My oldest DD is in first grade. She attends a local charter hybrid homeschooling program where she goes to "workshop" two days per week and homeschools the other three with the prepared curriculum provided by the school. They give a lot of freedom to parents to supplement and interchange and tailor fit things to each student, but teachers meet with parents every six weeks and collect samples of the students home work from each subject. My daughter loooves going to class, but mostly just to see her friends as most of the work last year was pretty far below her level. This will be our second year here. DD is 6 and reads at an advanced level (probably end of 3rd gradeish). My schooling philosophy has been, so far, a pretty hands off approach. She taught herself to read, loves reading about animals and science and whipped through the magic tree house series and is plowing through the abc mysteries. Her math is strong and she has a decent grasp of geography. For kindergarten I pretty much sent her to class those two days and let her do her own thing when at home, just having her complete the required worksheets before conference time. We are gearing up for the upcoming year and I guess I just feel like I should start "buckling down" or something. I am concerned that having her in an outside school environment is kind of skewing her idea of what "learning" entails (she has said she thinks of "learning" as boring already!) and isn't compatible with the concept of intrinsic motivation that I want to see blossom in her through unschooling. Is this just kind of a ridiculous situation to be in? There is another option the school offers where you homeschool the whole week, choose your own curriculum and can pick and choose supplemental classes you want your child to attend at the school (more of a university model). I would love to utilize that option, but hate the idea of yanking my daughter from the friends she's made. She cries if I so much as mention it. Thoughts?
As a parent, you'll evaluate each option, and your child's needs...and make the best call you can. Might be right, might be wrong. At that age, there's room for error and room to adjust. Take your best shot, and don't beat yourself up. LOL. I'm a tremendous proponent of unschooling. But I totally understand that you value her friendships and don't want to hurt them. You've kinda painted yourself into a weird little paradox...by sending her to school with a set curriculum....if that's not your preferred learning method. In that way...yeah, it's an unusual situation to be in LOL.
Yeah, I kind of discovered it was my preferred method as we progressed last year and I saw her become bored with the repitition and set curriculum. Her favorite project that we did last year was one I came up with myself in place of their history lesson. I had her draw her own map of the world and then we read stories from each of the continents and made little "books" for each story and glued them to the map to show where they came from. She loved it. We are currently living in a school bus while we have a house built and I'm pregnant with number 4. I have no idea how this year is going to go!!
Your story map sounds like an awesome project. Holy moly...five people living on a schoolbus...is my idea of some crazy camping How do you get your internet? Are you guys helping to build your house yourselves? We did that, and saved a massive amount of money. Course, we were a LOT younger then and didn't have kidlettes yet. Makes for a few crazy months, but for us...it was absolutely worth it. We had everything paid off before hubby was 40 and before I was 30. Was a huge perk when hubby started his business. Man, I learned a lot! I can roof now, I know how to install plumbing, electric, drywall, wood floors, tile, etc. We made our fireplace out of field stone we gathered right on our place. Was absolutely fascinating....but it took a while! I'm not as brave as you...we rented our neighbor's studio apartment above their garage. Was their college age son's before he got married...four walls, a kitchen, a bathtub, and a bed all in one little room! Kinda rough...but we survived and had a LOT of fun Fit the budget! We did a fair amount of camping on our land, too
i have no idea about unschooling...it goes against my very nature...but it sounds like she has the best of both worlds...she's with you majority of the week...and the time she's away at the charter school gives her the ability to see education in a different environment. I would MUCH prefer a school approach like that especially for children 8th grade and below!
My experience is that kids below seventh grade thrive without structure. I much prefer self-led education for little people...but to each their own...different strokes for different folks. Somewhere around seventh grade you do have to start addressing coping within the mainstream if your kid wants to go to college. But before then? Meh... Self led learning has just as positive results as structured, and often better. Ultimately, you should do what you're comfortable with and what you think your kids benefit from the most. Depends on the kids, too. Some do better structured, some do better unstructured. Whatever works...
For internet we tether our phones. We're on the sprint unlimited plan, which is expensive for a phone plan, but the cost evens out if you're using it in place of wifi As for helping build, my husband is super handy and has 15 years of experience in commercial construction (installing HVAC), but his new job is stressful and demanding, so I think he's just going to do a lot of the finish work himself and hopefully save money that way. If you're interested, we're blogging about the whole adventure here: www.littlebusontheprairie.com I think you're both right that at this early age there is a lot of room for adjustment and experimenting with what works. I guess I am just in that typical homeschool mom place where I feel like she should be doing more things that "look" like learning... but I don't think I'd feel this way if she weren't in a classroom environment. Ideally, I would like to switch her to their 5 day a week homeschool track and take additional classes through the school. The school provides whatever curriculum you request and there's a ton more flexibility. I think that would work best for ME... and I think that she would probably like it too once she started. She hates discussing even the idea of it though and fostering resentment is not one of my goals this school year. I don't know whether to pull the parent card on this one :/ The other thing is that while it's super easy to switch to C track (all days at home), it's not so easy to switch back to the 2-day track if it doesn't work out because of a wait-list.
