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Emergency Homeschooling: What Supplies Do We Need, and Where Do We Get Them?

August 6, 2020 by Leave a Comment

You may already have many basic supplies leftover from last year—notebooks, pencils, crayons, colored pencils, and so on. If your current stash is limited, you can certainly purchase more, but what you will need at home is not nearly as extensive as the list schools send out each year. Include a backpack (again, the one from last year may be adequate) if your student will be carrying his supplies to a sitter or Grandma’s while you go to work.

Our favorite curriculum items are ones we have recommended time and time again—without any compensation from the publishers, so you can trust that we really liked these. We did use many other products, but these have remained outstanding favorites.

 

Alpha-Phonics teaches reading just as well as the super-pricey programs, but for 1/10th of the cost. The book is not loaded with childish drawings, as some others are. If you find you need flashcards or other manipulatives, you can easily make some yourself with index cards. Let your student help! We supplemented this with beginning reading books that used words similar to those in the lessons, and had no need of other materials offered.

At Last! A Reading Method for Every Child! It’s a hard-to-find book, but it does contain a 2-week crash course in remedial phonics, which was ideal for my formerly public-schooled child with reading deficiencies. (This book has been updated since I first bought it; the chapter for the crash course is now called “Uniform Approach.”)

Getty-Dubay Italic Handwriting Series was my favorite for very simple but elegant handwriting that, incidentally, converts to cursive with few changes and little difficulty for students. I used these workbooks with my children and did the program myself to improve my own poor handwriting, so I can recommend it highly. Book E covers both a printed manuscript and cursive handwriting—the suggested place to begin if you already know basic handwriting. I used a plain spiral notebook for copying my exercises, leaving the workbook for my student and giving myself plenty of room to practice.

Miquon Math is an excellent program, designed to be used in grades 1-3, but is so thorough that students can step directly from it into Saxon 6/5 (6th grade) without difficulty. The set of 6 workbooks, normally done 2 per year, step quickly into complex math, but in a way that even 6-year-olds can understand. Miquon teaches adding and subtracting, then moves into multiplication as a logical extension of addition. Before the series is finished, the student is graphing rectangular coordinates with complete confidence! Grade 1 uses the Orange Book and Red Book; grade 2 uses the Blue Book and Green Book; grade 3 uses the Yellow Book and Purple Book. The Lab Sheet Annotations book is the teacher’s guide and answer key, and is a must for teaching this material, along with a basic set of Cuisenaire Rods (wooden or plastic sticks in 1-10 unit sizes; the wooden ones sound better when falling off the table). The student workbooks are printed on newsprint in colored ink, but are relatively free of kiddie pictures, other than cartoon-style illustrations necessary to the lessons. Miquon is my favorite program of everything we used!

Key to Fractions (also Decimals, Percents, and Measurements) series of 3-4 workbooks are excellent for any students who may be struggling with the concepts of fractions, decimals, percents, or measurements (we used each of those sets with wonderful results). Their Key to Algebra and Key to Geometry full-year series also break down scary math concepts into do-able steps and make the subjects simple to understand. All workbooks are thin, comic-book-style, and completely non-threatening and un-intimidating for math-phobic students. Answer keys are available and great time-savers. Key to… workbooks are definitely my second-most favorite program.

Easy Grammar is no-nonsense, straight-forward, and easy. We used this program in its early stages, when there was only one level, simply called Easy Grammar. Its treatment of grammatical rules is simplified by learning prepositions first, then eliminating all prepositional phrases from a sentence, to easily identify the other parts of speech. Easy Grammar was a godsend to my public-school-refugee student, whose previous classroom experiences were built on presenting incorrect examples every day, without teaching correct examples first. Easy Grammar taught the correct rules very plainly and simply. We loved it!

Saxon Math uses continuous review to keep concepts fresh in students’ minds, rather than working on a single concept per chapter, as is done by most math textbooks. The “homeschool kit” includes a test booklet, with instructions to give a test after every 5th lesson, but even those testing questions are reviewing material covered 5-10 lessons ago. (Test #1 covers Lessons 1-5, but is given after Lesson 10, and so on.) As I recall, the tests were 20 questions each, a few less than daily problem sets. We used the tests as our method of review at the beginning of the year. The student did test after test, as many as they desired each day, as long as they could get each problem correct. A perfect score allowed them to proceed to the next test. If any mistakes were made, they were analyzed for cause: hasty errors or misunderstanding. If the student could rework a hasty error and get the correct answer, he moved on as with a perfect score. If the cause of mistakes was misunderstanding, that indicated a lesson that needed more work, and we tracked back to the group of 5 lessons covered by that test, as the place for that student to begin math lessons for that school year. My students came up with this plan as a challenging way for them to refresh their “math brains” and to skip over the tedious review lessons at the beginning of the books. Since we often had kept working at math over part of the summer (to finish up the past year’s book), their ability to do math rarely waned, and intense review wasn’t needed. My students also presented a logical argument against taking regular math tests, since Saxon already “tests” on a daily basis through their continual reviewing of previous concepts. Not testing became a great time-saver, which allowed us to keep moving forward with daily lessons. An answer key is included with the homeschool kit, but it lists only the final answer to problems. The Solutions Manual is valuable for showing the step-by-step solutions to more advanced problems. We bought the Solutions Manual for Algebra 2 and Advanced Math—there wasn’t one available yet for Algebra 1, when we used that book. Other Saxon Math textbooks we used were Saxon 6/5, Saxon 7/6, and Algebra ½. (For levels 5/4, 6/5, 7/6, and 8/7, the 1st number is the typical grade level; the second number is for exceptional students in that grade—so 5/4 is for most 5th graders, or exceptional 4th graders.)

