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Homeschooling?
Is anyone homeschooling thier child? My daughter is 2 and Im considering homeschooling, but still not sure.
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Re: Homeschooling?
I am making preparations to HS. Here is a blog I like:
SUMOKU! ? A Math Game Worth Review | Pioneer Woman Homeschooling | Ree Drummond
Also, google for HS groups in your area. Mine have been very helpful and supportive.
To teach your own kids, and even the children of consenting parents you do not need a teaching degree.
I have a college degree, but not any teaching credentials. There are different criteria for each state, and the legal jargon is really easy to navigate. My son is only one year old, but I want to be sufficiently prepared to defend my decision to the school district and any dissenters within my family.
One way to combat the attention span issue is to team up with other local homeschoolers and tag team subjects. If you're proficient in teaching English, and I Science, you would teach all the kids English and I would teach all the kids Science. So, if teaching credentials is important to you, you would team up with other local part-time/substitute/retired/teachers turned SAHMs and teach the kids in a co-op fashion.
We homeschool. My son is 4. Our state doesn't require any documentation, testing, curriculum or registration. However, we document as if we are in a middle of the road state, so I keep a bound notebook where I write all of our schooling activities for the day. Then, I also keep some sample work. We belong to a homeschooling group that has a wide range of kids in it. It is secular group, so we do not do religous teaching. As a group we go on field trips together, have parties, socialize, and I teach science experiments. Homeschooling is very common in our area. It was also very common in the last state that we lived in.
As my son has gotten older, his attention span has gotten a lot bigger. He initiates what time of day we start "school." Sometimes he does not want to start until after lunch and sometimes he starts first thing in the morning. Sometimes we do school at home and sometimes we do it at the library. Today we did it at the library. We did reading, writing, addition, and US presidents. I keep the activities varied to keep his attention over time. We do science experiments, read lots of books from the library, do work books, watch videos, and on-line instruction. I incorporate a lot of art activties into our learning because my son loves it. You can see some of the items that we do in my blog. I have not updated the homeschooling section in awhile. I plan to write a post next week on homeschooling.
I have experience teaching college. I do not hold a teaching degree. I have read a lot of teaching theories, and I pick and choose what I like from each of the different theories and incorporate them into our learning. Some books that I reccomend on learning and teaching theories are The Motessori Method by Maria Montessori, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences by Howard Gardner, Bringing Reggio Emilia Home: An Innovative Approach to Early Childhood Education by Louise Cadwell, and there are many others. Really it is about adapting to what your child needs. Some kids will respond great with certain curriculum or learning style while others will not like it. I don't think that there is a "right way" to teach. If you have any more questions, then please let me know. I can share my experiences homeschooling.
You don't sound like you are judging at all! Homeschooling is a very personal family choice and works for some families but doesn't for others. Some kids love it and some kids enjoy or need the additional structure of school.
My siblings and I were all homeschooled for quite a few years. I actually graduated from high school as a homeschool student. I was homeschooled from 6th grade while my siblings were homeschooled from preschool/1st/2nd grade through 4th/9th/10th grade. The two oldest decided to go to school in order to have more opportunities for sports and the arts. They are both now in college on sports and music scholarships respectively so it was obviously the right decision! The "baby" decided to go to school in 4th grade because we had all gone to college or high school and she didn't enjoy being home by herself.
In general, I think homecshooling is more prevalent in the south and midwest. We grew up in the Atlanta suburbs where homeschooling is pretty common and there are a wide-range of groups and co-ops available. My 4 years of high school were spent in a co-op with about 70 other kids and my "classes" were taught by parents with education backgrounds. I had an Emory professor, a GA Tech professor, my algebra teacher had a degree from MIT and my Latin teacher was a grandmother of a student who had formerly taught at a university in Italy. I had a great experience! We also grew up in a very large church so social interaction was never an issue.
When it comes to keeping kids focused I think it all depends on what strategy works for your family. My mom always kept us on a pretty tight schedule (school 9:00 - 12:00, lunch break, school 1:00 - 3:00) and we had a designated "school room" where everything was stored and all schoolwork was done. We had to get up, have breakfast, make our beds, get dressed, etc all before starting school. No schoolwork while lying on your bed in pajamas! However, we had friends who did exactly that and it worked for their family dynamic.
As pp stated every state has different laws regulating homeschooling and require different records and testing. At the time in GA, my mom had to submit yearly records with evidence of our progression through the state guidelines which supposedly matched up with the state curriculum. When my brother and sisters entered school they were required to take a million tests to ensure they were ready for the grade they were entering - they were! I took the ACT, SAT and multiple SAT2 tests in order to satisfy the colleges I applied to. It is been 10 years since I graduated from high school so things have more than likely changed but that was my experience.
ETA: Just thought to add that one of the great things about homeschooling is the flexibility it provides. One year we took a month long family vacation to the western national parks while everyone else was in school. My mom planned field trips that directly correlated to our curriculum. When my middle brother and sister were learning the different class, phylum, species, etc of animals we went to the zoo and played a game where we filled in a bingo type card with different types of animals that we saw. You can also learn every day skills integrated with schoolwork. We used to help my mom make the weekly shopping list, go with her to the grocery store and learn about/practice addition, subtraction, weight, measurements and obviously a lot about food.
