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The Never-ending Question: “Whyyyyyyyyyy?”

April 11, 2005 by Leave a Comment

Perhaps you have, or know, or used to be the child who repeatedly asks “Why?” to every remark that is spoken, whether by a parent, sibling, or friend. Usually it starts with the preschooler who truly is trying to gain knowledge about the world he lives in. However, if continued unchecked, in a few short years it can turn into a game of “How long does it take to frustrate Mom?” because, no matter what Mom says, he can again ask “Why?”

If you allow it, children will use “Why?” as a game to push your buttons more than they will use it as a way to gain knowledge. The first time you get caught not paying attention and find yourself answering half a dozen why’s in a row, your child will realize he has stumbled onto a fascinating game. (As long as I keep asking “Why,” Mom will keep trying to answer. I wonder how long this will continue!)

Before I answered the never-ending question too quickly, I gave my child some time and encouragement to think the situation through and reason it out for himself. Then if he still did not understand, I allowed the question and answered it. I tried to provoke a discussion with the child by turning the questions back on him and asking for his opinion of why. Sometimes my student could derive the correct solution on his own, and sometimes he needed an adult’s perspective in order to see a more accurate view. Expanding the conversation to a discussion will either a) satisfy the child’s thirst for real knowledge, or b) take all the fun out of his frustration game and convince him to change activities.

By no means should the question “why” be forbidden completely; on the contrary, it is a valuable learning tool when applied to research. We should always encourage questioning when it will lead to learning. Our responsibility as parents and educators is to distinguish the motive behind the question: is the child seeking to understand or is the child attempting to annoy? I answer reasonable questions to the best of my ability, but I do not give complete control of the conversation over to the child by allowing incessant, meaningless questions. I believe in turning their questions into teaching opportunities.

Filed Under: Behavior, Parenting, Preschoolers

Can You Convince My Husband to Homeschool?

April 8, 2005 by 3 Comments

Here is another goodie from my email box: Do you have any magic words or potions to convince my husband that homeschooling is truly the best thing for our children? –Frustrated Mom

To begin with, a wife should be willing to submit to whatever her husband decides, since he is the head of their household. Sometimes, just seeing that his wife has agreed to let him make the decision is enough to sway a husband into reconsidering a matter. If he already knows how strongly she feels about this issue, maybe he just needs to know that he has an important role in making the decision. Many husbands will have pre-conceived ideas about education to deal with, so they need plenty of time and space for thinking things through. Be faithful, be submissive, and leave it in God’s hands. After all, God is big enough to change the mind and heart of even the most stubborn person — look what He did to Saul (Paul) in the book of Acts.

If you are a new reader to this site, I am going to suggest several of my previous articles which include helpful background information that may help you answer your spouse’s questions about homeschooling. These are for the pro-homeschool spouse to read (whether husband or wife), since shoving them under your mate’s nose would be likely to produce the wrong effect entirely. If your spouse becomes more interested later, you will probably be asked where you found your information. These articles were not written for the purpose of browbeating a spouse into submission to homeschooling, but as you read them, you will likely come across situations you had not considered before. Use those topics for open, honest discussion with each other about how homeschooling will change your lives, in both positive and negative ways. Listen to your spouse’s concerns with an open mind, knowing that the more you discuss, the more you will understand each other’s point of view, and the more you will come into agreement with each other — regardless of what decision is made.

Start here for the basics, the most frequently asked questions relating to homeschooling:
Common Homeschooling Myths Dispelled — many commonly held (but false) beliefs about homeschooling
Socialization and Why You Don’t Need It — addresses the dreaded S-question (a.k.a. The Socialization Myth, Part 1)
The Socialization Myth, part 2 — ditto
The Myth of Age-Mates — ditto, again
Discouraging Families — how to deal with in-laws and others who may disagree with a decision to homeschool

Your husband may also be mulling over how the change to homeschooling will affect other areas of your lives:
–Increased workload for you — see Where Do I Begin? and Using Your Household Staff
–No time away from the children — see Family is Spelled T-E-A-M, and Siblings as Best Friends
–Financial burden of purchasing curriculum and supplies — see But Public School Is Free…Won’t Homeschooling Cost a Lot?
He may even worry that he could lose your attention, since your focus would be turned to the children most of the time. (See Involving Dads in Homeschooling)

If you know any other homeschooling families, you might consider putting together a casual fun night with them and your family, or ask if your family can attend a homeschool group function with them. That way your husband can get to know some of the other dads and see first-hand how things work. Men often relate better to hands-on activities than to reams of printed information, so the more face-to-face, eyewitness contacts you can provide, the better your case will be made. The same things apply to children who are not “sold” on homeschooling: providing an opportunity for them to spend time with homeschooled children near their ages lets your children see the “kid’s eye view.”

