The Thursday when I homeschooled my kids

You thought applying to the sports class went without extra homework? Naah. You ever heard about the good results in the Finnish school system? I'll give you a few examples of a few guinea pigs of that system.

My younger one did, as an ordinary evening's assignment, one page of Finnish. He's eight. He crossed out words from sentences that don't belong there. Then he made up questions for the book's characters that replied to questions of when, how and why. The cat replied: "I didn't want to", so he invented a question: "Why didn't you go fishing yesterday?"He wrote them neatly and went on to his main assignment. They're giving their first ever presentations tomorrow. He could choose between a hobby, his life story or a description of a vacation. He chose to talk about football.

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"I started football when I was five. I went to play with the older age group. The I started to play with my own age group. I have three practices a week. I love football because it is so much fun to make a goal or to make a pass that leads to a goal. The most fun games are the tight ones, they are exciting. Winning is fun. I have played in many tournaments, such as XXX". Then he will show on the monitor two football team photos and finally open up his bag to show his soccer shoes that he got for christmas. Then he'll show his team shirt with his name on the back, his shin protection and the stickers holding his soccer socks up. End of presentation. Can mommy add hearts???

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My older, as said, has been away from school a few days now with a permission, because he applied for a sport-oriented 6th grade and upwards. He's endured two days of horrible physical tests. He has, during that time, had to make up for missed school work. He's revised biology and answered questions about the main industires of the Alpine region in Europe.

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Then he has learnt about the Finnish grammar; the subject, the verb and the object. He has pointed out who does, what does and to who he does it, sentence after sentence. The he has done several verb inflection sentences and finally, broadened sentences such as "the audience clapped" into "the uneager audience clapped to the bizarre and lousy performance".

 

Then he revised how to multiply with single digits, then decimals, then double digits with decimals, one below the other. Now he still has at least four pages to cover with the multiplication. On top of that, he still needs to ask his history teacher what he's missed in history class. He has also gotten homework from Russian, learning the hundreds and thousands by heart. He still has one paper to do about verb inflection, but his Russian textbook is in school. Perhaps he can borrow from a friend during the weekend. I won't be too tough on him for that. He stayed up until ten to finish of what seems to be half of his homework. Oh, and he still needs to study for an English vocabulary test, covering one chapter of words and the months of the year.

You thought they would do everything without distractions? In your dreams. I've sat by the table for about three hours now. Now also I am done for the day. An just for you to know, the main industries of the Alpine region are related to tourism, mainly downhill skiing, besides agriculture.