Another lesson from this year of homeschooling is that it is not necessary to follow your curriculum to the letter. Please understand that I really do love our curriculum, My Father’s World. It is well organized, thorough, and easy to use. However, that does not mean that my kids need to do all of the work or that they have to move just because the curriculum says so. I have learned to do the work that my girls need to do and to change the method of delivery to address the kids’ needs’ and interests. Let me explain.

MFW includes a very thorough phonetically-based reading instruction component. I think the methods used are great and do teach your child to read. You teach 6 types of lessons during the week and then cycle through those types of lessons each week. The specifics in each lesson change as you work through the weeks, but the structure remains the same. At some point in the school year we tired of the repetitiveness of the lessons. At that point I decided to change things around a bit. Sometimes we played games that addressed the same concept to be taught. Other times I added an element of surprise to the original plan. For example, when we sort picture cards by initial sounds, sometimes I have a kid run down the hall with the picture card and match it to the correct letter at the other end of the hall. Once all of the picture cards are gone, we flip the pictures and check the letters on the back and correct any mistakes. My take on the lessons kept things fresh and kept the kids engaged while teaching the necessary concepts.

There were studies that we have been very interested, so I decided to extend the learning. MFW includes lessons on cows, horses, and goats. I added to that by creating a unit on the farm. We visited a couple of farms. We watched videos of the three animals included in our curriculum. We read many books about the farm. We compared cows and goats as well. We even created a very large farm diorama. We completed work for a lapbook on the farm (which I still need to construct). We learned about the farm far longer than we were “supposed” to according to MFW, but that worked for us.

An important part of the curriculum is the math calendar. This includes, among other components, learning the days of the week, the months of the year, and counting the days in school using straws on a hundreds chart. I decided to add Zero the Hero to our school experience. The idea is that every tenth day Zero visits your classroom and leaves something for the children to count and sort. On that day the children count to 100 by ones, twos, fives, and tens and sing special songs and read books about Zero or even a letter written by Zero. It can be a lot of work, but it is so much fun! Zero helps the kids learn place value and counting by running with the kids’ imaginations and by being repetitive (every tenth day you are visited by Zero).

My lesson: Use your curriculum as a guide and add or subtract according to your kids’ needs and interests.

I have some lessons that I learned while homeschooling my kids this year. These insights might help you, too.

This school year we started off with a pretty strict schedule, and I worked hard to ensure that we had school time every day. I was sticking to the curriculum, My Father’s World. I wanted to be sure that we covered everything. We got to work at 8 am and worked until 11 am with a snack in the middle of our schedule. We also had dance lessons, soccer practice, doctor appointments, Mom to Mom, and small group on top of maintaining our home and going to the gym. It was very intense, and we were all exhausted!

I learned my lesson a few months in. Nobody could maintain the rigid schedule I had set up, and homeschooling is supposed to be flexible. Besides, one of our goals this school year was for our children to work and play independently so that I would not have to constantly monitor them. I loosened up on our start time, so that the kids would have more time in the morning (their best time of day) to play together without my interference. I played around with when and where we did school work and streamlined a few things from our curriculum, especially on days when we had things going on outside of our home. I took a long look at the things that we were doing outside of school time and realized that those things really are considered school work, too. For example, we cook and experiment with recipes often, and I read to my kids all of the time. Even when we were not “officially” doing school work, my kids were engaged in educational experiences.

Our relaxed routine has helped me focus on other aspects of my children’s lives. I have been better able to help C6 with her sensory issues and anger management. I can help my kids process problems that come up between them. I can also model social behaviors that I want to see in my children’s interactions with others such as treating others the way you want to be treated, introducing yourself, introducing your friends to each other, and using good manners. These are issues that are as important if not more important than academics.

My lessons: 1) Be more flexible with your schedule and your curriculum. 2) Focus on what is important for your kids.

Photo courtesy of woodleywonderworks

Today we went to the homeschool conference! It was so good to be able to attend a couple of workshops and shop for curriculum with my hubby. Sometimes it feels like the kids are all my responsibility so it helps to have hubby with me to make big decisions like what homeschool curriculum we should use.

God is so faithful and He provides exactly what we need. I have been feeling a bit discouraged latley because of the naysayers out there who give me a difficult time about homeschooling. Everyone has an opinion about how I should educate my kids. I really should be used to that, though. Doesn’t that start when your first baby is born and everyone tells you how you should raise your kids? I got used to that so I know that I can get used to the judgment about my kids’ socialization education.

