Everyday is a learning adventure

So our goals are set....how do we apply them?

I met other home schooling families and was able to ask questions.

• When do you start learning for the day? 

The answers I recieved ranged from we have to be dressed and ready to go at 8 to we start at 1:00 in the afternoon, to we only do 3 days a week.  This was not very helpful as I was looking for something kind of standard. True and tested. 

We have decided to start our day like any other day.  Get up, get dressed, clean our rooms, and eat breakfast.  We are flexible to change our plans, but we are always engaging.  That means we talk in normal voices and normal words.   

• Where do you do your learning?

The answers for this ranged from we have a learning room just for school to on the couch.  I even had one person tell me what ever area is clean at the time.

That did not really help, but we read in the front room snuggled on the couch or rocker, we paint and do art in my workroom, any worksheet/writing we do at the table. Any time we can do something in a new environment we do.

•  What Curriculum do you use?

This is a loaded question!!!!  Everyone has an opinion.  It can be religious or politically correct.  I want to teach my son to think for himself and have an understanding on how things work and how to make them work.  I received more I cant stand this or that curriculum.

So I am not using any one curriculum.  I purchase a lot of used curriculum and make a weekly plan.  At first this was a lot of work.  Now it is much easier.  How I decided what to do is much simpler than you could imagine.  I opened 2 different books.  One on animals, insects, and reptiles, birds and the other one on different water areas and the fish that are there.  I gave my son six post it notes and had him look through the books and decide what he liked.  Took about an hour.  He picked the beach, snakes, spiders, boats, horses, and then picked a bulldozer that happened to be in a picture.  There we had 12 weeks of learning - 2 weeks per item.  We learned about sand, looked at it under the microscope (which I happen to have), we played in the sand box, went to the lake, the beach, found sea shells, and made art projects with items from the beach.  I used any book I had to teach about these items.  Was very easy since he picked the topic he was very motivated.  We did this for the rest of the topics too.  The next time around I picked a Children's dictionary and let him flip through it.

• How often do you get your kids together with other families?

Thinking that this was one of the most important issues I really listened to everyone's answer.  I was told when people invite us over, we get together at Co-op (this was the first time I was informed that these exist), when we run into others on outings, or when the Facebook group posts an activity.

 

This was not exactly what I was looking for, but it was a start.  I learned about co-op, Facebook groups, but I want him to be social and compassionate to others. We do the above, but we also have an open door policy.  If you come over and we are doing something - you are welcome to jump in.  Also because I stay home to home school him I am constantly taking in others kids for a few hours here and there.  In doing this we have no problem sharing 99% of the toys (We do have few special ones- which we don't make him share. He just cant play with them when company is here),  he enjoys being around other kids and is ready to play all the time.  We have some kind of contact with other kiddos around his age almost everyday.  Positive play with positive reinforcements.

We are still on our journey of figuring this out.  

Everyday is about learning.

Making Goals

Once the decision was made........what is next?

The first thing we did was set some goals.

We are fortunate enough to have friends who home school so we were able to seek out advice.  Asked them what their "normal" day would look like. Everyone had a different answer.  Which at the time I did not think was helpful.  Turns out "normal" is relative to your goals.  So we needed some goals.

Our current goals are:

1.  One on site learning experience a week.  (field trip) Where we can focus on one area at a time.

2.  Vocabulary.  We have been exposing our son to different words and using life to explain it. (example:  extraordinary vs. ordinary - we would make a plate of waffles and syrup and one of waffle strawberry sauce and whipping cream)

3. Since this is just preschool right now we are reading to him.  5 preschool books a day and a chapter book.  One chapter a day.  We review what is happening in the story to help with comprehension.

4. Interactive playtime.  Where one of us plays with him in pretend stories. 

Making the Choice to Homeschool

We have made the decision to home school.  We have already started (preschool).

This decision was not an easy decision for us.  Both of us are products of both private and public schools.  We both received a better education from the public school arena than the private.

We have friends who are involved in both.  Both sides have very strong opinions!


Weighing the decision:

     Are we capable of teaching?

     Can we afford it?

     Will our son be able to participate in sports?

     How will he make friends?

    Where do we start?

    The list is long.


Once we made the decision life became easier.  we spent 2 months practicing teaching and play learning.  Our son is 3.


Why we chose to home school:

We want our child to be a child as long as possible, to carry the innocence of a toddler for as long as possible, to follow his curiosity with different learning types, and to encourage his imagination.

One day Tim came home from Awana club night using words that he should not have been using.  He is in the preschool cubbies class.  The kids he was in class with do not have as big of a vocabulary as our son does, but they use foul language easily.  Not really what we want him exposed to.

This is hard to express, but there is a huge difference between his home school friends and not home school friends.

Being around public school kids and troubled teens for over a decade exposed us to the ins and outs of the school districts.  It was amazing what we learned as care givers that teachers never knew.

We also wanted a say as to the content  of what is taught.


We both have family members that are teachers along with friends.  Good teachers are so necessary and there are many in our family. This decision had nothing to do with them, but everything to do with what they wish they could do in their classroom.  The creative side, the play learning, not worrying about standardize tests.

Our decision has nothing to do with politics, religion, or avoiding certain theories taught in school.



This is the beginning......