Biographies, including historical figures, scientists, inventors, and artists, gave my students a look at the more personal side of history, science, and other subjects. We could find interesting biographies at the public library (in both the children’s and adults’ sections); biographical movies were another good source for seeing the human side of topics that can sometimes be harder to delve into. Exploring one person’s life story gave my students a desire to know more about others, drawing them into the topics more deeply than ordinary textbooks would have done. (My test for finding an interesting book is to read the first paragraph. If I have to restart several times and force myself to get through it, I put that book down and try another one. If I find myself in the middle of the second paragraph or suddenly turning the page, engrossed in the story, I know that I will enjoy reading the whole book.)

“Uncle Eric” Books by Richard Maybury are an often-overlooked series of 11 books that deal with everything from history to economics to government to politics. These books offer a unique perspective that Americans usually don’t see and deal with root causes of worldwide conflicts, rather than just the surface view. The tricky concepts of economics and world governments are clearly explained for middle school to high school level. We used the following titles, but there are several more that have been added to the series:

  • Whatever Happened to Penny Candy?
  • Whatever Happened to Justice?
  • Are You Liberal, Conservative, or Confused?
  • Evaluating Books: What Would Thomas Jefferson Think About This
  • Ancient Rome: How It Affects You Today
  • The Clipper Ship Strategy
  • The Thousand Year War in the Mideast

The Elements of Clear Thinking by William F. McCart is a high school level program for teaching Accurate Communication, Critical Reading, and Sound Reasoning. Simply put, how to say what you mean and how to analyze what an author meant and whether or not he succeeded. This set is 3 thin workbooks, but don’t be fooled into thinking students will zip through them. The 3rd book contains some especially weighty passages to read and analyze. (I had to buy the answer keys.) When my second student struggled with some of the more difficult reading selections, we opted for finding our own reading materials at the library, and I wrote questions for those, similar to what was used in the workbook. However, the section on “Fallacies of Reasoning” is excellent and redeemed any issues we had with other parts. This series was excellent preparation for my students’ future college classes, for in-class discussions, reading assignments, and writing papers.

 

Materials in your students’ grade levels may be ordered online from: Amazon, Rainbow Resource Center, Christian Book Distributors, and many other reputable suppliers.

Public libraries are an excellent source for reading material for all topics, but some may have limited access during your year of Emergency Homeschooling.

Wonderful supplemental activities can be found at Timberdoodle and Miller Pads and Paper, as well as the hands-on learning supplies available at Target’s Dollar Spot, Dollar Tree’s educational supplies, and other dollar-stores, bookstores, and office supply stores.

Supplemental learning aids can be as common as the play money from a Monopoly game, the letter tiles from a Scrabble game, and a deck of playing cards (using Ace-10 becomes a math deck for all sorts of practice). For more advanced learning tools, hit up the grocery aisles for sugar cubes and alphabet macaroni (use it dry and uncooked), but keep these on a cookie sheet to minimize any mess.

Start with the “3 R’s” of reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic for teaching your students the most basic skills. For history and science materials, look at whatever seems to fit your student’s interests and grade level. Some students may enjoy the all-in-one-workbooks, like What Your Second Grader Needs to Know, and other students will prefer separate workbooks for each subject. Be aware that online learning programs and some pre-packaged learning programs will require the student to answer every question on every page of every book. If your student would be overly burdened by that, choose a less aggressive approach.

You know your children best, so trust your instincts or discuss with them what is available and give them an opportunity to provide some input on what seems more appealing to them. For this emergency year, anything-at-all will be far better than nothing-whatsoever, so don’t judge your efforts too harshly.

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Filed Under: Curriculum Choices, Deciding to Homeschool, Emergency Homeschooling, Encouragement for Parents, Homeschool How-To's, Leaving Public School

Emergency Homeschooling: FAQ’s

August 5, 2020 by Leave a Comment

How can we homeschool when both parents work? Homeschooling is flexible—even emergency homeschooling. Some options are to do the homeschooling in the evenings, or go over work the student has done during the day and set up tomorrow’s assignments. Schoolwork can be supervised by Grandma or a nanny, who can answer questions to keep the student on track, while he works independently. (“Do these instructions mean I should draw the picture first, and then solve the problem?” Yes!) Some students may work better in the evenings, or whenever a parent is available. Depending on the parents’ work schedules, the schooling could even switch to a 4-day week or go through the weekend with the “weekend” break falling somewhere during the week.

A recent innovation being used by some emergency homeschoolers is “pod-schooling,” a sort of mini-co-op arrangement, where a few families swap child-care and schooling supervision duties. Each family, in turn, hosts all of the children at their home for two days, while the parents from the other families work. They all share child-care, and all of the students are supervised. Win-win.

What if other families are doing something different from what we’re doing? Focus on your own family—your spouse and children—not on your friends, your neighbors, your siblings, or your parents. Do what is best for your family. This year, everyone will be doing something different from everyone else! Different is okay.