One of the speakers today gave a great tip that I have to share with you. Perhaps you already do this, but I think it is important enough to repeat. Write down a homeschool mission statement and plan. Why are you homeschooling? Who teaches the children which subjects? What will the children learn? You get the idea. The point of doing that is that you may need that information at some point in time. Your school district may ask for that kind of information. Your family and friends might continually ask you those questions. Or you and your spouse might need to be reminded of the answers to those questions when you feel discouraged or frustrated. It is the single most important tip I came away from the conference with today!

I look forward to sharing a few more gems with you from the confernce in the next few posts!

Photo courtesy of mp_eds

Stovepipe Hat

Supplies (makes 1 sample and 2 hats)
3 pieces red construction paper     3 pieces white construction paper     2 pieces large drawing paper
glue sticks     scissors     permanent marker

How To
Cut about one inch off of the long edge of three pieces of red construction paper and three pieces of white construction paper. Trace one of the remaining rectangles onto a large piece of drawing paper. Then trace the cut off piece of paper onto the base of the large rectangle to form the brim of the hat. Make one tracing for each child.

Give each child the tracing of the hat. Have each child glue the one inch white strip to the brim of the hat. Have the children fold the red paper in half hamburger style twice and cut the paper along the folds. Do the same for the white paper. Now create a pattern with the colors on the tracing by gluing red, white, red, white. (Each child will have 2 extra pieces of red and 2 extra pieces of white paper. Reserve these for another project.)

Have your children help spell the words “Cat in the Hat” and write them as a title at the top of the page.

Word Work

Supplies
remaining strips of red and white construction paper     permanent marker    pencils

How To
Use the remaining strips of paper to write the words “cat”, “in”, “the”, & “hat”. As you write the words (except “the”, which you write out and explain that it is a sight word), have your child say the sounds in the words and tell you the corresponding letters. Then have the kids trace over the letters. Your children can play “Concentration” and “Go Fish” and also practice spelling the words with these flash cards.

Indoor Seuss Inspired Frisbee

Supplies
2 dessert size paper plates (per child)     red marker     read crayons

How To
Draw a stovepipe hat on the back of each of the plates. Draw lines for your child to color in with red crayon. Once the Frisbees are decorated, toss them around. We played Frisbee down our hallway and even played relay races. Be creative!

Photo by msburrows

As a homeschooling family, we are always looking for opportunities for our children to learn skills that we value but cannot provide ourselves. For our family, we seek out physical activities for our very busy and precocious children. We suggested that my dad give the girls dance/gymnastics classes for Christmas for this very reason. Today was C4’s first “Dance and Tumble” class for the winter session at the YMCA.

Not only did we want C4 to join a gymnastics/dance class for physical education and dance skills, but we also knew that there would be social, emotional, and neurological benefits from the class.

~C4 has Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), and she is definitely a sensory seeker. The activities in this class provide lots of proprioceptive input, which will help her with motor planning and balance. There are plenty of deep pressure activities in the class as well such as rolling, hopping, and jumping.

~This class gives C4 the opportunity to make some friendships outside of our current circle of friends. I hope that she can connect with other little girls who share her interest in dancing and gymnastics. The class gives her a topic to discuss with her friends, shared experiences, and time away from me and her sister to establish new friendships.

~I hope that the experiences she has will build her confidence in her physical abilities resulting in a better sense of what she can do independently. She often tells me that she is unable to complete a task that I have seen her do a dozen times. I suspect that her frustration is a result of her SPD sometimes and other times is part of her limit-testing as a strong-willed child. Perhaps she will gain better control over her proprioceptive function through her dance class and maybe learn a little about following the rules.

~Most of all, I hope that C4 has fun in this class. Today she was so excited that she was going to her class that she simply could not nap. As we got ready to leave the house, she kept telling A2 about how she was going to a special dance class that Papa gave to her for Christmas. When we arrived, she ran right into the room. She dove into the class. She smiled. She laughed. She was thrilled by the end of class. She made sure to tell Daddy all about her experiences.

I have high hopes for this little class!

