Category Archives: How to Homeschool

No Diving! Begin by Wading In

3 Replies

Finding your groove as a homeschool family is a little like finding your way as a parent. You can read books and blogs, and talk to friends to get suggestions, but in the end you have to just start somewhere!

You have to start where you think is best and accept the fact that you are not going to homeschool exactly the same way a year from now, or two or ten! You are going to change and grow. We all have to go through this progression – it’s part of growing, maturing, and finding our own style.

That said, I would suggest wading in, rather than diving into the deep end! For your sake and your kid’s sake.

Start Slowly
Make small goals, not a big to-do list. (I strictly ignored this advice upon beginning to homeschool! I had something to prove you see.) Some of us want to make a plan, detail it out, item by item, and cross everything off of our list everyday. We do it because we want to be able to say, we did “school” today, and in our mind “school” is not accomplished unless the complete list is checked off.

A better way is to start with a couple of things your children are sure to like. Then call it a day. (Really!) The next day do those same things, plus one harder thing. Each day add something new, until in time you have worked up to a full schedule.

Depending on the transition being made, this process may take a week or a month. If your child is leaving public school after several years, you may need to take this progression very, very slowly. If your child has learned to hate “school” they need to see that this isn’t going to be same ol’, same ol’. This is going to be different. At the very least they will not “hate” that day of school, and at best, they will have some curiosity about tomorrow.

Take it Easy
Trade off between difficult subjects and easy ones. We used to get the hateful subjects out of the way first and then spent the rest of the morning enjoying the rest. The problem was that by the time we got to the good stuff, our brains were worn out and we didn’t enjoy it as much as we should have.

I’ve found that if we do something easy, then something hard, then back to something easy, and continue trading off that way, we get so much more out of every subject – the hard and easy alike. We finish the day less exhausted too. I talk about this more in my post about short lessons.

Sneak It In
Learn to school subtly, throughout the day. This didn’t come easy for me at first. I thought we were either doing “school” or we were not. I still think you need to have a scheduled time for lessons, but adding things here or there throughout the day can greatly shrink that scheduled time. Some ideas are:

  • Read a poem over breakfast. (Poetry)
  • Read a story before bed each night. (Literature)
  • Listen to an audiobook in the car.
  • Go for a walk and pay attention to your surroundings. (Science, Nature Study)
  • Cook dinner together. (Math, Science, Work/Handicraft)
  • Talk about everything – ask them to tell you about their experiences. (Composition)

That is just a small list of ideas. Your whole school day cannot be accomplished like that, but you can cover a lot of stuff in this way, without your child ever feeling “schooled”. At the end of the day, record what you did throughout the day. You may be surprised!

Be Picky About Your Time
You can’t do everything, so you need to be picky. When we first started homeschooling we lived in an area with few opportunities for homeschoolers. Shortly thereafter, we moved to a place with TONS of opportunities for homeschoolers: field trips, co-ops, museums, homeschool days, lessons of every kind, and on and on. I quickly found that we needed to slow down!

The same thing goes for the subjects you choose to teach. You can’t teach your children everything in one year. Stick to what is important, then fill in with the extras. If you add to your schedule, little by little, like I suggested above, then you will know when you have found a place that is comfortable for all of you.

It’s hard to go slow. We get so excited that we want to just dive in and teach them everything! We buy everything that looks interesting or educational, and then we insist on doing every page so we get our money’s worth.

The thing to remember is that homeschooling can be different. We don’t have to start every subject on the first day of the school year, but at the same time, all schooling we do will be one on one and therefore more effective. Take advantage of this flexibility – start slow so that every day can be a successful day!

Homeschool Co-ops – Should You Participate in One?

3 Replies

In general, I’m not a big fan of Homeschool Coops. It sounds like such a good idea: fun classes and socialization for both the kids and mom. It seems especially good for teens. Especially one who needs a government or economics class. On top of all that, it seems like everyone is doing it!

I went to registration day for three different coops, but in the end I left every one without having signed up. At the last one, I remember standing in a corner on the cell phone with my husband. “This just doesn’t seem right to me,” I told him. “I don’t feel good about it.”