How do I plan lessons? Many textbooks are already set up for a sufficient number of lessons, but you can also divide those differently to suit the needs of your students. Do half-lessons on some days, do two lessons on some days, or do whatever combination works best with your family’s schedule.

My preferred method was to divide the number of pages in a textbook by the number of school days we scheduled, then round up to the next whole number for the approximate number of pages to do each day. Example: suppose a textbook has 484 pages, divided by 180 days, equals 2.69—and round up to 3 pages per day. That will balance out with some sections obviously stopping in the middle of a page, some pages may be full-page illustrations, and the table of contents and index take up a few pages. This is a basic plan that will keep you from stressing out over trying to write detailed lesson plans in advance and then striving to make them happen. This is simply a target, and a student who does a little less or a little more once in a while won’t hurt anything.

How do we fill 8 hours per day with schoolwork? You don’t. Your students won’t be wasting time standing in line or waiting for “that one kid” to stop talking and pay attention so class can proceed. Homeschooled students can typically finish all their work for one school day in less than half the time required to do the same amount of work in a classroom. (Sometimes in much less than half the time.) After schoolwork is done, your student can expand the day with electives: art, music, home ec, games, and any personal interests. These extra-curricular, bonus activities also work well as therapy, to help students relax and feel normal again, during this very not-normal season of life. Activities will vary for each student, but they still count as learning.

Do I have to lecture? No. There is no need for lectures or extensive explanations. Most textbooks do an adequate job with the instructions for each lesson. If the student is capable of reading and comprehending instructions himself, you will rarely need to stand over him to supervise, explain, or answer questions.

What if my student gets stuck? Students who are capable of doing their own internet research can use Google, Siri, or Alexa for assistance, when you are not available. That comes with the bonus of keeping their research skills sharp. For other students, it can help to ask them exactly which part has them stumped. Then ask what they think it means, to get them thinking and to teach them to trust their instincts.

Do I give them homework? No. Students can read the lesson and follow the instructions themselves, doing the work immediately, while it’s fresh in their minds—not hours later in a study period or as homework. Again, no waiting, just getting it done. If the student does have a question about the lesson, the parent, grandparent, or nanny who is supervising can answer it right away, not waiting while several other students ask their questions first. Supplemental lesson activities can often continue after the basic lesson, as “stealth learning” that reinforces concepts with a “playtime” feel.

How do we decide which classes to do when? It is perfectly acceptable for the student to choose the order in which he prefers to do various subjects. It is also acceptable if he chooses to do them in a different order each day. Most students will settle into a routine that feels best to them, but an occasional shake-up to that routine can also be refreshing.

How do I know what materials to pick for my child? Students who enjoy reading will learn well from workbooks and textbooks. Students who prefer watching will learn well from videos on platforms such as You Tube. Students who are hands-on learners will learn well with manipulatives, doing experiments, or even duplicating experiments they have watched on You Tube. Students who are action-loving doers will learn well from standing up to do lessons, lying on the floor to do lessons, going outside to do lessons, making lessons bigger—write out the lesson with chalk on the driveway, sweep it clean to erase, and do another lesson. Doers also learn well from watching videos that are first-person perspective, so they feel like they are the ones doing it, rather than the more passive third-person perspective of watching someone else do it.

Do we need to stay home all day, every day? No. Schools take field trips, and so can you. Learning happens wherever you go, so don’t feel like you are skipping school, even if you are running a few errands. The more efficient routine of homeschooling added extra hours to our day, and we used those hours as we desired, with learning-on-the-go as an added benefit: shopping easily converted into consumer math, driving across town used geography and navigational skills, and every interaction with people was experience in public speaking. Don’t do public situations, if you’re not up to it. Do go to events that will be uplifting and enjoyable, but only if you can avoid the Negative Nellies.

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Filed Under: Deciding to Homeschool, Emergency Homeschooling, Encouragement for Parents, Homeschool How-To's, Leaving Public School

Emergency Homeschooling: You CAN Do This!

August 4, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Normal? There is no normal right now—not for anyone at any school! Even veteran homeschoolers are finding their routines disrupted by closures and “distancing” requirements.

Different? Everyone is doing something different from what they’re used to doing, so you’re not alone. And every family is doing something slightly different from what every other family is doing, so again, you’re not alone.

Survive? Yes, you will survive this, just as you survived that one vacation where everything went wrong, just as you survived when everyone in your family had the stomach flu at the same time, just as you survived all the times when the school events and the sports events and the work events all conflicted on the calendar. You found a way to survive, and even though those times may not have been pretty or popular, they created hilarious family memories and stories that are still told and retold at special moments. And this will become another one of those legendary family stories of perseverance and survival.

Once you have made the decision to homeschool (whether to get your students through this crisis or as a more permanent situation), the hardest part is already behind you! No one else could help you determine if this is the best solution for your family, but there are unlimited sources (both online and in real life) to help you with what comes next, every day.

No matter why you have chosen Emergency Homeschooling, those reasons can help you make it the best option for your family. Your priorities during this crisis will follow much the same pattern as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: your family’s mental health comes first, take care of basic life skills next, and then you can worry about the schoolwork.

Mental Health
In any emergency, your family’s needs must come first. You know the analogy about putting the oxygen mask on yourself first, before you put the masks on your children. See that your own family’s immediate needs are met, before you think about lending a helping hand to others. What is most important to you right now is that your family members can stay safe and well, and that your children can have some means to continue learning.