We spent several months checking things out before we actually began homeschooling: we made our decision in early April, finished out the school year in public school (not easy when the school was very unsatisfactory), talked with other homeschooling families over the summer, then began our first year of homeschooling in September. (We tried to start in late August, but –wouldn’t you know it — I got my first call to jury duty! Lesson #1: Life happens; homeschooling is flexible.) The more interaction we had with other homeschooling parents, the more assured we were in our decision. We attended potluck picnics with two different homeschool support groups, allowing our children to meet new friends and interact with them while we talked with the parents. We visited the home of at least one homeschooling family, who graciously answered all our questions as well as they could and encouraged us to interview their children for their opinions. That Mom also loaned me a stack of books and magazines about homeschooling to fill my summer. As I read every word, I took notes on the best parts, recording which book they were from. I still have that notebook and refer to it occasionally when I need an encouraging boost.

The first year of homeschooling can be very difficult, — do not let anyone tell you otherwise!!! Removing your children from public school to switch to homeschooling is more difficult than starting to homeschool from preschool or Kindergarten level. However, the second year of homeschooling is infinitely easier because you realize you have done this once before, and each successive year continues to get easier as you develop your own personal, comfortable routine. (See Homeschool Failures I Have Known and What Can Be Learned from Them) If you are leaving “school” to begin homeschooling, you may find an area or two of weakness. (See Meatball Education: Filling in the Potholes of Public School)

Our personal testimony of choosing, then continuing, homeschooling can be found in Our Reasons for Homeschooling and Start Homeschooling for One Reason, but Continue for Another. Also see Homeschool Beginnings: A Child’s Point of View for my daughter’s testimony of what she experienced during the switch.

Finally, see Do the Best Job You Can and Pray for God to Clean Up the Rest. It is not worth strife in your home to have Mom and Dad at odds with each other over this decision. If you are not able to homeschool, or cannot begin as soon as you would like, your children will survive. Millions of us made it through public school, even though homeschooling may have been a much better option. Only God knows what your future holds, so you must trust that God can guide your husband’s decision. Your willingness to abide by your husband’s decision in this matter will provide its own rewards. You face your hardest job right now — that of being the patient wife and mother who hides her emotions so as not to manipulate or cloud the facts.

No matter how strongly I may feel about homeschooling, I know that God has ordained our husbands to be the heads of our homes, and God will honor our obedience to our husbands. Only God can truly convince a person’s heart of what He wants them to do. Be patient, be supportive, and be faithful in prayer for God’s best for your spouse and for your children. God can handle the rest.

Filed Under: Deciding to Homeschool, Leaving Public School

Standardized Testing

April 5, 2005 by 3 Comments

Many readers live in areas where annual testing is mandatory for homeschoolers. One such reader sent me the following email: I would like to hear just about everything you can think of on the topic of standardized testing! This is an expansion of my reply to her.

Disclaimer: Please, please, please check the HSLDA website (http://www.hslda.org) for the specific laws in your area before following my personal example. Homeschooling laws vary from state to state, and local school district administrators are usually not a reliable source for what those laws include. I am an advocate for homeschool education and view everything from a homeschool perspective. Standardized tests have been developed for use in public schools and therefore do not transition well to the homeschooling environment. For those who may believe testing is an accurate form of evaluation, please remember that I am sharing my personal experiences with standardized tests and how we used them in our homeschool atmosphere.

