Maggie's Farm

I commented on another thread about this, but rote learning of certain subjects was the daily fare around our home when the kids were starting their educational journey. There is no substitute for rote learning arithmetic tables, certain geometrical and trigonometrical theorems and some grammatical/spelling concepts. On the other hand, we always encouraged their music, sports activities and reading. A couple were much more sports oriented, the others more towards drama and music so the concentrations changed as the children grew but they all learned to love to read and that, I think anyway, made the difference.

Summer was their time - as long as they didn't try and kill themselves, anything and everything was game. We left them alone to do as they wished with two rules - tell us where you're going and you'd better damn well be there if we check up.

So I guess the upshot of this is we used a combination of the two approaches - seemed to work well. :>)