Editor: Sarah Hurty
Homeschool Programs: Think Outside the Box! Part One
If you are like most moms, one of the reasons you homeschool (or are considering homeschooling) your kids is that you'd like to have their education tailor-made to suit how they learn and what are their God-given interests and talents.
It's hard to do that with "curriculum-in-a-box", so if your kids (or you!) are uninspired by the usual packages, it might be time to "think outside the box" for your children's education.
To start exploring outside the box, stop and ask yourself, "If I could get the perfect 'program' for my kids handed to me on a platter, what would it look like?"
When I answered that for myself, I came up with an interesting "combo". I would love to see a small charter school that welcomes daily parental participation. The early grades would be just half day of classical education, preferably taught in Spanish! (Talk about a tall order. . . .) Fourth grade and above would be classical education in the morning and entrepreneurial education in the afternoon, working on actual businesses that the kids create in small groups.
Now I thought I had created the idea of "entrepreneurial homeschool" myself, once again I've discovered that many thousands of other like-minded people are already doing this. You can find a wealth of resources from the "Queen of Entrepreneurial Homeschooling", Rhea Perry.
For the classical education portion, I found a wonderful online homeschool program taught live by highly qualified teachers Amy and Regan Barr. Can you believe teachers trained at the doctoral level with many years out in the field as archeologists, teaching these fun and fascinating classes mostly through story? Though they are aimed at high school kids, last spring my nine and ten year olds audited Roman history, Roman world, and Word Roots -- and loved them!
So this year, my newly-minted fourth and fifth graders are auditing Greek history, Greek world, and mythology. We're skipping the Greek language classes for now because of our family schedule.
For their reading and writing, and even their math, I am having each one put up a blog about something they love, with the purpose of also making money from that blog while they're having fun. This requires them to research information, tell a story well to engage their readers, and learn how to write persuasively.
They will also learn to listen well, to find out what matters to their readers. Plus, figuring costs and income (and investment yield) is a great way to practice math!
Here are five ways to get "outside the box" ideas for your family's homeschool needs:
1. Read homeschool blogs. Seriously. They are full of gold nuggets on fun and effective approaches to homeschooling. Just google "homeschool blog" and you'll get a list to start your journey. Go ahead and click on the banners for various homeschool offerings to see what you'll find -- that's how I found Leukion.org for our classical education.
2. Go to homeschool conferences. These days they are usually more than just boxed curriculum fairs. I highly recommend Rhea Perry's annual Entrepreneur Days.
3. Join Yahoo or Google groups for your geographical area or for the homeschool approach you are interested in.
4. Join your local homeschool group. If you can't find anyone, ask at your public school district office. They are usually in contact with a local homeschool leader.
5. Participate in homeschool forums and ask for ideas. Forums on "unschooling" should yield rich results, even if unschooling isn't your thing, since they are all about finding ways to explore your children's strengths and interests.
Exploring outside the box can seem scary at first, but know this: you can do it. Whatever you really want for your children, you can find out there and put together from today's rich resources.
Workbooks: Use Them or Lose Them?
"Can we do 'Hot Chocolate Math'? PLEASE?"
That was my son's request as we faced another session of workbook math, which he dreaded.
"Hot Chocolate Math" became our name for learning math in a real life context. One day we were making hot chocolate for the whole family on the stove. So I had Josiah figure out how much of the various ingredients we needed.
The can of dutch cocoa called for a certain number of tablespoons for six ounce cups. We were using eight ounce cups. So after lots of converting from tablespoons to cups for chocolate, and cups to quarts for milk, and multiplying and dividing for our different cup sizes, we had a wonderful hot chocolate treat for the whole family.
Now that's the way my son likes to learn math!
A workbook, on the other hand, was a tedious chore about to kill his delight in math -- and mine in homeschooling. He loved Roman numerals (what's not to love about a code?), but couldn't make it through one long division problem in 30 minutes.
I was conflicted. He had not done a workbook for first or second grade, but had no trouble jumping straight into third grade math book, understanding all the concepts easily. I skipped my first grade daughter straight to second grade math book, and she took to it like a duck to water. No problems. She loved working through the workbook.
But what would we have gained had we spent all those hours working through the books the prior two years? In my son's case, we avoided lots of boredom and struggle with the medium of learning -- a workbook.
In my daughter's case, she may have gleaned an extra tidbit or two, but spent far less time playing with her siblings or practicing her drawing. At the same time, the second grade book was working for her to teach her some new skills in an organized fashion.
After completing about 1/3 of the third grade math book, we stopped to focus exclusively on learning the times tables inside and out. That way the long division problems could be accomplished much faster. We never went back to the book.