1. Index cards – for making flash cards, for making games, for writing memory verses on, for making a changeable schedule with (to be placed in a pocket chart), to make into letter tiles for word building, and the ideas are limitless.
2. File folders – to make lapbooks (We need lots for these.), to make an easy-to-store board game such as “Roll to 100″, to make a sorting game with, to make a phonics game on, to amke small sentence strips with, and the list goes on!
3. Construction paper/Copy paper/Notebooks – to make cards, to make collages, to make anything crafty, to make homemade books, for the kids to keep a journal in, for you to take notes on your children’s progress, to write just about anything.
4. Glue sticks & White glue – We glue something almost every day!
5. Plastic zipper storage bags of all sizes – for storing homemade games & puzzles, for keeping hand wipes in (They are great for cleaning up after a messy project.), for storing journals used outside, to store play dough in, for crushing ingredients when you cook, for storing wet paintbrushes, to organize like items for counting & sorting, and a million other uses.
6. Scissors & Paper cutter – I have a variety: adult scissors, blunt scissors, & a nylon pair that only cuts paper.
7. Pocket Folders – I keep everything from printed worksheets to the work related to a unit study in these. I like to use different colors and different patterns to make them easily distinguishable.
8. Packing tape – to fix torn pages in a book, to reinforce game pieces, to adhere lapbooks together, to reinforce the binding on books, for taping large boxes for pretend play. Packing tape fixes it all!
9. Post-it Notes – for reminders for you & the kids, for bookmarks, for games, for cloze procedure exercises, to write a note about something in a book to discuss, and many other things.
10. Paper plates of all sizes - to use as a palette for painting, to make masks, for putting glue on, for cutting into fractions, for sorting objects on, to make a variety of crafts with, to make a clock, to make a spinner, and many for more projects.

Do you have any favorite supplies that you just have to have for your homeschool?

It saddens me that Joy Behar, an educator herself, would look down on the home education movement. She has been in the classroom and knows that not all children learn the same way. Children need different educational choices because each child is unique. Homeschooling provides children lots of flexibility that allows parents to meet their children’s needs. Sadly, Joy Behar does not see it that way.

Katie, at Moms in the Right, gave me a link to this article by John Taylor Gatto. It is a satirical piece, so please take it from that perspective. Overall, John Taylor Gotto sounds like an interesting author and educator. I plan to read some of his work.

Hopefully, home educators can continue to work towards changing stereotypical views about homeschooling. It is unfortunate when someone who has a powerful opinion makes comments that are both hurtful and untrue.

My husband and I have decided this:

• We will think about and plan school one year at a time. It is impossible to think through all of the possibilities and determine what will be best for our children beyond that time frame.
• We will remember that each child is unique. Home education may be good for one child, but not good for another.
• We will work together as a team to educate our children. Ecclesiastes 4:9 tells us that we need each other. Hopefully that will help us make better decisions about our children’s education.
• We will pray about the direction of our home school. Right now we feel called to home educate our children next year full time, but God may have different plans after that. I want to follow His plan!

Show yourself some grace and pray. Homeschooling is hard work and rewarding. But if you find that home education is not working for your children, then investigate alternatives.

I have a friend who just started homeschooling this year because she and her husband feel called by God to do that. She told me that although she is confident in their decision to homeschool, but she also finds it difficult to talk to other people about this decision. She also feels like people will think that they are weird and doesn’t know what to tell people. After some discussion about the topic, we came up with a couple of things you can tell people about your decision to homeschool.

• Our homeschool meets my children’s learning needs better than any other educational setting right now. I have more flexiblitity to try different curricula and methods to reach my children.
• We want to provide a Christian education for our children, but we cannot afford private school.

The other concern that others have when I talk about home education is about socialization. I have to wonder why socialization is the big concern and not the quality of the education that my kids get, but this is what I say:

• By not paying for school, we will have funds available to put towards dance class, horseback riding lessons, swimming lessons, and the like. These are the situations where my children will be involved in group learning experiences away from Mommy.
• We are active in our church, so my children are forming friendships with these children. This way I know the families already when we either host a play date or play at a friend’s house.

Some people are concerned about me doing too much. They talk about me needing a support system and a break, which I agree with. This is my response:

• I will find a co-op or just a group of other homeschoolers to talk to about our school and our joys ans trials.
• I will also continue attending Mom-to-Mom and my church’s women’s Bible study. I will either have to work with the Children’s Ministry Director or find an alternative form of child care for the children in order for me to be part of those groups, but I know that attending these programs is essential for me.
• My dear husband will also take charge of some ongoing math and science projects to work on with the children when he is home (in the evening, on the weekends, or on vacation). He will also discuss the curriculum with me. We plan to be partners in this endeavor!

What has your response been to well-meaning people when they raise concerns about home education?

• For a couple of months now I have been demonstrating how to sound out words by saying the sounds of each letter and then “pushing” the sounds together.

• I point out sight words (the, is, what) when I read aloud.

• I have her read the letters in alphabet books.

• I have shown her how you can use onsets and rimes to make new words and to figure out unknown words.

1. I’ve written words in the same word family (-at) with sidewalk chalk and bathtub crayons.
2. I explain that we know that “a-t” says “at”.
3. Now add the “b” to “at”. The word is “bat”.
4. Take off the “b” and add a “c”. Now you have “cat”.

I am so excited for her. She was so proud of her accomplishment. This is what homeschooling is all about!