendent. long story short - on tuesday last week, i signed a teaching contract! today, i spent the whole day starting to sort out my classroom. i have a classroom! (a classroom with a lot of random stuff in it. but i cleaned out some cupboards and am finding ways to start getting it organized, ways to make it welcoming for my little class.) i have the go-ahead to plan our year with plenty of outdoor exploration and learning in the outdoors. i will know for sure tomorrow which grades i will be teaching: either 3rd - 6th or 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th. these are the words that are going on my door:
we will be getting our awesome on. i will be teaching my kiddos again! and a few others as well. we'll be breathing and delving and freely learning. we'll do our workbooks. we'll do projects. we'll observe. we'll learn and read and write and create. we'll be in a classroom with windows that open, and we'll be outside for parts of every day.
thirty years of playing school - and counting. i don't think it could get much better!