Feb 13 2009
Fun Friday for Home School
One morning, I woke up to one of my children patting me on the face, saying, “I love you Mommy. Are you going to get up today?” Most people that know me in person know that if I am still asleep when the sun comes up, then I might need medical attention. That particular morning was one such morning. I had developed a nasty chest cold during the night, and the children were ready for me to get their day started. All that I could think of was how miserable I felt right then, and so I smiled and said, “Guess what? Today is Fun Friday!” Thus, a new tradition was born.
Fun Friday can mean a lot of things to my family. It might mean simply that we don’t have any planned lessons that day, and the children can do whatever they like. This always excited my middle child, because she loves to be able to watch cartoons in the mornings. There are days when Fun Friday means that we play board games together, or watch movies that we have been wanting to watch for awhile. If their dad is not working on Fun Friday, then he usually finds some place fun and educational for us to go. On one such Friday, we packed ourselves up and went to New Mexico for the weekend to see Carlsbad Caverns and some other wonderful and educational attractions. Sometimes Fun Friday is not as fun filled as it might sound, because it is spent running errands that we couldn’t run during the first part of the week, but it still means that we take a break from school work.
After a few months of Fun Friday, I found out that the local public school started having Fun Friday as well. I don’t know how they got my idea, or if great minds think alike, but they use their Fun Friday as a means of reward and punishment. The children only get Fun Friday if they meet certain requirements. On the surface, it sounds like a good idea to reward children with a free day, but on the other hand, if I take Fun Friday away from one or all of my children, then I also take it away from myself. As a busy, home schooling Mama, I have decided that I deserve to have Fun Friday whether anybody else does or not. Therefore, we have Fun Friday no matter what.
Today, was one of the errand running Fridays, but here is an interesting site that my tween found while she was having fun on the computer. Also, notice that what home schooled children consider “fun” is not always what the average public schooled child considers fun. That is always something to laugh about at my house.
<a href=”http://pbskids.org/sid/index.html#/playground”>Sid the Science Kid</a>
Please forgive me if my links and codes don’t come out right. I have researched every place that I could find to make a clickable link, and for some reason, it doesn’t always work on Today.com. If anybody can think of any other way to do this, I am ready to learn. Until then, you can also find Sid the Science Kid at http://www.pbskids.org.
Have a Great Day!
Laurel Santiago
