Homeschooling...

[MaryCarney]

I'm just finishing my 23rd (yup, 23 years, not a typo) of homeschooling my four kids. Two have graduated from high school at home, gone to college and graduated with degrees in nursing and aviation respectively. My two at home are 14 and 16. We are in a co-op and I teach biology, anatomy and chemistry labs through it.

Field trips??? Not so much with the group, but we have always just included our children in whatever we were doing, and tried to work in something educational into each vacation we take.

Homeschooling for so long, I've used just about EVERYTHING over the years. And I subscribe to what Marva Collins said "Anything works if the teacher does".

And while I mean no disrespect for anyone's choices, too often I see 'unschooling' used as an excuse for laziness on the teacher's part.

Children are, like adults, likely to take the path of least resistance, sort of like water. I feel a parent needs to 'divert the stream' toward the overall goal, not just leave it to chance.

After all, the real adult world does not allow you to just do your own thing. There ARE certain skills and bodies of knowledge necessary to navigate the world, and we do our children disservice if we don't make them do difficult things at times.

[Elizabeth CM]

Hi!

Been homeschooling DS 3 years, he's going into 4th next year. We started with unschooling and have slowly integrated more and more curriculum.

We do the unit study approach for 75% of our stuff. I strongly recommend "Story of the World" by Susan Wise Bauer- I think there are 4 books in the series, and each one has a workbook you can buy that is WORTH the money - you can copy the pages for as many kids as you need.

Each chapter covers the story of a moment in history - Robin Hood, Hadrian's Wall, the marriage of Prince Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, etc. To go with the chapter you read from the textbook, the workbook has a list of recommended books (for a variety of ages) to get out of the library on that specific event and time, map works, crafts, recipes, and all sorts of links and writing and coloring projects. Very stretchable for different ages.

We do a chapter a week, which is pretty common. It's basically all of our history, geography, reading, and much of the writing for the week as well as the art, the music, the cooking... etc.

In the last month, we've made Roman Pillars out of cookie dough, collected almost an entire book of maps, had sword battles, decorated masks, read stories about the feudal systems, floated toy boats.

We coordinate our weekly trips and nature walks to the chapter we're studying, and my son does their writing exercises as well as creating a "journal" where he pretends to be a character from the story (Henry the Navigator, a Roman soldier, a Ghanan slave) and writes about "his" day.

We're working our way thru history, will finish the second book this year. I figure we'll go through each book twice by high school - very doable, since you have your pick of activities and don't need to repeat.

We do our daily math and science from textbooks. DS goes to a coop on Fridays, gets (more) science and PE and socialization there. I work at the coop, which pays for it.

We spend between 2 and 5 hours a day schooling, and it's fun.

I wish you very very good luck with this!!

[valerian]

Hi!

Been homeschooling DS 3 years, he's going into 4th next year. We started with unschooling and have slowly integrated more and more curriculum.

We do the unit study approach for 75% of our stuff. I strongly recommend "Story of the World" by Susan Wise Bauer- I think there are 4 books in the series, and each one has a workbook you can buy that is WORTH the money - you can copy the pages for as many kids as you need.
I'll check this out!

Each chapter covers the story of a moment in history - Robin Hood, Hadrian's Wall, the marriage of Prince Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, etc. To go with the chapter you read from the textbook, the workbook has a list of recommended books (for a variety of ages) to get out of the library on that specific event and time, map works, crafts, recipes, and all sorts of links and writing and coloring projects. Very stretchable for different ages.
This sounds like fun!

We do a chapter a week, which is pretty common. It's basically all of our history, geography, reading, and much of the writing for the week as well as the art, the music, the cooking... etc.

In the last month, we've made Roman Pillars out of cookie dough, collected almost an entire book of maps, had sword battles, decorated masks, read stories about the feudal systems, floated toy boats.
My kids would really like doing this type of stuff.