I live in Iowa, where annual testing is one of several options for legal homeschooling. We began homeschooling by using the Supervising Teacher method with a homeschool-friendly teacher. However, the multiple required visits felt like a disruptive waste of time for me, since the teachers we tried knew nothing about homeschooling, often took notes from me for ideas they could use in their classrooms, or suggested things that I considered inappropriate for my children. We struggled through that for many years and several different teachers until we finally switched to once-a-year testing. Being the fiercely independent sort that I am, it was a tremendous relief to me to deal with testing over a couple of days and be done with it for the rest of the year. We did “official” testing (as our legal accountability) for 3 years — by then we had passed beyond the required age limit and were free from government supervision (hooray!).

After our first two years of homeschooling, I thought perhaps I should test my children to see where they were weakest. I purchased my own tests [Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) — the standard around here] from an independent curriculum supplier, which I will vaguely disguise as Billy Joe’s Unusual Pantry, intending to use the information strictly for my own purposes of evaluation, not for legal accountability. [ITBS can be purchased and administered by any 4-year college graduate, regardless of degree field, through Billy Joe’s.] Since no one in our family had the 4-year degree required for purchasing the tests, I ordered them in the name of another homeschool dad. His wife had made the offer, assuring me it would be okay with him; I later found out she had never told him. To skip over the nightmare part of this story, he (hearing about this for the 1st time) refused to sign the required document stating that he had personally overseen the testing, even though I assured him it was only a formality since no one outside our home would ever see the scores. However, a wonderfully sympathetic woman at Billy Joe’s listened to my story in full and phoned me back with the results, saying she was not allowed to mail them to me (and I suspected she was giving me the scores orally from the broom closet!).

Before administering those tests to my children, my husband and I wrote out what we felt were the correct answers — giving me an answer key to use in scoring the tests for my purposes of evaluation before mailing them back to Billy Joe’s for their official scoring. (Returning all materials within a certain time period is a required part of the purchase agreement.) From that key, I could see what types of questions stumped my students and know what areas we needed to work on. Mostly, they tested poorly on what I call “non-subjects” like Social Studies (strange questions that were not really history and not really geography) or areas we had not covered yet (science, history, and geography for my 3rd grader; higher math for my 7th grader). The “official” scores did not match my calculated percentages at all, showing me that the questions were not ranked equally: a 20-question test did not score as 5% per question. Also, there was a question on the 7th grade social studies test about the political philosophies of Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, and Malcolm X that I have yet to find anyone who can answer!

Based solely on this experience, I found the tests to be a poor method of evaluating my children’s academic status. The subject areas tested, the types of questions used, the confusing scoring methods, and the added frustration of the uncooperative dad left me with a really bad taste in my mouth whenever the subject of standardized testing came up. My children later convinced me to allow them to take the tests under better circumstances, just for practice, and their successes there did improve my outlook. I eventually came to appreciate annual testing strictly for its simplicity in legal accountability.

I much prefer testing in a home, whether it is mine or a friend’s, with a familiar church classroom as my next choice. One year a friend and I swapped children during the testing days: she tested my son while I taught her daughter in her home. My son had visited her home often enough to feel comfortable, and she and I used widely-separated areas to ensure quiet during the testing. I abhor public schools and prefer to stay as far away as possible. If I were in a situation that required testing my children at the public school, I would prefer that a) my children be tested by themselves, or b) any homeschooled students be tested together, but most of all c) my homeschooled students be tested in a separate area from the public school students. The time limitations of the tests do not allow extra time for acquainting oneself with a new environment: strange room, strange teacher, strange students. Therefore, the more familiar the situation, the better it will be for the student, enabling him to concentrate on the tests and do his best. However, Moms usually have more test anxiety than their students do, especially since homeschooled students seem to look upon testing as an interesting break from the normal routine.

Our homeschool co-op group provided testing for several years, but I did not submit those results to our school district, since at that time we were still under a supervising teacher. My children both voluntarily participated in the tests for practice purposes, theorizing that eventually they would need to take a college entrance exam (ACT or SAT) and wanted to be prepared for that type of timed, fill-in-the-oval test. The homeschool co-op testing was a decent way to go: familiar moms with the proper degrees administered the tests in the church where we met for other homeschool functions, while we non-degreed moms played in the nursery with the younger, non-testing children. Incidentally, the tests were acquired through a nearby Christian school who submitted our group’s tests with their students’ tests, calling us their “satellite school.” The group-rate price discount was a wonderful blessing for us! For my son’s final two years of testing, our pastor administered the tests in his office area — the pastor volunteered and thought it was great fun.