Restore the mental well-being of your family members by making them feel secure. Stop watching the news on TV. You may allow yourself to read selected news stories online, if the information is vital to your family, but reading also allows you to stop the flow as soon as you have acquired the important details—the bad-news reporters on TV will just keep blathering on and never stop.

Limit social media to only the people, pages, and platforms that leave you feeling encouraged, uplifted, and positive. “Unfollowing” is a handy feature for keeping them available for when you are ready to see them again—but that allows it to be your choice.

Listen to music that makes you happy. Avoid the slow, melancholy stuff that can add to depression. Trying an out-of-the-ordinary genre can help change the negative soundtrack that won’t stop playing in your head.

Nourish your souls by encouraging each family member to pursue an activity that is enjoyable and relaxing. They may only spend a few minutes on it each day, but those minutes add up over time to lower the stress level. If you have multiple enjoyable activities, alternate or rotate through them, giving each of them a chance to bless you. Drop any activities that prove less helpful than others, so you can focus on the most beneficial activities.

Life Skills
As soon as you are all breathing a little more calmly again, you can expand your focus to Life Skills (Home Ec.) by working together on meals, dishes, and laundry, teaching the skills to your children as needed, but also using those opportunities for bonding through casual conversation and Q&A related to the children’s concerns over current events. (Use age-appropriate answers and try to focus on positive elements.)

Nourish your bodies with good food, hydration, fresh air, sunshine, mild exercise (walking outdoors, if possible), and good sleep. With everyone being at home for a while, each person needs to do his part to help out, so that the chores don’t all fall to one person. Keeping up with basic home-chores can help every family member feel better about how nice their environment looks: doing the dishes, making the beds, and generally tidying up.

Schoolwork
Ultimately, parents want their children to 1) be safe, 2) maintain the skills they already have, and 3) improve those skills, if possible. This year’s learning situation will not be identical to previous years, but nothing will be, for anyone. This will definitely be different from “normal” schooling—you may be using different materials, a different manner of instruction, a different location for learning, and a different schedule.

Your school-at-home days will very likely not be what you’re used to. Some days will be smoother than others, and some days may take longer than others. Remind yourselves as often as necessary that this is a temporary situation and that you can handle it.

Nourish your minds by reading a book you’ve loved before—it will feel like a comfortable visit with old friends. Your situation may have changed, but the characters in the book haven’t—there will be no unexpected plot twists, but you might find a fresh application to your own life. It’s a small sample of “normal” that can make all the “different” feel easier to take. Encourage your children to play board games and card games as valuable practice in the basic skills of reading, math, and logic. You may even want to join in the fun!

This totally different, anti-normal situation will be okay. You are doing the best you can, the best you know how to do, and that is what really matters. So what if you can’t write as eloquently as Longfellow? No one is expecting you to do that. So what if you can’t do advanced math as well as Einstein? No one is expecting you to do that. So what if you have never traveled the globe or made an important scientific discovery? Neither had any teacher I ever had—and no one is expecting you to do that either.

The mission before you is to help your child learn. That can mean showing him how to draw letters and numbers in such a way that his Z’s won’t be mistaken for 2’s. That can mean showing him how to use graph-paper for math lessons, so his numbers stay lined up where they belong, instead of wandering all over the page in rivers of chaos. That can mean replying, “I don’t know, but let’s see if we can find out,” when his questions stump you, but were important enough to spur his curiosity in the first place.

Don’t stress yourselves by pushing too much, too far, too hard, too soon. Do what you can, when you can, because every little bit counts. Don’t underestimate the learning situations in daily life; see yourselves as learning from everything that happens. Learning is a normal activity, regardless of where or how it occurs.

Arthur Ashe said, “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” Even if everything about this school year seems to be different, strange, and unnatural, a pencil is still a pencil, and learning is still the acquiring of information or skills that we didn’t have before. Yes, this year will be very different from what you are used to doing, but different isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes, different can be very good, and since everyone is doing something different from everyone else this year, who’s to say that your version of different isn’t the best version? You can make it the best for your family.

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Filed Under: Deciding to Homeschool, Emergency Homeschooling, Encouragement for Parents, Family Unity, Homeschool How-To's, Leaving Public School

The Various Stages of Homeschooling (for Newbies)

December 11, 2013 by 1 Comment

There were several distinct stages that I went through as we worked through our homeschooling journey, and you may recognize them in your own journey. This is the viewpoint that I had, as the Homeschooling Mom, the parent who was responsible for most of the teaching in our household. My husband and our kids probably saw things a little differently or had their own opinions about it, but this is how it felt to me. I have not applied definite time periods to these stages because some families may progress through one stage quite quickly, while taking much longer to move through another stage. Speed has nothing to do with the appropriateness for your family, as long as you are working at a pace that is suitable for your students’ abilities and for your family’s lifestyle. Some stages may fly by so quickly that you don’t even notice them passing, while others may stick around (rather like gum on your shoe) for a long, long, long time. Bear in mind that each family’s experience will be different, and what you zip through un-noticed may be what others get stuck in seemingly forever… and vice versa. Neither status indicates success or failure—that’s just how life goes.

1. Terrifying: You are considering homeschooling and trying to decide whether homeschooling will work for your family’s unique situation. You recognize that drastic changes must take place, but you don’t know yet exactly what those changes are, when they will take place, or how they will affect your lives. You are pretty sure that these changes will upset your domestic tranquility apple-cart and alter life-as-you-currently-know-it forever (or at least for the imaginable future), but you are also faced with the reality that these changes are inevitable.

