Tyrannies, Independence, and My Favorite Part of Homeschool

We just finished up our history lesson - which today was about different forms of government: 

monarchies, oligarchies, tyrannies, and democracies. We talked about how the country where we live is supposedly a democracy, but is actually more of an oligarchy. 

Lu thought that it would be pretty cool to be a tyrant because you got to make all the decisions, but then we thought about how it would be to live in a tyranny where someone else was the tyrant. He agreed that that didn't sound so nice. 

These kinds of discussions are my favorite part of homeschooling.

The history lesson was the only lesson we had together today. In the morning, Lu was with his youth group. His peers are a bit older, and middle-schoolers go to school in the afternoons here - hence the morning schedule. I taught them a short exercise class, then they had theater with another teacher, and then painting with another.

By the time youth group was done, it was noon. Lu helped make lunch, and we started on schoolwork at 2pm. 

We looked at the math page together, and he said he could do it on his own in his room. Lately, he likes working there. Then he went ahead and did reading and geography in his room too.

So, I didn't see him again until 4pm when we sat down together in my office, to check the math and talk about forms of government. It was a busy day.

And this week has been very much like that, especially since project workshops have started up again, and our homeschool time has been reduced to almost half of what it is when the project isn't running.  

Lu is becoming more and more independent, and the parts that we have been doing together were mostly reading and discussing - so not a lot of photos this week.

A couple of weeks ago I shared an art activity we did.

Lu made this, remember?

 

Well, since it was such a success with him (he was at it for several hours - totally absorbed), we figured it could make a great project activity for our kids' groups. 

So, I'll share some pics of how that went - 

This is the youngest member of our afternoon group.

He is four, and this is his first year participating.

He was adorably excited to be here.

I'll share more of these when they're done.