Each testing service considers its product to be the one and only good test. Here in Iowa we hear repeatedly that the ITBS is the standard across the nation — yet I have not heard that from anyone living outside this state. Since the tests are designed by “professional educators,” specifically to judge how their own enterprise is doing, I see the tests as hopelessly flawed for homeschool use. (Remember, I broke the cardinal rule of testing and read through the tests myself!) Public schools routinely “cheat” by teaching specific test material ahead of time, filling in correct answers for the students, or posting correct answers where testing students can easily copy them during the test, thereby skewing the results to improve their school’s scores. (Not rumors — I have this from the participants.)

Because the tests cannot cover material identical to what every school teaches, standardized tests are nearly impossible for homeschooling parents to use for academic evaluation. The descriptor “standardized” implies that it is covering a core area of curriculum, but in this case, it is the supposed core of public school curriculum, plus some added questions from higher academic areas to point out higher achievers. Obviously, a public school test is not going to cover Biblical topics, creation science, or other specific areas valued by many homeschoolers, but it will cover evolution and similar subject areas that homeschoolers often avoid.

If your children take the tests, look over the resulting scores to see how each child ranks in general subject areas. Then shove your master copies of the scores deep into your filing cabinet and forget about them. [For legal accountability through testing in my state, copies of the results must be sent to both the local district and to the state Dept. of Education.] Do not put too much credence on the tests — they are designed for public school students, not homeschooled students. Your students will probably score quite well — after all, it is the students who score lower than 13% who are considered unsatisfactory. Homeschoolers usually score above 50% nationally (often much higher). The scores indicate how your student compared with all other students nationwide who took the same grade level test during the same month of the same year. [Note: make sure that your students understand that the scores do NOT reflect how many questions they answered correctly. The number of correct answers is never given, which is why I made my own answer keys — to determine exactly what information my students did not know.]

For my own purposes of academic evaluation, I read the official scores using the 50% mark as my guideline: below that level meant we might need to work on that general subject area (unless it was evolution-heavy science); above that level meant we were doing just fine. Make sure your students understand that their goal is to do their best, not to score 100% — a near impossibility on this type of test. Most of the pressure disappears once the children realize they are not supposed to know the correct answer to every question on the test, since many questions are purposely included that are far above the grade level of each test. Normal math or spelling tests that you may give in your homeschool usually only cover material you have already taught.

My personal opinion on annual testing is to do what you have to do in order to maintain compliance with your state’s laws. Check with Home School Legal Defense Association — http://www.hslda.org — for the exact wording of the laws in your state — there may be suitable non-testing options that the public schools do not know about or will not tell you about. Finally, relax, assuring yourself that your students will do the best they can and that the testing process will be valuable practice for college. If Mom is relaxed about the situation, the children will be more relaxed as well.

Filed Under: Homeschool How-To's, Legal Records, Testing

The Know-It-All Attitude

April 1, 2005 by Leave a Comment

Nothing gets my dander up more quickly than the Know-It-All attitude. Child or adult, friend or total stranger, I find this attitude prideful, self-serving, and downright ugly. The Know-It-All wants to be better than everyone else in the room and wants everyone else in the room to know he is better. Sometimes the attitude surfaces only briefly; at other times it is a full-time occupation.

The Know-It-All has a self-imposed learning disability — he has chosen to block his mind from learning from anyone. No one can instruct or correct the Know-It-All, because he already knows and will be the first to tell you. No matter what fact you present to the Know-It-All, his response is always the same, “I know.” Even when you can be certain that he could not know and does not know, the Know-It-All still responds in the same matter-of-fact, yet superior, way, “I know.”

When my children began to display the Know-It-All attitude, we stopped everything and had a serious heart-to-heart discussion. Okay, it was more of a one-sided lecture, but I got my point across. “You did not know,” was my calmly delivered opener. “Why do you think you told me that you did know?” — a mostly rhetorical question, followed by my explanation of how we let pride take over our minds and try to make ourselves look smarter than we actually are. The desired result was that my children would recognize and admit to learning new things, no matter who was providing the information. We can learn from anyone and everyone, and the more we learn, the smarter we become. I do not gain any intelligence by falsely declaring myself to be in possession of a fact.

