Homeschooler Family

Homeschooler Curriculum

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 17:11:00 +0000

We have recently begun using some curriculum from Abeka Book and AOP (links in our references section) with our 5 year-old, 14 year-old, and 16 year-old.

With the 5 year-old we are using some Kindergarten and Kindergarten prep materials from Abeka. So far, the materials are a big help. I spend time each morning before leaving for work with our 5 year-old and work through 3-5 pages of activities. The activities include lots of coloring and maze work and line tracing. We are waiting on some curriculum from Abeka related to manuscript writing and will let you know how that works.

For our 14 year-old we ordered some Pre-Algebra curriculum to work on over the summer to further prepare her for Algebra in the Fall. Our daughter is not a big math fan so we'll let you know how the materials work for her.

For our 14 year-old and 16 year-old we are looking toward college. We recently bought a college planner software package from AOP and will let you know how that works (pros, cons, etc.). Feel free to respond with questions or responses and we'll address those in the interim.

The Importance of Guessing

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 18:25:00 +0000

I read a quote on Bartleby.com (great site for quotes) that got me thinking and thought I would pass it on. I have included the link to the quote page below, but will copy here for reference as well:

"The shrewd guess, the fertile hypothesis, the courageous leap to a tentative conclusion—these are the most valuable coins of the thinker at work. But in most schools guessing is heavily penalized and is associated somehow with laziness."

The quote is attributed to Jerome Bruner and appears in the The Process of Education published by Harvard in 1960.

Guessing and education quote from Bartleby.com

Guesses are powerful tools. Thoughtful guessing is a creative process. This is something I think had forgotten. In college, I studied a great deal of Biology, Chemistry, and Physics and formed hypotheses regarding all sorts of things, but have probably underutilized guessing over the past 13+ years.

After reading the quote, I plan to emphasize guessing, hypothesizing, estimating, etc. a great deal more as we homeschool our children. I'm not going to advocate guessing in place of preparation, but I will encourage it in the spirit of discovery and creative thinking.

Homeschooling Flexibility: Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 17:42:00 +0000

In the article referenced below, Will Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith explain why they have chosen to homeschool two of their three children and Will's nephew who is under their care (NOTE: their only child not being homeschooled is Will's son from his first marriage).

In addition to flexibility, Jada explains that her and Will "don't want [their] kids to memorize. [They] want them to learn."

In addition to mentioning this in the blog because I wanted to elaborate on yesterday's "Famous Homeschoolers" post, I also wanted to include this one because it mentions a reason for homeschooling I had not brought up before: flexibility.

Although my wife and I do not travel the world the way Will and Jada do, flexibility is important to us as well. For us flexibility means we can take family vacations when we want and are not tied to the public school system breaks. This means we can get better prices on travel and avoid over-crowding when we vacation.

Flexibility is also important for us because it allows us to better accommodate music lessons and the like. Teachers who are not available during the typical after-school windows because of commitments to existing students are often available during the day.

Flexibility benefits us as a family and our children because we can make time for the extra learning and extracurricular activities that we were never quite able to when they attended public school.

Famous Homeschoolers

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 18:14:00 +0000

So, what do the following people have in common?

Leonardo da Vinci
Irving Berlin
Frederick Terman (President of Stanford University)
John Witherspoon (President of Princeton University)
Claude Monet
George Patton
Douglas MacArthur
Alexander Graham Bell
Thomas Edison
the Wright Brothers, Orville and Wilbur Wright
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
George Washington
Woodrow Wilson
Theodore Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Brigham Young
Joan of Arc
Pierre Curie
Albert Einstein
George Washington Carver
Booker T. Washington
Winston Churchil
Benjamin Franklin
Hans Christian Andersen
C.S. Lewis
Mark Twain
Charles Dickens
Agatha Christie
Will Rogers
Florence Nightingale
Charlie Chaplin
Ansel Adams

Answer: They were all homeschooled.

Thanks to the website referenced below for compiling the list. And, I have only selectively picked from the list, so check out the website. Inspiring, don't you think? Looks like we are in good company.

List of Famous Homeschoolers from www.christianhomeschoolers.com

Volunteerism

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 22:12:00 +0000

One of the most incredible differences I have seen with our 8th grade daughter since we began homeschooling is the frequency with which she now volunteers around the house. The change may not be 100% attributable to homeschooling (she has also been attending weekly Bible study for about two months now), but I am convinced homeschooling has played a major role in her transformation.

Over the past weeks, our daughter has consistently volunteered to perform chores (washing dishes, laundry, cleaning up). She has also volunteered and prepared dinners and now routinely comes up to me asking if she can do something for me.

Along with the volunteerism naturally follows hope and, as I have written before, restoring or instilling hope has and will continue to be a key goal for us as we homeschool our daughter. So far, so good.

As things are coming together nicely around the house, soon we will have to venture out and enable our daughter to volunteer in support of causes and efforts outside the house. She has already come to us with a couple ideas, including Habitat for Humanity.

