Homeschooling by Daddy

OK, so I guess I kind of inadvertently took the summer off from posting on this blog. But don't think I was giving up on it. We just got very busy with all the summer traveling and being outside. I suppose if I was to take an entire season off, the summer is a good one, what with the children being out of school and all.

Anyway, when I first came up with the title 'Homeschooling by Daddy', it was more of a joke because I overheard a very 'manly' conversation upstairs between the men of the house...phrases like dropping the kids off at the pool and cutting the cable or taking the bread out of the oven were being used. I've given up trying to stop the passing on of this kind of language. If Zach is going to agree to the homeschooling, then I suppose I have to let him give his two cents.

However, I do have to give Zach credit as far as educating our son goes. On our cross-country trip this past July, Zach more than earned the title. As I wrote about in my other blog, Jacob really didn't want very much to do me with on the trip. He was all about Daddy. I had been looking forward to using our trip as a big learning experience for Jacob, but since I wasn't really allowed to talk to him much of the time, let alone look at him, Zach did most of the talking. Whenever we stopped at a new destination, Zach would pull out the US map and draw another few inches of his little line. Jacob loved this ritual and always gladly joined in. The two would then have a discussion about where we were going, where we had been and all sorts of facts and interesting highlights about these places.

I think Jacob learned a ton on our trip. Zach really did an awesome job of explaining things on a three year-old's level - of which I never had to tell him to do! He's really come a long way in being a good teacher to Jacob, and I can tell he really enjoys it. It was a great experience for all of us, even though I was stuck in the back with no one to talk to. There were moments when Jacob would let his guard down and we got to enjoy the time together. Everyplace we went we talked about what we were seeing with the idea of learning in mind. And we didn't want to come home.

Anyway, Jacob is still talking about the places we went to, and we're continually reinforcing for him things we learned, talking about states we went to, looking at them on the map. Jacob and I constantly go back through the pictures, reminiscing about what happened that day or another. I'm hoping that by doing these things, Jacob comes out of it with an actual, living memory of our trip, and not just a memory of us talking about our trip in the years following.