School for us does not officially start till August 31st, but honestly I think about it everyday. My most current thoughts are on shipping back the materials from last year and watching and eagerly waiting for the new materials for this next year. Of course when this happens I also start to ponder my organization. Where am I going to put all the items when they come? I am excited to start setting up our school room. Last year we never had a school room and this year we have decided to make one on our main floor which means we will have to move our son downstairs. He is very excited about that.
Another thought I have in July comes from a question that was poised to me by a friend. She asked, "Do you continue to do things through out the summer?" To this I would have to say yes with a little hesitation. You see I do worry about knowledge loss from not having anything all summer. (I did see a study that was done on the amount of knowledge lost. It does happen.) At the same time I want my kids to be able to enjoy their summer without a lot of stress or strain. Therefore the way I decided to go about this was to make learning very enjoyable. For example, we went to our local zoo today and we had to find an animal of every color while we were there, and there was a giant map of the continents and so we did a quick review of what continents are where. At home I made a scavenger hunt for numbers. They had to find items such as the spoons and count and write down how many. I also purchased those worksheet books of superheros and princesses and they like to read to me everyday. It is their alone time with me. I try not to make things of this nature too much of a chore. I like to have fun with it.
One last thought in July is that I am excited to start again. I am excited to see what the curriculum has in store for us next year.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
The beginning
We often receive questions about our choice to home school and the most common two questions are why and how. To answer how we do it I'd have to say on our knees but besides that I would like to share our how's as we go through them. One big reason I started this blog was to share our 'hows' and also for myself to have a journal/scrapbook of our journey. This way I might be able to get better at what I love to do, that is teach my children. I plan to record things that work for us as well as some things that don't.
As for the why, I would like to try and answer that now. We heard of this online school system before our oldest started kindergarten and we signed up as we were very excited about it. I don't know of anyone who is that excited about sending their child to kindergarten for the first time and I believe I signed up mostly out of fear of sending my oldest to kindergarten. Well,when it came time for school to start I chickened out pulled my daughter out of the online academy and put her in a B&M (brick and mortar) school. Mostly I was worried if I could really handle teaching my child while I had 3 other children at home ages 4,2, and 1. Lulu finished the whole year with its ups and downs. When it came time for her to start first grade and Bubby to start kindergarten I was thinking more and more about this opportunity to teach my children at home. I had a close neighbor who was doing it quite successfully and I liked all that I heard about it. After pondering and praying about it we decided it was something we wanted to try and if it didn't work out we could just slip our kids into a B&M school. What could a couple of weeks or maybe a month hurt?
So we began. I won't kid you there were several times that I wanted to quite. But then I would have an experience that would have me keep going. For example, at one point I was so fed up that I took the kids over to the B&M school to sign up. I thought we will just go and see how we feel while we are getting the papers to sign up. Well, none the less we had a bad experience and when I got home I was in tears. I felt there was no rush so in my mind I thought, "I will just keep them at home for now and check again later." As soon as I thought this I felt total peace. I really believe in a mother's intuition.
So, my number one reason is that I know deep in my heart that for us this is what we are supposed to be doing.
I am not saying that this right for everyone or every child.
Some other smaller reasons I do what I do is, I love being involved so much in what my kids are learning. I love to know their strengths and weaknesses. How I can help them and the things that they love to learn about. Another reason is because I like how my kids are building close relationships because they are eachothers playmates and tutors and mentors. One last reason is that I feel I can bond stronger and stronger with them when I am their learning coach. A friend of mine had a good point. She said that she felt being her childs learning coach/teacher would help them to feel that mom knows things and the result would be that they turned to her for advice and also take her serious when she told them things. I had never thought of this before and it made total sense to me.
Those are some of my main reasons why I teach my children through and online academy. I know I could say more but for now that will do. I have to say my husband has his own seperate reasons but since I am writing this blog I will tell mine.
As for the why, I would like to try and answer that now. We heard of this online school system before our oldest started kindergarten and we signed up as we were very excited about it. I don't know of anyone who is that excited about sending their child to kindergarten for the first time and I believe I signed up mostly out of fear of sending my oldest to kindergarten. Well,when it came time for school to start I chickened out pulled my daughter out of the online academy and put her in a B&M (brick and mortar) school. Mostly I was worried if I could really handle teaching my child while I had 3 other children at home ages 4,2, and 1. Lulu finished the whole year with its ups and downs. When it came time for her to start first grade and Bubby to start kindergarten I was thinking more and more about this opportunity to teach my children at home. I had a close neighbor who was doing it quite successfully and I liked all that I heard about it. After pondering and praying about it we decided it was something we wanted to try and if it didn't work out we could just slip our kids into a B&M school. What could a couple of weeks or maybe a month hurt?
So we began. I won't kid you there were several times that I wanted to quite. But then I would have an experience that would have me keep going. For example, at one point I was so fed up that I took the kids over to the B&M school to sign up. I thought we will just go and see how we feel while we are getting the papers to sign up. Well, none the less we had a bad experience and when I got home I was in tears. I felt there was no rush so in my mind I thought, "I will just keep them at home for now and check again later." As soon as I thought this I felt total peace. I really believe in a mother's intuition.
So, my number one reason is that I know deep in my heart that for us this is what we are supposed to be doing.
I am not saying that this right for everyone or every child.
Some other smaller reasons I do what I do is, I love being involved so much in what my kids are learning. I love to know their strengths and weaknesses. How I can help them and the things that they love to learn about. Another reason is because I like how my kids are building close relationships because they are eachothers playmates and tutors and mentors. One last reason is that I feel I can bond stronger and stronger with them when I am their learning coach. A friend of mine had a good point. She said that she felt being her childs learning coach/teacher would help them to feel that mom knows things and the result would be that they turned to her for advice and also take her serious when she told them things. I had never thought of this before and it made total sense to me.
Those are some of my main reasons why I teach my children through and online academy. I know I could say more but for now that will do. I have to say my husband has his own seperate reasons but since I am writing this blog I will tell mine.
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