This year my kids are going to public school in the afternoons for the fun stuff like music and PE, and to be in sports and plays. It turns out that every one of them has math in the afternoons too.
You know what I discovered in talking with their teachers? They are all ahead of grade level in math. With about three months of workbook work in their whole lives.
Would they be farther ahead if we had worked through them and just moved onto higher grades? Probably. Particularly the ones who like workbooks.
I just have to be careful what I am trading off for that while they are still little. Time playing with siblings and working together and creating things -- that can't be recaptured. If we wait a little longer, learning that workbook stuff takes a fraction of the time when they are exposed to it.
So this is what I have decided to try this year now that they are getting older -- we will work in workbook, in selected areas, in spurts. I am going to use the workbooks basically to check their progress. We'll spend a good amount of time in the math workbooks, for instance, for a couple of months. I will hand pick the chapters and pages and problems they do. I will pay special attention to chapter review pages, as an excellent way to do a check up. Then we'll take a couple of months off before doing it again.
For the kids that love workbooks, I'll keep them available for one of the activities they can choose during our homeschool time. Maybe one or more of them will choose to dash through a few grade levels of math in one year -- like I did when I was given the chance in sixth grade. Better yet, maybe one or more of them will apply their math skills and build a playhouse or a rocket or. . . anything immensely more useful than a workbook!
Should you use workbooks? Or lose the workbooks? You are the expert who knows your kids. And you know best what you want for them. No one cares about their holistic growth more than you do. So trust yourself Feel free to experiment to see what actually works for your family. That's okay to do if you evaluate periodically and make corrections.
After all, isn't that exactly what the entire public school system does on a massive scale all the time? It's not like these workbooks are some unchangeable, perfect standard of learning for our kids.
If you're the kind of mom who really feels more comfortable with the certainty that workbooks provide, use them. Homeschooling doesn't work at all if it doesn't work for the parent. Next time I'll give you some tips on how to use workbooks most effectively.
Seven Ways to Outsource What You Don't Know or Don't Love
Let's face it. Not everything you want to do in homeschool is exciting for you as the parent. And whatever you don't or can't do often doesn't get done very well.
Outsourcing is all the rage in building a home business these days, and there's no reason it can't be applied to your home school. It frees up your emotional energy and time for what you do well. The idea is based on the Pareto principle which has proven true in every area of life -- 80% of your results are accomplished by 20% of your work.
So, to maximize your results for your homeschool, your time should be spent on that 20% that is so effective. These are the things you enjoy doing anyway, and give you satisfaction and that creative energy that spills over into the other parts of your day.
How can you outsource everything else?
1. This is the obvious one -- trade teaching tasks with some fellow homeschoolers. You teach what you love, they teach what they love, and everybody wins -- especially the kids.
2. Hire a retired person to do some of it. "Grandma" Delta (a wonderful woman down the street) listens to my kids read and practices their times tables with them. I love it. The kids get patient Grandma Delta instead of exasperated mother. And I get to teach all the new concepts. Retired people will often help for very little money, because they enjoy giving. Or you can trade something of value for it.
3. Check out your local college for students to teach their subject area inexpensively. The college itself may even have a homeschool outreach program. George Fox University science department teaches science classes once a week for free to homeschoolers, for instance.
4. Barter something you have to offer for a specialist in an area -- childcare for pottery classes? Bookkeeping for violin lessons? Dinner prep for woodshop skills? A local Christian school wanted fundraising and marketing help -- tuition for some special classes would be free.
5. Ask their grandparents or other family members, even if they seem busy. My kids' own grandmother just told me yesterday that she's volunteering to listen to kids read at the public school -- the very thing "Grandma" Delta has been doing.
6. Have them take live online classes, like the history and language classes from Leukeion.org. Or here's another idea I have not yet tried -- hire a tutor from the Philippines to work with your child over Skype or Yahoo Voice. They speak English well there and can be gotten rather cheaply. Check at an outsourcing place like emarketingoutsource.com and see if they can find someone with the skills you are intersted in.
7. Gasp! -- Use your public schools, if allowed. In some states they can go half time or for any specific class you choose. In Oregon, we can access any public school activity as much or as little as we want, and this is the first year I am making liberal use of it.
Don't get paralyzed in the overwhelm. As soon as you open up to the idea and start asking around, quite often an excellent solution presents itself to fill in your homeschool gaps.
Seven Tips for Helping Your Late Readers
I taught myself to read at four years old. My husband's brain wiring hooked up much later, though he zoomed when it finally did. It wasn't until my fourth child that I got one with my brain wiring. So I had to learn how to help late readers -- including my eldest girl.