We coordinate our weekly trips and nature walks to the chapter we're studying, and my son does their writing exercises as well as creating a "journal" where he pretends to be a character from the story (Henry the Navigator, a Roman soldier, a Ghanan slave) and writes about "his" day.
The only problem for us is there's not a lot of things to go to here...a couple of tiny museums and that's about it.

We're working our way thru history, will finish the second book this year. I figure we'll go through each book twice by high school - very doable, since you have your pick of activities and don't need to repeat.
We did Weaver our first year homeschooling, but I got frustrated because our library didn't have very many of the books and I had to scramble to find anything even remotely useable.

We do our daily math and science from textbooks. DS goes to a coop on Fridays, gets (more) science and PE and socialization there. I work at the coop, which pays for it.

We spend between 2 and 5 hours a day schooling, and it's fun.

I wish you very very good luck with this!!

Thanks a lot!

[Elizabeth CM]

OH! We tried Weaver, too - same frustration! Although we're outside Chicago, our library is really small and I got so few of the books, and never could really control WHEN the requests would get filled from the community library system.

So the S.O.T.W. workbooks (and I just discovered some folks re-sell them gently used!) are SUCH a nice change. Because you don't actually have to get ANY books - everything you need is in the text + workbook.

In fact, because it's a short week due to the holiday so we're just doing what's in the workbook Life is so much easier when you find the right tools - I hope you find what works for you. Fingers crossed that this is a MUCH better experience for you all

[zakity]

What are Mad Science classes and where do you take them? Is that through the Internet? My youngest is interested in medieval times, but we don't have any faires around here. I did take oldest ds to one on the banks of the Thames in London once. That was a lot of fun...actually I just looked at our pics again just this last week...good times! Is American School through the Internet?

Mad Science link:
Mad Science Group - Sparking Imaginative Learning

American School is an correspondence high school. Here is the link:
Earn High School Diploma at Home with American School

And while I mean no disrespect for anyone's choices, too often I see 'unschooling' used as an excuse for laziness on the teacher's part.

Some of the parents say they are "unschooling" and don't do anything to help the kids learn. I have seen some of these. Most of the people that I know that use unschooling do so because the kids have some learning issues and that is the most effective way for them to learn.

I know I don't consider how I unschooled the "lazy way". It was way more work trying to find ways for them to learn things without books. We have learning issues in the mix. I worked very hard to make sure they were learning what they needed to know to function in the "real world" and did it without books until the last few years. One of the twins, well, we weren't for sure he would ever be able to learn how to read. He had some pretty severe learning issues. He finally learned to recognize all the letters at 9 and started reading at 10.

[MaryCarney]

Mad Science link:
Mad Science Group - Sparking Imaginative Learning

American School is an correspondence high school. Here is the link:
Earn High School Diploma at Home with American School



Some of the parents say they are "unschooling" and don't do anything to help the kids learn. I have seen some of these. Most of the people that I know that use unschooling do so because the kids have some learning issues and that is the most effective way for them to learn.

I know I don't consider how I unschooled the "lazy way". It was way more work trying to find ways for them to learn things without books. We have learning issues in the mix. I worked very hard to make sure they were learning what they needed to know to function in the "real world" and did it without books until the last few years. One of the twins, well, we weren't for sure he would ever be able to learn how to read. He had some pretty severe learning issues. He finally learned to recognize all the letters at 9 and started reading at 10.

If you recall, I said 'in my experience'. I'm sure there are successful unschoolers out there. But too often, I see kids - esp older ones- who the local schools want to expell for various (justified) reasons, but the district does not want it showing up on their statistics to the state. The parents (who exert no control over the child anyway, or they would not be expelled) are told to instead 'homeschool' them, and it shows up on the stats as a transfer to another school.
I get calls from these type of families ALL THE TIME, and it is maddening. It also makes those of us who bust it each and every day to provide a quality education for our kids, look bad - people want to point these cases out as 'typical' homeschoolers.