After deciding to teach a research paper class, then researching the process more and deciding to change it to a methods class (so that kids who had not learned outlining, studied grammar yet or done extensive writing could do the research, but present it in a more visual/crafty way), pondering how people sort information and devising a syllabus, we slogged through, had our homeschools taken over by the project, and are done!
My class amazed me. And so did their parents. Mine was not the only homeschool "hijacked" by this class, the other homes wound up doing this project and not much else for the last 3 weeks or so before the various deadlines. But did anyone get grumpy at me? No, they bought me 3 lbs of Dunkin doughnuts coffee, gave me a pretty Christmas mug full of chocolates, a hand made card, and if that wasn’t enough, a $10 card for Dunkin Doughnuts, probably for that next field trip when I have to drive home at 3PM and am almost too sleepy to do it safely: I am such a nap when the baby does girl, even when my babies aren’t babies anymore!
I did give feedback on all of the projects, but I didn’t pull out the red pen and assign a grade. Even so, most families were happy to have been hijacked, and most of the kids were proud of themselves for pulling it off. All of us were glad to be done! We managed 2 lapbooks, 4 trifold boards, 1 speech, 2 completed papers, and 2 papers that got deadline extensions from their parents (sickness in the middle and slow interlibrary loan).
If I ever do teach this again, I’ll make sure there is another class available for kids this age, so no one takes it because they are stuck in that time slot. I’ll also send out a note to parents asking, are you really, really sure you want to do this? It will hijack your homeschool!