Neither the Baby nor the Band

I thought it was time for at least a quick post about homeschooling, which hasn't been *entirely* lost in the shuffle these days....

As I've probably mentioned, in the afternoons George usually has some sort of activity (or two). MWF he has Tae Kwon Do, but he also has Shakespeare class on Mondays, homeshcool play group on Tuesdays, recorder lessons and "library/Barnes and Noble day" on Wednesdays, and cooking/pop culture class with best pal Laurie on Thursdays. He was doing Spanish and swim/gym at the YMCA on Friday afternoons, but we've cut that out since my 9th month of pregnancy--it was just too much!

Anyway, so afternoon is activity time, which leaves mornings for academics. And for the last two months, George has been focusing mainly on an online course he's been taking through Northwestern University's CTD (Center for Talented Development) called Computer Gaming Academy.

At the beginning, the weekly assignments were very brief and easy to complete in a few hours or so. When we had a crazy couple of weeks at home when George's play on campus was running and I was in the hospital having the baby, George and I agreed that he needed a little break from his online class, and his teacher readily agreed that it would be no problem for him to make up the work after his play was over. But there did turn out to be one slight problem: right at that time the assignments got a lot more intense, and he has been running to try to catch up ever since!

I'm not clear on all the details, because I'm barely supervising him in this class at all (although I have tried out most of the games he's made). When he's done online math or reading/writing classes, even though he always has an online instructor, I've usually been right there next to him, encouraging him to push himself and to check his work... and in some cases learning a thing or two myself. But computer gaming really isn't my cup of tea. (It's not that I don't appreciate a good computer game, but I couldn't be less interested in, or knowledgeable about, computer programming and such.) Not to mention the fact that I've been a bit preoccupied! So when he's gotten stuck, I've been completely unable to help him, apart from offering a bit of encouragement.

Anyway, he has been working very hard and enjoying it, and I'm glad, and I'm proud of his progress. But at the same time, I'll be glad when the course ends on Thursday--it's been eating up so much of his time and energy. I'll be happy not to feel the pressure of deadlines with him. It's been nice to have the structure of an academic class again, which I had kind of been missing since we had taken a break from math. I think it's very valuable for him to have that from time to time. But when does have it, it pretty much takes over, and takes away from other things that I think are also highly valuable, such as reading and creative play and writing stories.

Which brings me to the next thing I wanted to write about... but I'm afraid it's going to have to wait until later; time to get on with our day!