2. Scary: By your first real day of homeschool lessons, the hardest decisions are usually behind you, and this process moves to being only scary instead of truly terrifying. This stage is somewhat like wading waist-deep into cold water—you’re there, you’re mostly wet, and although you’re not completely immersed yet, you feel fairly certain that the worst shock is already over.

3. Possible: Sometime in the not-so-distant future, you may begin to feel that this just might be possible. You’ve been at this for a while now, and you’ve found little bits of routine that worked fairly well and other bits that you definitely don’t ever want to repeat again. Ever. You also now are developing a mental list of other ideas you’d really like to try at some point. But it could be a really short list.

4. Finding Your Groove: After a longer while, you will probably have adopted a pattern of the things that are working best. That pattern may only apply to one small portion of your school day, such as lunch break, or you may have stumbled into a groove that works for most of the day. This can also be called the “So Far, So Good” stage.

5. Loving Every Minute: For most families, there comes a time when they are feeling more confident in their daily routine. You may notice that while still far from perfect, you have smoothed off a lot of rough edges from where you started. There have probably been a few days that you definitely don’t want to repeat, but they are now being over-shadowed by some truly wonderful days that are making this new process completely enjoyable.

6. Veteran: One day, after repeating the same cycles several times, you may find yourself thinking “I’ve been here before. I know what to do this time. I can handle this.” You will look back over all you’ve learned and marvel at how confident you now feel. You know exactly what to do today, this week, and this month, but you might still be unsure about next year. It’s okay to be a little shaky about the distant future, but remember that this is nothing compared to where you were at Stages 1 and 2, and you will get things figured out by the time that distant future becomes the present.

7. Roadblocks: This is an interim stage that really can occur at any time, including before or after any of the other stages. My daughter hit a roadblock in the midst of Algebra 2 and couldn’t make any progress until the next school year. She had had some health issues for a time and attributed her thinking-problem to that, but she just couldn’t grasp the concepts presented. Since that particular textbook was designed as a 2-year class anyway, she gave in and put the math book on hold even before the end of that school year drew near. Several months later, she was determined to try again and not let it beat her down, and by that time, her brain had processed long enough on the concepts that she had no trouble getting through it.

A different type of roadblock occurred when my son reached a point in early high school where he just couldn’t relate to the lessons in his textbooks. In my estimation, things had been working fine, and then… nothing was working any more. I scrambled to come up with alternative projects that would interest him enough to further his education without completely derailing his progress. The result was primarily that I was transformed into an unschooler without realizing it at the time, giving up the standard textbooks in favor of the more real-life learning opportunities that appealed to him.

Roadblocks are anything that hinders your progress, and they may last a few moments, a few hours, a few weeks… or much longer. The duration is insignificant—what you do about the roadblock is the important part. Back up and refresh or fill any gaps in the foundational skills, try something totally different for supplemental activities, or put the book on the shelf for a while, but don’t let the roadblock win. You can dig under it, climb over it, or map an alternate path around it, as long as you refuse to let it keep you stagnant. Some of our alternate paths included changing the order of classes to put the problem subject at a different time of day, changing the location for doing a particular class (a different room can make a big difference), continuing on with the rest of the routine but putting the difficult subject on hold while we looked for a new program or a new approach. We abandoned the programs that were most favored by our friends (to their shock and horror) but just didn’t work for us. We sampled other methods until we found something we liked, something that worked, something that didn’t leave us (student and teacher) in tears every day, all day long. More than once we used the information from one program and the order of lessons from another program, and combined them into a system we thought up ourselves, just because we wanted to try it that way… and it worked.

A few specific situations may contribute to requiring more time to work through a roadblock, such as a special needs student, students who have spent a long time in institutional school before switching to homeschooling, one or both parents who are (currently or previously) classroom teachers who insist on recreating school-at-home conditions, trying to keep up with the Homeschooling Joneses by doing too much or doing what doesn’t fit your family but was advised as vitally important by others because it worked for their family, and the dual-school family (also known as “Somer-Homeschool”: Some-R-Home, Some-R-Not). Regardless of the cause of the roadblock, keep digging, keep climbing, keep mapping, and keep refusing to be beaten. It’s not your fault, and it’s not your student’s fault; it’s the curriculum that just isn’t matching your needs. Review it, find a way around it, or wait it out, but remind yourself that whatever you choose to do is a plan: you are doing something about the roadblock, even if that something means taking some time off to let the stalled brain process on the concept until it is ready to try it again.

8. Mentoring: With a history of successful homeschooling comes the day when you may find yourself offering helpful information to other families who are seeking homeschooling advice. You may secretly giggle inside when they tell you how knowledgeable you are and how much they appreciate your input, because you still remember all too clearly just how terrified you were only a short time ago, when you were still occupying the spot they are in today. At the same time, you will be able to rattle off exactly which activities your family enjoyed the most, which materials were the least helpful to you, and how your family’s routine gradually developed into your own preferred style of homeschooling. Share how you adapted methods to fit your own family’s specific needs. Share willingly with all those who seek your advice—they are asking you because you are standing out from the crowd in a way that appeals to them!

