Homeschooling Update

Both Dani and I are continuing to thoroughly enjoy our role as Lielle's new teachers.... and Lielle seems to be a very motivated student! The system we have adopted is a semi-structured one where we give Lielle a range of subjects to choose from and she organizes her time-table each evening for the next day. Hot favorites are still English and Cookery, but she is also regularly choosing Geography, Science and Nature Studies. Maths is incorporated into the time-table with ongoing games throughout the day and her writing and reading skills are merged into the other subjects that she chooses. Without even trying she is learning more and more Bulgarian every day too.

We try to connect all the various subjects to each other so that everything has relevence. Today was a great example: Yesterday we noticed our neighbour working hard in her garden cutting maize (sweetcorn) and we offered to help her. At 9 o'clock this morning we turned up for work (but she wouldn't let us start until we had eaten some home-made bread and plum jam!) We spent a good couple of hours helping out. It was great physical exercise for Lielle, as well as a real fun and hands-on way of learning about how corn grows and what it is used for. When we came home we gave her a page of questions to answer relating to what she had learnt that morning and she also wrote a short account of what we did there and how much she enjoyed it. We finished off the days' studies with some artwork using paint and corncobs and leaves - all in beautiful autumn colors.

At the moment we are spending around 3 hours each day on homeschooling, but our aim is for Lielle to become a more independent pupil as she masters reading and writing, enabling us to spend less time one-on-one with her as she gets on with many of the tasks by herself.

A few days ago her day began with Cookery and Sport followed by English and Maths. You can check it out in this video clip on Lielle's Blog www.liellesblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/school-of-life.html