Market Farming

[Alex McGregor <waldenfarm AT sprintmail.com>]

J&J,

Home schooled kids (in general) have much longer attention spans than
others.  My theory is that their school lessons and lives aren't cut up into
short pieces and their lessons aren't devised to cater to the lowest
attention span in the class.  So, you may find that they can follow a
complete explanation and application.  As far as abilities, you may also
find that they are far ahead of their peers, at least in the areas of
knowledge and understanding material.

I recommend you talk with the parents to see what the kids are up for.  All
kids, just like adults, are interested in real work for a purpose, not made
up busy work.  So, why not make a list of jobs you could use some help with
and talk with parents/representatives about what they think the kids could
do.

I would further suggest that you give the kids a bit of a class on the
reasons for why you do things the way you do.  This is a good trade off for
their work and gives them some of the theory.

Your tree planting project sounds perfect for the older kids.  And they
could handle some of the tasks with animals.  For the younger kids, you
might think of some less strenuous, more repetitive tasks- filling cells and
planting seeds if you're doing that this time of year, for example.

BTW, we farm and home school our daughter- a great mixture!  Life and work
are great teachers.

Alex McGregor
Walden Farm