Having yourself locked into the curriculum and pace of the charter program is exactly why I have not used any of the online charger type of programs that the states often offer for free. K12 is an example. It is also why I have not used those online programs offered by AOP or BJU and others. It just defeats many of the reasons we chose to homeschool. On the other hand, I can see where a hybrid situation would be great for planning, and staying on track etc, and social interaction. I have never had quite this option to ponder in my area. Hmmmm. There is no right or wrong here, you just have to decide how much you need the support of the hybrid program or how much benefit your students are getting from being in it. Perhaps you could handle the unschooling/creative learning aspects and such by letting the kids create their own learning field trips. Google your area or use trip advisor to find ideas. I often google "what to do in ______" and find ideas. YOu could select areas around you also. There are many state parks and national parks and niche museums with learning programs. There are many traveling shows and displays. Many organic farms offer "agritourism" and offer learning experiences. You could do girl scout or 4 H type of projects at home even if you are not in such a group. Just get the kids brainstorming about what they are interested in and take it from their. Take note of the movies and books they are interested in and take educational tangents from there with other books or movies that relate.
SarahBeth.....just took a look at the before and after pics of your Superbus! That looks fantastic! What a beautiful job you guys did Hard to think of it as a "bus". LOL. Looks more like a posh decked out RV! You mentioned your hubby's an HVAC installer....we own an HVAC company Hubby went to school for airframe and powerplant aviation mechanics, but wasn't able to find work where we wanted to live, so he switched course when we married. He worked in HVAC service for a while, then studied on his own and wrote the contractor's exam for his Mechanical Contractor's license, and started our company. Has worked out REALLY well for us I struggled with that whole issue of what my kid's education "should" look like for years. Eventually, I got really comfortable with what I was doing, and trusted my ideas more. Took time, though! I have a feeling you're gonna do just fine. Love your descriptions of your little ones(at your website)....looks like you're very tuned into their interests, and what's important to them
Vantage: I think the biggest reason that we signed on with the charter to begin with was simply lack of confidence on my part and wanting to start out homeschooling "with training wheels." It never occurred to me that my daughter would love the social aspect of the school environment and hinder my ability to simply break away when I felt ready! She is definitely a social butterfly. CrazyMom: Thank you - it was a lot of work! Although, it's definitely still a 45 year old bus and NOT a posh RV, ha! And too cool about your husband also doing HVAC! My husband actually left the field about 4 years ago and is now a reliability engineer for a big biotech facility in the area. I think I will also have a few more chats with her teacher in the coming weeks as she gets to know my DD and see if she has any specific suggestions on how to best challenge and engage.
Follow up question, and one that I'm sure has been discussed before, so feel free to direct me to pertinent threads: how do you decide when to push your kid to do something they're not interested in? I tend to agree with the idea that kids will naturally learn a lot of what we try to "teach" them at early ages, including most math concepts and reading. But I also see value in learning certain skills through repitition and just plain practicing over and over again (good handwriting is something I wish I had practiced more as a kid). I guess an additional question would be, how often do you feel it's your job to make something your kid isn't interested in MORE interesting so that they'll want to do it? Does this make sense? Am I treading familiar ground for anyone?
I think I understand what you're asking...imho...when i'm faced with whether or not to push something they aren't that interested in...I look and see if they've mastered it and decided it wasn't for them...or did they decide it was harder than they thought and no longer want to try. I feel that in order to have REAL choices in life..you must learn something thoroughly before you can write it off..(I also do this with food..you must give a new food three separate chances before you can say you don't like it:shockI have found that they will often stop pursuing something (such as handwriting) when they feel it's no longer needed or getting too complicated (cursive)...but if I "allow" them to succeed...they take great pride once they master it and then they go back to whatever works best for them and I'm totally ok with that because I know that if they desired to use the skill..they have it! There are somethings I just won't push..like foreign language..because there have been speech problems that they struggle with and adding a foreign language would frustrate them...when they are adults or if they ask me then so be it...I love foreign languages..but I also don't have speech problems or an open bite... You just gotta know your kid..I suppose. If you feel like they're just coping out cuz they can..and that's not ok with you..fix it! If it is ok with you...then let it go ...don't' worry about what other people will think of it
I think for K-7...the important goals are teaching a kid to read well, be able to organize and write a decent sentence/paragraph/essay/report...and be able to do basic mathematics. Those were really the only things I ever pushed a little when they seemed to lag. And honestly....they didn't lag much. I was blessed with a very-self driven kid who really liked learning. Weirdly, I never taught Elle cursive. We did keyboarding instead. She prints beautifully and has never missed it. She does know how to write in cursive now...but more as a self-taught curiosity. She doesn't really use it much beyond her signature. She can type about 70 words a minute. LOL. Our day was pretty wide open. She knew she was expected to read every day...which she loved. She knew she was expected to write every day or nearly every day...didn't matter what it was...so she wrote a lot of journal entries, stories and poems. She knew she'd be expected to do a little math. I typically made it up off the top of my head...we did five problems together, and called it good. Also, if anything practical came up in life that demanded math, I'd ask her how she'd go about it.....we would figure out how to put math skills to practical use. That sort of thing. Unschoolers are pretty laid back....we kinda let our kids run their own educations with a little guidance. Worked out very well for us, but isn't for every parent or every kid. We did a lot of following her interests, researching, going on field trips, building models, making movies, experiments, endless trips to the library and craft store. We had fun. The only subject I can ever imagine "pushing" or becoming concerned about is reading. Once kids read well...they own the world. They can teach themselves anything else. A reading deficit...would seriously concern me. If my kid were struggling with reading, I wouldn't "push" exactly...but I would aggressively seek help to figure out what the problem was. A serious math-block might concern me too, or an inability to write something coherent and organized. But I can't imagine pushing...as much as researching what the block was about. But no...beyond the three R's...I wouldn't insist on anything. My kid always came up with plenty to learn about on her own...that excited her and held her attention. How can you beat that?