Articles to Help You on Your Journey:
21 Things That Can Slow Homeschooling Progress
Do the Best Job You Can and Pray for God to Clean Up the Rest
Top 10 Benefits of Homeschooling with Grace
Family Planning (No, Not That Kind)
Top 10 Things I Wish I’d Known When I Began Homeschooling
Tests, Book Reports, and Other Un-necessities
Homeschooling Is Hard Work
10 Ways to Improve a Lesson

Articles to Help You Through the Detours on That Journey:
Homeschool Beginnings–A Child’s Point of View
Meatball Education: Filling in the Potholes of Public School
People Who Nearly Scared Me Away from Homeschooling
Redeeming a Disaster Day
Looking Back on the Bad Days
Reschedule, Refocus, Regroup
Bottom 10 Worst Parts of Homeschooling
Common Mistakes Made by New Homeschoolers
Homeschooling Failures I Have Known—and What Can Be Learned from Them

Filed Under: Deciding to Homeschool, Encouragement for Parents, Homeschool How-To's, Roadblocks to Learning

How to Teach Your Kids at Home Without Killing Yourself in the Process

September 24, 2013 by 1 Comment

  1. Adapt daily. What didn’t work today can be changed for tomorrow. Life seldom follows a routine, so why should your lessons be exactly the same, day after day? Life provides very important lessons, and we can learn from everything and everyone.
  2. Remember that the teacher may not always be right. If the student can present his/her case in a valid and logical way, he/she may convince the teacher to skip portions of a lesson, try a different book, branch off to add a side interest, go on a field trip, etc. (But that argument must be presented with facts, not whining.)
  3. Network. If you’re stuck on a subject, try getting ideas from other homeschoolers, no matter what their kids’ ages. You might be able to adapt their methods to suit your child. Multiply the number of homeschooling parents (teachers) you know by the number of their children (students). The result is how many ways there are available to you to teach any given concept. Teaching methods can vary greatly with learning styles and family preferences. (Now consider all the other homeschoolers you just haven’t met yet, whose ideas can be found online!)
  4. Admitting defeat can be your first step toward success. When you’re pushing the wrong method, both student and teacher will always be on the verge of tears. The right method will be like gasoline to a flame—you’ll need to jump back out of its way! I’ve tried both, and I much prefer playing with fire.
  5. Play. A genius sees everything in life as a game to be played or a puzzle to be solved. Help your kids see learning as a game, and you will be nurturing genius, creativity, imagination, and much more!
  6. Entice. “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” (old proverb) However, a wise, old farmer might tell you to just put a little bit of salt in the oats! If the lesson comes in the form of irresistible fun, you won’t have to cajole your students to get involved. (See #5)
  7. No one ever learned anything good through boredom. No one. Ever. Work your students’ interests into their lessons to grab and hold their attention, whether than means relating math story problems to Missy’s doll collection or teaching Sonny sentence structure through writing about sports.
  8. Watch your words. Be careful how you explain “learning styles” to your students. I overheard a boy once comment to his friend, “My mom says I’ve got to be doing something all the time. She says I always have to be moving and making noise.” So he dutifully made sure she was always right: he refused to sit still or remain quiet, just so his mom wouldn’t be disappointed. What his mom noticed as his consistent behavior and learning style, he seriously took to be an assignment. Our goal as learners should be to “learn how to learn” in every way possible, not lock ourselves into only one formula, so help your students strengthen their weaker learning styles through increasing exposure to other methods.
  9. Work toward your students’ strengths to grab and hold their attention, while you slip in subtle experiences in other learning styles. Be aware that they learn different subjects in different ways: spelling is a visual concept, but handwriting is kinesthetic. Pre-readers and early readers still live in an auditory world; watch for subtle changes in how they learn as their reading ability increases.
  10. Don’t use calculators for math until algebra (playing with a calculator is okay, just don’t use it for daily lessons). The mental skills must be fully in place first, and then the calculator can be used for saving time. Note: Don’t assume a problem has been done incorrectly just because your answer disagrees with the answer book. Re-do the problem carefully several times—I have found several mistakes in math text answer keys. Also, I accidentally hit one wrong key on my calculator during a college math final, didn’t notice it, and didn’t check over my work. That one stupid mistake spoiled an otherwise-perfect score—a huge lesson learned the hard way.

For further inspiration, see these articles:

What Didn’t Work for Today Can Be Changed for Tomorrow

Every Day Is a Learning Day, and Life Is Our Classroom

Tests, Book Reports, and Other Un-necessities

If You Can Present Your Case with Facts and Logic and Without Whining, I Will Listen with an Open Mind

Becoming a Successful and Proud Quitter

How to Adapt Lessons to Fit Your Student’s Interests and Make Learning Come Alive

Spoken Destinies and Learned Behaviors

Applying Learning Styles with Skip-Counting

Filed Under: Encouragement for Parents, Encouraging Your Student, Homeschool How-To's, Homeschooling as a Lifestyle, Top 10 (and other) Lists

How to Encourage Learning

May 28, 2013 by 2 Comments

I am no one special. I am just an ordinary Mom who has learned a lot about teaching. More specifically, I have learned a lot about learning, about how to learn, and about how to help someone else learn.

I grew up in a very small community, went to the same small school from Kindergarten through twelfth grade, and graduated in a class of fifteen. I was always scolded that I was not working up to my potential, no matter how hard I tried or how much I did. My teachers discouraged anything that wasn’t already part of their tried-and-true lesson plans, and as a not-always-by-the-book learner, I did not enjoy school (in fact, I hated school) until I went to college—the second time.

