Homeschool 2011-2012, part 6

What About Physical Education, Socialization, and What is Circle Time?!?

This is my last post on home schooling for awhile, but before I leave the subject, I wanted to answer the other questions I have come across. What do we do for physical education? How will my home school kids ever get by without having the socialization that public school gives? What do we do during "Circle Time"?

Physical education is kind of a hard one. A lot of home school kids achieve this through sport teams. We haven't signed Gabe up for a sport's team....and haven't decided if we are going to yet. He does have a goal of riding in a bicyle marathon sometime in the fall with his daddy, though! I think that is a great goal and I try to give him time in the morning (if it is cool enough) to "train". We also try to incorporate Wii Sports, Fit and Just Dance on days that we can't get outside. These are fun for the kids and they really work up a sweat!

Socialization is always the big issue, it seems. Gabriel and Selah both are very social kids - and I don't expect that to change just because they don't attend school. We attend church regularly where they are Sunday School members and we have also joined a home school support group. We go to Library Story Time and have playdates. I am not at all concerned that they will turn out unsociable.

Circle Time! We love Circle Time! This is the way we start our school day. We choose a Bible verse each month to memorize and recite together. Then we pray for our day and especially for Daddy (and any other pray concerns the kids want to pray about....anything from wiggly teeth to sick family members). We each choose a song of praise to sing, do the Pledge of Allegiance and then end Circle Time with a cheer! The kids take turns coming up with an adjective and we incorporate it into our cheer. We put our hands together in the middle of our cirlce and chant, "Today is a day that the Lord has made and it's gonna be a ___________ day! Hoorah! Hoorah! A __________ day!" This tradition seems to get our day started out on a high note and we are ready to face our work!

I hope you have enjoyed a little peak into our home schooling! It has been fun to share it all here in the Blog World!!