We are not unschoolers over here, totally not my style. Dd knows she just has to do the work assigned to her. She does have input on some of the topics we might study or I might show her two different curriculums I am looking at to get her opinion but aside from that she just has to do what I give her. Dd is officially in 6th grade this year. She will be continuing in Mystery of History, Saxon Algebra, Apologia Elementary Human Anatomy class (this was not her choice but what I wanted her to do), art, grammar, IEW, logic,vocabular, map work, spelling, French, Computer Programming (her choice) and reading at least 20 assigned books through out the year (she also has to be reading an additional 1/2 hr of free time reading each day). Many of the subjects are required by the state so that guides some of our choices for at least the subjects we cover. Dd has occasionally grumped about doing her work but I pretty much ignore that. If she had her choice there really would not be any school work. She is a very good student so I try to make sure she is working at the proper level. There are times when we need to slow down, or weeks we do not get everything in but that is ok. This year is going to be strange for us since we normally do 2 science curriculums and this year we are only using one but we added in the French and the Computers which I alternate the days for her. I try to vary how we learn things, add in activities, movies and what not but something just are not the most interesting thing on the planet for her. You know it is ok to say you just have to learn it because it is something you should really know. Dd is great at math but if she could drop it she would in an instant, it just takes up too much time. The key is I know the value and my job is to just make sure she learns it. The subject may never be a favorite but she will have the skills from it for a life time.
This may not be a popular view as it pertains to homeschooling, but I think that kids need to learn at an early age that life has activities that they choose, and others that they are expected to do regardless of their interest in it. When we're thrust into adulthood, many activities don't fill us with delight, yet we need to complete them. My philosophy on homeschooling is to make activities engaging when possible, but not feel like I need to make myself the court jester in order to get DD to do the work. To be honest, I find math dry as dust. The curriculum we use (fortunately) makes it a bit more enticing to complete, but it's not DD's favorite. She'd rather do science and art. If she had her way, we'd never do school at all. I had a chat with her the other day on this topic and pointed out that if she ran her day independently, she'd dine exclusively on mac and cheese, watch TV all day, and stay up until midnight. She got a kick out of that fantasy. I guess I'm not always "fun mom" with school. I try to throw in fun activities, but I also feel like "hey, this is real life, and real life involves work". Perhaps I would have made a good Amish woman.
I can definitely appreciate the concept of "sometimes life isn't interesting or fun, and you just have to do it anyway," but I also think that that mentality results often in things being rushed through just to get them over with without any retention or appreciation. I know that was the case for me in school a lot of the time, and sometimes even wound up with me having a distaste for the subject in school and not discovering how interesting it actually is until adulthood (thinking about history in that case). I don't really feel like I have to be a court jester for my kids, but I do want to make the effort to approach things in a way that will help them understand the inherent value in a subject aside from just the work itself.
Agreed. I particularly agree about history -- it was strict memorization of names and dates in high school and I retained virtually nothing and developed a bad taste for it. I guess since the curriculum we use (we use a box curriculum for our core courses) is already reasonably engaging in the presentation of the material, this is what I meant about not always massaging it further in our case.
Definitely a good point about having to work inside the system at some point... Elle got a serious wake up call when she joined eighth grade in public school after years of being self-guided...and essentially doing whatever she wanted. The structure and requirements of public school (jail school, as we called it..lol) seemed baffling and unnecessary to her. She thought a lot of stuff was stupid, pointless, and wondered why she had to do it when she had no interest or retention.....and when it really wouldn't apply to what she wanted to accomplish with her life. I just said....Hey, you've said you want to go to college. To get there, your GPA counts and doing the requirements to graduate counts. The board of education in Michigan says so.....so there ya go. Scholarships and grants will care about these things, too. It's a means to the end you want. Don't think of it as stuff you have to like...think of it as stuff that benefits you toward the end you want. So she dug in...and got things done. Even stuff she hated. But her thought was.....this helps me to get to.....what I care about and want. That made all the difference. Makes it a lot easier to swallow....when you know you're working toward a goal you care about. You might not like history or civics or a pointlessly inept computer class...but you do like getting the good grade, finishing the check list...and being able to move on to what you DO care about. It's a good lesson in coping within the system.
