{"id":24438,"date":"2022-05-30T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-30T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com\/?p=24438"},"modified":"2023-08-16T20:53:30","modified_gmt":"2023-08-17T01:53:30","slug":"sometimes-learning-gasp-stops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com\/sometimes-learning-gasp-stops\/","title":{"rendered":"Because Sometimes Learning {Gasp} Stops"},"content":{"rendered":"

Because Sometimes Learning Stops<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Learning never stops.<\/em> That’s what homeschooling mamas like to say – sometimes in kind of a snippy little way. Don’t get mad. You know it’s true. Sometimes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

If you’re one of those homeschooling mamas (or dads) under whose watch learning (at least the formal variety) really does never stop<\/em>, move along. There’s nothing to see here.<\/p>\n

However, if you’re one of those homeschooling mamas at a house where formal learning comes to a screeching halt on the last day of school before summer break<\/strong> and your kids have entirely too much screen time all summer long and you feel guilty because learning clearly has<\/em> stopped, read on.<\/p>\n

You are not alone, my friend.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Warning: This is one of those posts that is meant to be read with a sense of humor. If you are easily offended<\/strong><\/a> – well, if you’re easily offended, you’re probably already offended by the intro. If that didn’t do it, you might want to stop reading now<\/strong>. <\/em><\/p>\n

And, if you’re one of those people who is going to insist that this is really, truly how homeschooling families “learn” all the time, you should probably stop reading<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Oh, and one other thing, this is intended to be a comical look at our summer break. When we were homeschooling (My kids have all graduated now.) and started school each year in August, never fear – we were back to real, honest-to-Pete learning.<\/em><\/p>\n

Because Sometimes Learning Stops <\/strong><\/h2>\n

What did we do each summer? How did we keep learning? These are the activities we engaged in each summer during our homeschool years. Because it’s true. Sometimes learning stops.<\/p>\n

1. Summer Reading<\/strong><\/h3>\n

We did lots of summer reading.<\/p>\n

The year my daughter got her first cell phone, its texting memory was at 80% within the first twelve hours. It wasn’t a smartphone, so she had to delete messages – 27 pages of messages<\/em> – in the online log. She had the summer reading program award in the bag that year, and she’s never really slowed down.<\/p>\n

My son wasn’t quite so avid a reader, but he held his own in the summer reading club.<\/p>\n

2. Math<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Of course, we kept up with math, too. We liked to do consumer math during the summer. Refills on slushies at the local convenience store were $0.29. Tax was included.<\/p>\n

“To get my slushie refilled, I’ll need how much money?”<\/em><\/p>\n

Plus, you know, there was the counting of change. No simple quarters this year. See? Math.<\/p>\n

3. Writing<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Never fear. Writing was not neglected during the summer either. I often woke up to find sticky notes stuck to my laptop. “Will you get more chips while you’re at the store?” or “Mom, we’re out of Pop-Tarts.”<\/p>\n

Oh, and my younger daughter was constantly working on a couple of novels-in-progress, so she spent some time on those. (Yes, seriously. She is her mother’s child.)<\/p>\n

4. History<\/strong><\/h3>\n

History was always big at our house. Each summer, we included things like, “Why did he\/she get to do {fill in the blank with the activity in question + choose from the following: last year, at X-age} and I don’t?”<\/p>\n

5. Geography<\/strong><\/h3>\n

We went on vacation most summers, so there was travel. We headed to the beach most years. There were a couple of beach programs we took part in, and we sometimes took some side trips on the way home.<\/p>\n

Sometimes we included navigational skills in our beach trips. You know the kind I’m talking about. The ones where you walk down the beach a loooong way, turn around to come back, and can’t for the life of you find your condo? Did we pass it already? Do we still need to keep walking? Should we call Dad and admit that we have no idea how far away we are so he can come look for us?<\/em><\/p>\n

6. Science<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The kids were on their own for lunch every day. For science, they sniffed containers in the fridge and made hypotheses regarding the contents.<\/p>\n

Sometimes they forgot to bring their dirty dishes from their rooms to the kitchen, so there were various experiments involving mold growth. Does mold grow better in the cup of tea I didn’t finish or on the half-eaten sandwich? <\/em>You know, stuff like that.<\/p>\n

7. Digital Media<\/strong><\/h3>\n

We observed the works of various producers as well as a variety of genres (TV, movies, and video game production) and mediums (3-D, film, digital animation, etc.). We really liked observing them at the theater with the recliners.<\/p>\n

Plus, my kids continued to pursue film-making as they had their own YouTube channels for which they filmed, edited, and produced videos. (Yeah, seriously.)<\/p>\n

8. Cultural Anthropology<\/strong><\/h3>\n

We studied various subsets of society in their natural surroundings. Our main fields were the mall, the bowling alley, and the swimming pool.<\/p>\n

9. Health and Fitness<\/strong><\/h3>\n

We did not neglect health and fitness during the summer. We visited the indoor trampoline park, the bowling alley, and the swimming pool. Plus, I got a good workout each afternoon dragging teenagers out of bed.<\/p>\n

See? Learning truly does never stop. {ahem}<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In what type of learning will you and your family be engaging this summer? (Bonus points if you’re funny!) Is it true that sometimes learning stops during the summer? Or do you keep it going in other ways? Let’s hear it! <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

You May Also Like<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

10 Home Ec Skills Your Kids Need to Know<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

If your children or teens need some structured time over the summer but you don’t want to “do school,” how about developing those home ec skills?! It’s a great way to get some things done and sneak in some life skills at the same time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

25 Educational and Outdoor Summer Boredom Busters <\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

If you’re looking for a fantastic list of all kinds of educational and outdoor summer boredom busters, this is the article for you! This article includes links to ALL kinds of ideas and activities for children and teens. Some are more “school-ish” and others are more “have fun and keep yourself entertained,” but all of them are fun and (secretly) educational!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Exploring the Parts of a Flower: Activities from Preschool to High School<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

If you want to get out in nature and have some fun, try these activities for learning the parts of flowers! There are ideas for all ages!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Because Sometimes Learning Stops Learning never stops. That’s what homeschooling mamas like to say – sometimes in kind of a snippy little way. Don’t get mad. You know it’s true. Sometimes. If you’re one of those homeschooling mamas (or dads) under whose watch learning (at least the formal variety) really does never stop, move along….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":82969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"","tag":"0","restrict_content":""},"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"default","_kad_post_title":"default","_kad_post_layout":"default","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"default","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"default","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[201,17025],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homeschool-humor","category-posts-by-wendy"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":201,"label":"Homeschool Humor"},{"value":17025,"label":"Posts by Wendy"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/gaming-3-500x334.jpg",500,334,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"Kris Bales","author_link":"https:\/\/www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com\/author\/kris_wuhsmom\/"},"comment_info":23,"category_info":[{"term_id":201,"name":"Homeschool Humor","slug":"homeschool-humor","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":219,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":49,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":201,"category_count":49,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Homeschool Humor","category_nicename":"homeschool-humor","category_parent":0},{"term_id":17025,"name":"Posts by Wendy","slug":"posts-by-wendy","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":17042,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":30,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":17025,"category_count":30,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Posts by Wendy","category_nicename":"posts-by-wendy","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/gaming-3.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24438"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82970,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24438\/revisions\/82970"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}