I know first-hand what it is like to feel trapped in public school. I know the ridicule, the bullying, and the torturing, and I know the sinking feeling of helplessness that comes from the inability to change anything, including teachers’ preconceived notions of who you are and what you can or can’t do. Now, decades later, I also know the freedom that homeschooling brings. Through homeschooling my own children, I was able to break free from many of the stigmas that accompanied me through the first portion of my education. I say “first portion” because I now recognize education as a life-long endeavor, and the most recent portion of my education has been acquired through homeschooling my kids. Having done as little as possible through most of high school, I welcomed the chance to try again, and I learned many things right along with my students.

I enjoyed learning creation science with my kids and studying its relationship to God’s Word, something I had never thought about in my school days filled with evolution-as-scientific-fact. I learned much more about history, while helping my kids learn, and was able to connect the random facts I did know into a more accurate timeline of civilization. Reading was no longer a tedious assignment that I despised and avoided, but it became an enjoyable leisure activity for me. I grew to love reading aloud to my children as much as they enjoyed listening to the daily installments.

Back in public school, I’d had mediocre teachers, poor teachers, and absolutely horrible teachers, all of them with overwhelmingly discouraging attitudes. I’d had a few good teachers here and there, but it was not until my second try at attending college that I found some truly excellent teachers, and I attempted to recreate their methods later on when I began homeschooling. They had not rejected questions; instead, they had convinced me that the only “silly” question is the one which a student is too intimidated to ask, and they further convinced me that any intimidation at all is the teacher’s creation, not the student’s personality. These teachers did not criticize incorrect answers or solutions, but kindly and gently showed students the proper methods for proceeding. At a point when I had never even heard of homeschooling, those teachers fostered the teaching techniques that I would utilize years later.

One thing I had learned during my public school education was that students didn’t matter. Students who didn’t immediately grasp every concept as first presented were being purposely dense and stubbornly making the teacher’s job more difficult. The teachers could only be bothered to explain things once, and if you didn’t understand right away, there was something wrong with you. These were the required subjects that must be taught, and if you didn’t find them delightfully interesting, there was something wrong with you. These were the few elective courses they had the resources to offer, and if you didn’t find them endlessly fascinating, there was something wrong with you. A student who dared to object to the standard fare or dared to suggest possible alternatives or dared to desire anything more interesting was met with horrified gasps. The professional educators knew what was best, and they were in charge. End of discussion.

And then I met Mr. Benbow. Mr. Benbow taught engineering, math, and programming classes at the community college, but Mr. Benbow taught me so much more than just trigonometry. He could elicit a response from even the shyest, most introverted student, because he eagerly waited for and listened to that response. It was as if everyone else in the room disappeared when he spoke to you, and you knew he was truly, genuinely interested in your opinion on the subject at hand. He didn’t seem to want to leave the room without hearing your thoughts and having the opportunity to discuss them with you and ask another question or two for clarification. Your response, no matter how tentative, no matter how ill-prepared, was important to Mr. Benbow. And after only a few weeks in his class, you began to feel that maybe you were important to more than Mr. Benbow.

I recall a rather under-achieving student who described an incorrect method for solving a particular math problem. I was groaning inside, realizing he was wrong and feeling sorry for the humiliation I thought he was destined to endure as his error was pointed out, ridiculed, and corrected. But Mr. Benbow didn’t do that. He listened to the student’s entire explanation of how he’d arrived at his wrong answer, and then Mr. Benbow thoughtfully considered each misstep and gently replied, “Well, you could do it that way… but think about this… If we go back to this step, and instead of what you did there, we do this…” and he went on to fully detail the correct method, step-by-step, arriving at the correct solution, while keeping the errant student’s dignity intact and giving the rest of us a beautifully practical lesson in humility.

Every Wednesday, Mr. Benbow began class with a quiz—always just one question or just one problem, but it always reinforced what we’d just learned. Every Friday, he began class with a joke—it was his way of starting the weekend with a little fun. Any time someone asked him for help on an assignment, he gave that student his complete attention and always hinted at the answer just enough to help the student discover it for himself. Mr. Benbow knew that telling a student the answer outright taught nothing, but guiding the student on the path to discovering the answer taught much more than the answer to that single problem.

I eagerly signed up for Mr. Benbow’s introductory course in computer programming. It was required for my degree, but I knew that he was capable of teaching anything to anyone, even programming language to someone who had never seen a computer before, and I knew he would make it a fascinating class. When my first complex program failed to run as intended, I sought his help. He quickly read through the cryptic steps, smiled with that intriguing little twinkle in his eyes, and simply said “Computers are stupid. They are machines that can only do exactly what we tell them to do.” And there he left me, both feet firmly planted on the path to discovery. Obviously, he meant that my program was telling the computer to do the wrong thing. More precisely, as I soon discovered, my program had not told the computer to do the right thing. Mr. Benbow’s programming hint became a life-lesson for me. It’s as important not to do the wrong thing, as it is to do the right thing. When teaching and training my children, I have tried to remember to show them what not to do, as well as what to do.