You can certainly do all of these things without homeschooling but I would imagine the time to do so would be limited and harder to come by.
m/c at 13 weeks - March 23, 2011
Families homeschool for different reasons or probably a combination of reasons. I know that we were initially homeschooled because my parents were dissatisfied with the education that we were receiving but couldn't afford to put 4 kids into private schools at the time. They also believed strongly that we needed a more well-rounded education than what was being provided. This was partly religious education but also included a more "classical" approach - we took Latin, apologetics and critical thinking classes. We learned about evolution and creationism, Martin Luther and Vishnu, the ten commandments and the five pillars of Islam...just a few examples.
It is probably more prevalent in some areas simply because resources are more readily available and it is not looked at as "weird".
m/c at 13 weeks - March 23, 2011
Sorry to be the debbie downer, but in my experience I have never ever met a well socialized HS child, and i have had experience with a lot of them. Being a part of a Hs group or outside sports is NOTHING like actually going to a school and learning to socialize with all types of people.
I would love to meet!
My siblings and I are extremely well socialized and always have been. I do know lots of homeschool students who struggle with socialization outside of their small groups but many times that is due to over-protective parents who refuse to recognize that their children don't need to live in a bubble. It can be done successfully but takes a lot of commitment and work to make sure kids/teenagers are given the opportunities to develop those social skills.
Maybe we were the anomaly and being in a big city had more opportunities than others? I don't know.
m/c at 13 weeks - March 23, 2011
BFP #1 9/7/10, EDD 5/14/11, Violet born 5/27/11.
BFP #2 4/9/12, EDD 12/16/12, M/C Rory 4/24/12.
BFP #3 10/6/12, EDD 6/16/12., Matilda born 6/17/13.
I know that this depends on the area of the country, but my HS group offered classes from 8-3 on Mondays through Thursdays at a building that we shared with a local church. We could take almost any subject there from qualified (and certified) HS teachers, and had science labs, computer labs, a library, etc. just for our group. So basically I was in classes for several hours a day 3 days a week with groups of 30 or so HS kids. It was almost like being homeschooled part-time and going to a private school the rest of the time.
I also participated in sports, student government, drama club, the school newspaper, and several other activities through the HS group. We had formals, homecoming games, festivals, and other events; the benefit was that HS parents could decide what they were qualified to teach their children and what they would like certified teachers to teach them in a group setting. I loved the flexibility, and it also allowed me to dual enroll in community college courses for subjects I felt were my strengths. I graduated with a class of 43 students who knew each other very well, and all but one of us went on to university (most with full scholarships). This may not be the norm for homeschooling, but this is how I'd like my children to be homeschooled.
Outside of HS group activities, I did a LOT of volunteer work. I was a tour guide (in full costume!) at three local history museums, which counted toward history credit. I learned through teaching school groups, and was hired as an employee in high school. I also volunteered at a local library and was hired there to work a few nights a week in high school. Because I had such a flexible schedule, I could work a couple of days a week and still get my subjects done at home.
The super-active homeschool groups and families may not be characteristic of every area, but there are several groups like that in my state. Although the stereotype of the socially awkward, conservative homeschooler may be true of some families, I don't think that my experience with homeschooling has resembled the stereotype in the slightest.
BFP #1 9/7/10, EDD 5/14/11, Violet born 5/27/11.
BFP #2 4/9/12, EDD 12/16/12, M/C Rory 4/24/12.
BFP #3 10/6/12, EDD 6/16/12., Matilda born 6/17/13.
I would love to meet you as well!
My DH and I were both home schooled and plan to homeschool our kids as well. He came from a very structured environment and was very involved with a homeschool co-op. He was in boy scouts, basketball, soccer, swing dancing groups and very involved in the youth group. His sister is an NICU RN and he is graduating with his Mechanical Engineering degree this May(that he finished in 4 years with a 3.6GPA). His "group" that he grew up in was very different than mine. Most of the family's were quite well off and had only 2-4 kids in the family. Whereas my experience with homeschooling was quite different.
My parents came out of the hippie movement(yes, I grew up without TV), and have still a very grassroots feel about them. When I was young we moved north of Seattle to the country. I grew up on 3 acres that we used to the max. Most of my homeschooling was outside in the orchard, garden, or with the animals. I would go to work with my dad(he was a carpenter) and learned all about geometry and math. I loved to cook and would spend hours in the kitchen with my mom. We had a set time that we did Reading, Writing and Arithmetic every day, and then we were encouraged to read, read, read... and all 6 of us are very avid readers. My little sister and I sort of grew up in a homeschool co-op... Most families had over 7 kids and so large families were normal to us. Most of the families were also very conservative, but even though we were a bit "alternative" we were still very accepted. Somehow despite the "un-organization" of it all I had exceeded requirements to graduate high school when I was 15, so I attended Running Start to study Music and Computers for a couple years. If you want to know about my brothers and sister's lives... I love to brag on them:)
Despite the differences in our lives both DH and I were both "socialized" and most of our friends at college act shocked when they find out we were home schooled. I know of the "homeschoolers" you're talking about... The scrunchies, tucked in shirts, awkward conversations or no conversation at all... But...In my experience I know just as many kids from public schools you are very socially awkward. My DH and I decided that this comes from a too-protected home environment more than a school environment. Just thought you should know there are normal homeschoolers out there!!! Especially north of Seattle there's a huge community of homeschooling families.
Brady Phoenix, 8.29.09
Claire Zoe, 10.26.10