The next misstep, which falls close on the heels of the Know-It-All attitude of pride, is jealousy. How I get sickened when I see a parent who does not want his child to excel past the parent’s abilities. This sounds completely ludicrous — parents not wanting success for their children — but I have seen it over and over. I have caught myself in the thought pattern, severely reprimanded myself for it, and then taken steps to help my child progress even farther.

My son wanted to learn to play guitar. I dug out my old “beginner” guitar, showed him how to read a chord chart, and gave him some basic instructions on technique and a few simple worship songs to try. Then I stepped out of his way and let him try it on his own. After a few false starts, he began having success. I gave him a better guitar — success should be rewarded with a quality instrument. Eventually, he and the guitar became like Siamese twins, joined fingertips to fretboard. When he goes to his room just to retrieve a book, and I hear a few bars of sweet guitar music before he returns. His ability has quickly exceeded mine, and I think of myself as a fairly good player. He has taught himself to read tablature found on the internet for his favorite CD songs. He has learned to finger-pick complicated rhythms just by listening to them and trying. He absolutely impressed the socks off me last Christmas by picking “Carol of the Bells” for us after dinner! CAROL OF THE BELLS!!!

It has been tempting at times to become jealous of his ability. I could reprimand him for spending “too much time” on guitar and not enough time on his schoolwork, except that he does get the schoolwork done also. I could have made him buy his own guitar, rationalizing that he would “appreciate it more” if he had worked for it and earned it himself. I could point out his mistakes and ridicule him for not having each piece perfect when he plays for me. I could so easily completely destroy his love of music. Which is exactly what happens when jealousy is given a foothold. Instead, I have sat under his tutelage and allowed him to show me new chords. We have played together, laughing with delight as I struggled to keep up with his flying fingers.

My daughter and I have engaged in theological discussions in which we share new perspectives on familiar passages of scripture. However, the Know-It-All attitude often dances through my mind as she is explaining her latest insight. I must fight against pride to remind myself that I definitely do not know all there is to know, especially about the Bible. Humbly, I remind myself that I can learn from any situation, from any person. I turn my back on jealousy and remind myself to pay attention to what she is saying… and I learn. She is an adult now and lives in a different city, in a different cultural-mix, and has the benefit of many new experiences from which to teach. If the Know-It-All attitude were allowed to reign, I would miss all of that.

I grew up without encouragement. My family did not express emotions of joy, at least not to us as children. Our accomplishments received a mere nod, if anything at all. Once when I had worked very hard and finally mastered my desired goal, my mother responded with a flat, emotionless “I knew you could do it.” The Know-It-All attitude strikes again. Confidence shattered, excitement crushed, self-esteem ground under the heels of the Know-It-All.

That old race between the tortoise and the hare should teach us a great lesson: the hare was a Know-It-All. Perhaps we could have learned even more if Aesop had continued his story after the Finish Line: did the hare humbly and graciously congratulate the tortoise on his victory, or was the hare ensnared by jealousy and pride?

Knowledge continues to expand and increase as technology advances. None of us knows it all. Each of us can learn something from everyone. None of us is so perfect that he cannot be topped by someone else. We will all benefit from humbling ourselves and seeing every situation as an opportunity for learning.

Filed Under: Attitudes, Behavior, Encouraging Your Student, Roadblocks to Learning

Social Skills — What Should I Teach My Preschooler?

March 30, 2005 by 1 Comment

Your oldest child (or only child) is quickly approaching school age. You have been curious about homeschooling, but you worry about how little Katie or Bobby will learn to interact in a group. Will your child need to go to school to learn how to work and play well with others? Socialization is not something that can be taught; social skills are a different matter. A child can successfully be taught at home the basic skills needed for interacting with other children, even if there are no siblings in the home.

