My Homeschooler's Extra-Curricular Activities

Extra-curricular activities are very much a part of my homeschooler's life as the curriculum itself. Theo, my now 13-year-old son (he was only 12 when I wrote my last blog post more than six months ago) does a lot of productive and creative activities that are not part of his academics. Let me just list down some of them here.

My Homeschooler's Extra-Curricular Activities

• He writes novels. He stopped writing for several months but I'm so glad he is writing again. We have not published his works because he has not yet achieved his targeted word/page count for a single novel. He has written several parts of a series but he has yet to put them all together as one book. I do believe he will be able to finish one soon.  We are also collaborating on another novel. For this one, I'm doing most of the storytelling while he does most of the writing.
• He produces electronic dance music (EDM) and his genre, according to him, is 'progressive house.' When he was just starting, he used GarageBand as his digital audio workstation (DAW) software. Now, he is more comfortable using FL Studio. I guess, that is partly due to the influence of Alan Walker, one of the music producers he admires, along with Zedd, Martin Garrix and The Chainsmokers.
  
    
  
  
• He composes songs. You can listen to his first complete song (with lyrics, melody,  arrangement and vocals all done by him)  here. For his second song, we collaborated on a praise song. I wrote the lyrics, we both did the melody and Theo did the vocals, arrangement and accompaniment/music production.
• He codes computer programs. Right now, we are working on our first Android app. I'm in charge of the system design while Theo writes the code in C# using Xamarin.Android on Visual Studio as his development platform. Our app has four main features and so far, development and testing for the first three are almost complete. We hope to be able to launch it on the Google Play Store before the year ends. I apologize for not telling more details about it yet, but I will be featuring it here on this blog as soon as we've finished it.
• He serves at the 'Feast Video' here in our town as our music ministry's bassist. Soon, we will be bringing the Feast Video to other places and he is very willing to serve with us everywhere we go.
• He still reads (fiction/non-academic reading materials) but not as passionately as he used to.
• He takes care of four cute cats and two lovely parakeets. 
• He did some gardening a few months back and was able to grow and harvest mustard leaves with the help of his Papa.
  
    
  
    
  
  
• He's getting better and better at playing musical instruments like guitar, piano, drums and bass guitar. He is able to play by ear (oido) so he gets to play music that he likes.

Aside from the above-mentioned activities, Theo, of course, also enjoys playing video games. He is only allowed to play between 5-7 PM, though. He currently plays Rules Of Survival (ROS), Fortnite Battle Royale and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG). He loves teaming up with his Papa on ROS, which is also a nice bonding time for them.

I know he should be doing more outdoor and physical activities, but so far, these are the things he enjoys doing. I would, however, take note from hereon, to include exercise in our schedule.