All of Mr. Benbow’s excellent teaching methods influenced me heavily. When my children asked questions or gave answers to my questions or offered their opinions on random topics, I tried to give them my focused attention, as if their ideas mattered—because their ideas really did matter. When I listened to every little thing my 7-year-old son wanted to tell, he learned that Mom cared, that his thoughts were either funny or thought-provoking, that he could make people laugh, and that he was important, and he mattered. My kids learned to give answers with confidence, knowing that if they happened to be wrong, they still weren’t subjected to ridicule, taunting, or shame. Any incorrect assumptions would be gently but thoroughly straightened out, until they had a comprehensive understanding of the issue at hand.

If I expected my kids to learn, I knew they couldn’t feel intimidated. Our classroom had to be a place where they felt safe enough to ask any question and discuss any concept that they didn’t fully understand. If I wanted them to learn, I had to find an eleventh way to explain or illustrate or demonstrate what my first ten tries had failed to clarify. Their lack of understanding came from my failure to teach, not their failure to learn. In order for my kids to learn, I had to find better methods of teaching.

Because my early teachers had turned “Go look it up” into a discouraging punishment, I was determined to transform educating my children into a delightful challenge, an eager race for knowledge, a dare of discovery that they couldn’t help but pursue. Whenever we came across something of uncertain meaning, I looked my students in the eye with the most intriguing twinkle I could muster, then I dashed to the bookcase to grab the dictionary or whatever reference book might hold the answer. They enthusiastically joined me for a cheek-to-cheek search through the pages, as we found the answer together. Before long, they were the ones dashing off to find the answer, proudly beating Mom to it, but still generously sharing the moment of discovery as we read and discussed the treasured facts together.

To encourage my kids in their learning, I made up examples and story problems that were personal to them, I involved them in the illustrations and the demonstrations, and we worked together to build the models and create the learning aids that finally made the concepts clear. We converted our board games to use the facts and skills they were trying to learn and played the games over and over to practice their new knowledge. As Mr. Benbow had done, I used impromptu questions now and then to prove to them what they had just mastered (instead of shaming them for what they didn’t yet know), and I made time during our classes for an abundance of jokes and silly stories and amusing tricks, just to keep life fun.

Learning is encouraged when fear is removed and confidence takes its place. Learning is encouraged when the student sees each question as a game to be played, a challenge to be attempted, a goal to be conquered. Learning is encouraged when the student is intrigued to the point that he does not want to walk away without knowing the answer. Learning is encouraged when the examples are personal, when the problems become tantalizing puzzles to solve, when research begins an exhilarating bunny-trail adventure through a hundred twists and turns, and when every question opens another new door to wonders yet undiscovered. If learning is not fun or exciting or satisfying or rewarding, who would waste a single moment in its pursuit?

For more tips on getting your students interested and encouraging their learning:
10 Ways to Improve a Lesson
How to Adapt Lessons to Fit Your Student’s Interests and Make Learning Come Alive
Looking for the “Hard Part”
My Student Is Trying, but Just Not Learning as Expected
The Know-It-All Attitude
Learning to Walk — Seen as a New Lesson

Filed Under: Encouragement for Parents, Encouraging Your Student, Homeschool How-To's, Homeschool v. Public School, Roadblocks to Learning

Guilt-Free Homeschooling Summer Camp: Homeschool Summer Scheduling

May 15, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Summer doesn’t have to be either a full-on homeschooling schedule or a completely idle break. Summer is a great time for Mom to do a little planning ahead for the coming school year and think about what could be tweaked to make homeschooling more interesting, more efficient, and generally better for all concerned.

Kids who need some extra time to finish out their year can work through summer while still having a break by doing only half a lesson each day. Reading and math can be practiced without being tedious: read fun stuff; play games that use money or that require score-keeping (let each player keep his own score) or that have questions to be read aloud.

Summer is also useful for the student who wants to get ahead, not just for those who are trying to catch up. When my daughter was nearing her senior year of Homeschool High, she was planning to take a class at the Community College in the Fall to supplement her homeschool classes. Not knowing how much work that course would require, she spent the summer getting other classes out of the way. She read through an entire history textbook (a big, fat one), just so she wouldn’t have to deal with that class during the coming year while doing homeschool and college at the same time.

Maybe you’d like to try adding a few more supplemental activities. Maybe you’ve been intrigued by some unschooling ideas. Maybe your kids need a break from the formal curriculum. Maybe you’d like to indulge in an activity during the summer break that deserves more time than you could spare during your regular schedule. Maybe you’ve been thinking about a specific field trip that would work better in summer weather than from Fall through Spring. Maybe you or your students have a special interest that could be explored for a day or a week during summer break.

Explore some new ideas in the articles below and brainstorm the what-if’s of how your homeschool schedule might be different. Whatever your interests, remember that summer is an opportunity for learning, not a reason to stress yourselves out by doing too much.

The Value of Supplemental Activities
The Importance of Play in Education
“Stealth Learning” Through Free Play
How to Adapt Lessons to Fit Your Student’s Interests and Make Learning Come Alive
10 Ways to Improve a Lesson
A Day Without Lessons
Homeschooling the Neighborhood

Read the entire GFHS Summer Camp series:
Homeschool Mommy Summer Camp
Homeschool Summer Camp FUN!
Homeschool Summer Reading Activities
Homeschool Summer Scheduling
Encouragement Around the Campfire

Filed Under: Encouragement for Parents, Encouraging Your Student, Homeschool How-To's, Scheduling
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