When your children were young, did you take breaks from schooling during the school year or in the summer? Julie
Yes, we took off school for the summer. We did a lot of gardening and animal work in the summer, plus we were in 4-H for many years so we needed extra time for projects. If we had lived in town and didn’t have as much work occupying us, we might not have taken the summer off. During the school year we often took breaks from schooling, but then, we must define “schooling.”
In my mind, schooling encompasses much more than books and curriculum. When you go to the library, that is schooling because the children are learning how to categorize and organize; when you go to the nursing home, you are teaching them compassion, and that is schooling; when you go to Hy-Vee grocery store, you teach them thrift, and that is schooling; when you go to Crazy Girl Yarn Shop or The Cotton Shop to pick out materials for the next project, you teach them to love simple things, and that is schooling. In addition, we would often take off from formal schooling for several days at a time if we were working on a science fair or history fair project. I think children can be more creative if they are given large chunks of unscheduled time to think, experiment, and produce things, rather than just small segments of time, here and there.