Here are seven tips to help your kids move forward and ease your concern.
1. Whatever you do, don't push hard. Explain to your kids that brains develop different skills at different times -- there's nothing wrong with them if they starting reading later than their friends. They developed something else earlier than their friends. When the time is right for them, late readers catch up quickly to their peers.
Make sure you believe that yourself, and relax. My husband pushed me to push our kids, because of his own discomfort at reading late. It just didn't work. Picture a frustrated mother and unhappy kids. Fortunately I didn't push too long. And when my very intelligent late readers finally got it -- they zoomed.
2. Let them read what interests them, even if it's too hard for them. Late readers are often bored by early reader material, and want to read the more mature stuff. When I let my younger son struggle through the Great Brain books, his skills transformed radically over a two month period. The timing was right, yes, but his motivation made the difference.
3. Enlist others to listen to them read. The need for practice is huge, and you can often see daily growth. To get in enough practice for multiple children you may need to get outside help.
4. As your child is reading, frequently point back to words she missed on that page to have her read them again. Then resume the story where she left off. This helps her develop those words as "sight words". Gradually increase the amount of time before you go back to a word, "stretching" her memory, as you add new words she misses farther down the page. Review just three to five words each time you stop. Then go on with the story.
5. If your children tend to reverse words or start in the middle by reversing a syllable, then just ask them what letter the word starts with. This has helped mine to start seeing the word correctly, so then they can figure it out.
6. This one is my favorite -- teach them how to write their own books using Dragon Naturally Speaking. With this program they can "speak" their book. To use the program correctly, they have to give commands for punctuation and for paragraph breaks. After you check their work, then can then print out their book, illustrate it, and put it in one of those little folders with fasteners. Children are very motivated to read their own and other children's stories. You can find Dragon Naturally Speaking very reasonably priced on Ebay, or you can use the voice recognition program built into Microsoft Word.
7. Don't be afraid to get help from your public school system in the form of testing or special instruction, especially if your kids aren't caught up by ten years old.
Especially, celebrate accomplishments, even with rewards. Celebrate their first book, their first chapter book, reading on their own and telling you about the contents (to check for comprehension) -- whatever is the next milestone for your child. That gives them an appropriate sense of pride and confidence and lessens the fear that can build up if they realize they are reading late.
It does the same for you too. Congratulations, Mom! You're doing well.
How to Help Your Child While He Reads Aloud
We all know that we are supposed to read to our children. Even better is to have them read to us. But what exactly do we do while they read aloud to us, to help them get the most out of this practice for their reading skills?
Here are some do's and don'ts of listening to your child read to you:
1. DO help when he doesn't know a word. If he gets stuck on a word, let him try it. Give him quick clues for sounding it out. If he doesn't get it right away, go ahead and tell him what the word is, so he doesn't lose the story line. Comprehension is more important than getting every word right.
2. DON'T correct him if he puts in a synonym. Part of reading well is anticipating what word is coming next because of the context. If the word he says is not quite right, but is a synonym for the printed word, just let it go. You do this in your own reading more than you know. If it's not a synonym, ask him to look again.
You can also try letting him just put in a totally wrong word, and then figure out that it doesn't make sense as he reads on. This is what he will do when he reads on his own. This is good to try when he is a little more advanced. If done too early, he will likely lose the story line while he tries to figure it out, or worse, not even notice and just read on.
3. DO read frequently for shorter periods. You don't want to turn your reading time together into a chore. Cuddle while he reads. Try to stretch out his ability to read for a longer time on his own.
4. DON'T "just get through the story". Comprehension and evaluation of what he reads are the goals. Let him comment on the story and pictures. You'll learn how he thinks, and it teaches him to engage with what he is reading. You don't have to finish the book or chapter.
5. DO feel free to stop occasionally to practice a skill. It's okay to pause the story long enough to review a couple of words he missed earlier on the page. Or notice a frequent letter pattern on the page, like all those "qu" words, for instance.
Here's a bonus hint: If your child's reading is just too slow for you, go head and put on a headset to listen to something else too. This has worked wonders for me. Without this added stimulus, I would either go nuts or fall asleep.
Sound horrible? Raise your hand if you ever noticed yourself drifting off when you finally sat down for a few moments during the day, and had your child read to you. And how often do you get around to doing something that bores you to tears?
I rest my case. Go ahead and listen to something else or do something else while your child is reading to you, if it helps you to do it more often. Because the number one rule for both of you is. . . DO have fun!