So, here’s why:

  1. The three coops I visited required mom’s to work 2 out of 3 hours in a class, and strongly suggested the 3rd hour be spent in the mom-room for socialization. That was one of the things I was looking forward to after all. The problem was, that when I put it on paper it occurred to me that I would be separated from each of my children for 2-3 hours.
  2. While I’m separated from each of my children for those hours, they are in classes with 20 other kids their general age. Frankly, I don’t want my child socializing with 20 kids their age without my being around. Sounds like school to me.
  3. In one instance, I found that the whole coop was scheduled to focus on US History, but we were studying World History at home. A “theme” sounded like a nice idea, but if the classes your child takes, do not supplement the course of study you are following, is it worth losing a day of school?
  4. I can’t go without mentioning that I don’t want to get up at 7:00 AM to go to coop once a week. I know, that sounds like a lame reason, but I had to mention it, because it occurred to me that after 13 weeks I might really feel like flaking.
  5. There are a lot of people who homeschool, with a lot of different beliefs, attitudes, and parenting styles. We do not have any kind of video game system in our house, but I found that was a common theme among the kids at coop. It seemed very worldly to me.
  6. Of course, I have heard of some wonderful classes coop classes. A friend of mine teaches one that I know is great, but you can’t go for just one class. It’s an all or nothing deal.

In the end, it just seemed a little too much like “school” to me – kids sitting in desks, with their peers, teachers at the front teaching, and changing classes on the hour.

That said, I LOVE our coop!

I bet you didn’t see that coming. I can’t really recommend that you find a coop like the one we participate in, because I don’t know of any others like it, but I can recommend you start one yourself.

  • Our coop is made up of 8 families who all utilize a Charlotte Mason method of homeschooling, so we all share some foundational beliefs on educating our children as well as simply raising them.
  • We only meet for traditional coop once a month, and all mom’s and the 35 kids stay together for every lesson.
  • The subjects are things like hymn, artist study, folk song, drawing, handicraft, and recitation by various children. These are all part of a Charlotte Mason education, so it supplements all of our course of study.
  • The other 3 weeks of the month we use to take field trips to various places or to do a Nature Study together.

There are ways to make it work; they just are not the standard. If you want a healthy coop that is a benefit, rather than a hindrance to your family, you might think about getting a group of like minded friends together and making a plan. You are welcome to visit my coop’s blog for some ideas or ask any questions you might have.

When Children Hate Reading – There is Hope

Leave a reply

When the big kids left public school and began homeschooling with me they hated to read. It’s not surprising at all, because it was 1) HARD for them, and 2) they hadn’t read anything enjoyable.

My first task was proving to them that books could be fun and enjoyable, so I didn’t dare put anything to them that I didn’t know was going to be great. Everything had to be highly recommended, or come from a source I trust, like AmblesideOnline.

The first thing I did was start reading to them. This way they had a chance to really get into a story without the pain of reading it themselves. If a person gets emotionally involved with a character in a book, then they will never forget what they have read. That’s the premise behind the term “living books”. So can they become emotionally involved with Abagail Adams (Witness to a Revolution), or Benjamin Franklin (Poor Richard)? The answer is that they can, and they did.

The next thing was to assign them a book to read for themselves. One that I knew they would love. I considered their interests, and what we were learning, and I only gave them books that I had read before, or that, again, had come HIGHLY recommended. I also made sure the book would be just the right reading level for them. I didn’t want them to struggle through it, but it also couldn’t be so easy that their brains would get board.

An easy book can be more of a strain to the brain than a harder, more engaging book. Think about it – you have to work harder to pay attention to an easy, boring book. In contrast, when you read a good book that dives right in, rather than being dumbed down, your brain engages and you plow through it without even realizing that time has passed.

I also had them narrate on every chapter of the book. This caused them to think about what they were reading. As they told the story, it became “their own” and they felt a connection to the characters. Also, as we listened to their narration, they felt proud of the quality of “their story” and the fact that we all wanted to know what happened next.

After they finished a book, I gave them another, and we kept on this way, as they warmed up to the idea that between those two covers, there just might be a whole other, very entertaining world. I will never forget the day that I handed one of them a new book and they began reading it immediately, forsaking everything else! I knew then that this child was hooked! These days I just direct them to a stack of about 10 preselected books and let them pick one for themselves.

Of course, the other problem, that reading was HARD, was solved with the working out of the first problem. Once they had gotten through a few books, they had become considerably better at it.

It’s about baby steps. They have spent most of their life learning that school (a.k.a. learning) is hateful. Maybe the biggest gift we can give them is to lead them, one step at a time, to the realization that there is good stuff out there, and grow their curiosity about it.