Homeschooling on the rise in the US

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 23:42:00 +0000

I had some free time today and thought I'd try and find some information related to how many homeschoolers there are now versus 10 years ago, 20 years ago, etc.

A private researcher estimated the size of the homeschooled student population at ~350,000 in the early 1990's.

According to a recent United States Department of Education report, "Homeschooling in the United States: 2003", the number of homeschooled students rose from 850,000 in 1999 to 1.1 million in 2003. That's a 29.4% increase in only four years! In 2003, the 1.1 million homeschooled students represented 2.2% of the total US student population. According to the report, homeschooling rates continue to be higher in families with three or more children versus families with a single child (3.1% of the total student population versus 1.4%); in families with two parents (2.5% versus 1.5% for single parents); and in families where only one parent worked (5.6% versus ~2.9% where both parents worked). Also mentioned--Muslim Americans were the fastest growing subgroup in the homeschool movement.

One thing's for sure: the number of US homeschoolers is rising significantly faster (by percentage) than the overall population.

Why homeschool?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 15:59:00 +0000

Since my wife and I are still new to homeschooling, I thought it would be good to start with an accounting of some of the reasons we made the decision to homeschool.

We have an 8th grade daughter and two sons, aged four and one, so our decision to homeschool most immediately impacts our 8th grade daughter. We live in a great community (Thousand Oaks, CA) and the schools are highly regarded, but over the past couple years we had grown increasingly concerned and uneasy about the friends our daughter was keeping at school. Our daughter, who has always had an outgoing personality, had also grown to be more disrespectful and selfish over the past couple years. Academically, we also felt she was not reaching her potential and it seemed as if she dreaded nearly everything. She did not seem to be developing a love for learning, which my wife and I both believe is tremendously important.

On a neighborhood walk, my wife got to talking with a neighbor who had homeschooled her children. At first, we were skeptical and gravitated toward the usual cons asserted about homeschooling. We were skeptical about how homeschooling would impact our kids socially. We also wondered if we could do it. My wife and I already felt stretched pretty thin. I work hard and am in the process of completing an MBA. My wife has a four year old and one year old at home who take considerable attention.

Our neighbor invited us to an "Author's Fair" event in a neighboring city (Simi Valley). Author's Fair is an annual event where homeschooled children who are part of a local ISP stand up in front of an audience and share information about a book they have written. The books are also put on display. We were tremendously impressed with the event and felt as if for the first time in a long time we had been surrounded by people "like us." Oh, and our kids loved the whole experience.

I should say before I go further that our 8th grade daughter had been advocating the homeschooling idea for some time. So, this was going to be a welcomed life change on her part.

In the days following the Author's Night, my wife and I spent considerable time talking about our "socialization" concerns. Ultimately, we came to realize that our kids were already well socialized. We are active people and have strong family relationships with grandparents, aunt, uncles, and cousins. We also realized that much of what we saw our 8th grader exposed to was not the kind of socialization we wanted making its way into our home.

We started to think of the possibilities homeschooling would afford us. Having more time in our daily schedule would allow us to work with the kids or pay for lessons in areas we had never found the time to explore. Areas like drawing, painting, and music.

We also started to gain confidence as we talked to more people who had or were homeschooling their children in our local area. My daughter and I attended a briefing offered by a local ISP and learned a great deal.

If you're considering homeschooling, this paragraph's key for you. If you already homeschool, feel free to skip. Being affiliated with an ISP is very important once your child begins high school. These sponsors shield you legally and also provide services related to transcripts, etc. Some ISPs go much farther than that and actually provide classes. These classes are great for high school-aged kids who are often working in more advanced subjects and/or subjects that require lab equipment and faciliities. Prior to high school, affiliation with an ISP is less significant, however, such an affiliation does often provide support in the sense that you have a network of families you can interact with regularly. Parents of younger students often enjoy being part of these groups because of regularly scheduled park dates and because of the advantages networking brings with respect to selecting curriculum. We also learned that grades are generally only kept during the high school years. (Sounds great, huh? No damaging a six year old's self-esteem because he's a little behind in reading for a period of time or because she's having trouble with long division for a spell). Also, we learned many homeschoolers are taking advantage of college courses during high school years to cut down on the costs of higher education. Having an ISP is required at this stage for community college attendance. The way it works is that the high school-aged homeschoolers take courses at community colleges and earn both high school and college credits simultaneously. Pretty cool.

A few parting thoughts for now. I'm sure more thoughts of benefits will show up in future posts as well.

As time has passed, I can't help but wonder about friends and relatives who I have seen struggle and ultimately collapse under the weight and strain of the public school system. How might they have faired if they could have just had a little longer to learn to read? What if they hadn't been labeled as third-tier readers in first grade? What if they had gone years before being faced with unsatisfactory grades? My short answer based solely on what I already know is they would have been better off. They would have more self-esteem today. They might have learned to love learning if their learning vehicle hadn't made them feel oh so inferior so quickly.