Skills to teach your preschooler:
Patience
–Start by being an example of patience to your child. While waiting in line at the grocery store, explain how to wait calmly and cheerfully. Help your child to judge time by watching the other customers progress through their lines. Getting the focus off himself will help the child to learn patience. (I taught my children to judge longer waiting times by relating to things in their world: a few minutes’ wait was equal to a Bugs Bunny cartoon; other time periods used were half-hour TV episodes or 60- and 90-minute videos that they knew by heart. Patience came much more easily when they understood their wait would take one “Elephant Show” or one “Robin Hood.”)
–Not interrupting when adults are talking: “Let me finish my sentence first, and then I will see what you need. I know you are here, and I will not forget about you.” Make this reciprocal as you allow your child to finish his sentences without interrupting him. (True emergencies are always exceptions.) I taught my children to come and stand quietly beside me if I was speaking to another adult and wait a few moments for my attention. Many times I turned to them to hear their question, only to find out they had no request — they just wanted to be with Mom for a while.
–Taking turns: Play games together, beginning with just the two of you, then later add a playmate to increase the time that elapses between a child’s own turns. (Until a little patience has developed, it is very hard to wait for your turn to come around again!) Keep the focus on playing as the fun part, not winning, and do not ridicule the loser. We played many games (such as Scrabble) without ever keeping score, to ensure that the emphasis was on learning or using a skill and not on winning and losing.

Sharing
–Help your child to see the Big Picture when having playtime with a friend. Discuss with your child before the friend arrives that the friend will be here for only a short time and that all of the toys will still be here after the friend leaves. Emphasize your child’s opportunity to allow his friend to have the same enjoyment he has with his toys. If your child has some extra-special toys that he is afraid might be damaged, put those toys safely away before the friend comes. I have watched as many a Mom ripped a treasured toy out of her own child’s arms and handed it to the visitor, thinking she was teaching her child to “share” instead of clutching it with what she considered to be unreasonable sentimentality. All it seemed to accomplish was to convince the unhappy child that the visitor was more important to Mom than her own child’s feelings.

Fairness
–More game playing: do not play in such a way as to allow the child to always win. Playing is more enjoyable and lasts much longer than the moment of winning. The more games you play, the more opportunity there is for the child to see that winning is either random or related to skill. Help the child to develop the needed skills to improve his playing ability. Skewing the game so that the child always wins gives the child an unrealistic view and sets him up for major disappointment when someone else is victorious. Short games, such as tic-tac-toe, can be played multiple times within a few minutes, removing the focus from winning and losing.

Sportsmanship is a combination of the above skills. Regardless of the situation, if you can learn to accept the outcome gracefully, you can be pleased with your accomplishment. A good sport is always welcome; bad sports are not often asked to play again.

Appropriate Behavior
–Volume, speed, movement, etc. should be suited to your surroundings and circumstances. A park is a great place to run, jump, and be loud — but not when you are attending an outdoor wedding.
–Family “signals” for behavior are a tremendous help in discipline. We developed “the family whistle,” a specific melody of three or four notes that became our unique signal to “come now.” While not quite as startling as Captain Von Trapp’s system, our whistle aided us in finding each other when separated by a few aisles in large stores or in gaining the attention of a family member who had strayed a little too far. The whistle was more dignified to use than shouting and was rarely noticed by strangers in our midst. In recent years, I have been pleasantly surprised to hear a few other softly whistled signals in large department stores — obviously other families with their own “secret” signals.

One loud snap of the fingers became our “quiet” signal, used after “lights out,” in the car, or anytime a quick reminder was needed. The “snap” put the responsibility on the child to remind himself of the signal’s meaning, rather than forcing mom and dad into nagging as they repeated a verbal admonition to be quiet. Coincidentally, this device also worked on our dog, as he simultaneously learned to quiet himself and settle down whenever he heard a snap.

Communication
Children learn the basics of communication best through hearing language spoken to them. From the day my children were born, I spoke directly to each of them. Whether in my arms or in the baby swing, I was usually carrying on a conversation with Baby, giving a running commentary on whatever household chore was at hand. Bystanders may have thought me daft, but I felt it would give the child a headstart on language skills. I did not speak “baby talk,” but spoke to the tiny, enchanted face as though it knew exactly what I was saying. Language came easily to my children, and they both spoke with clarity and confidence beyond what most people expected.

An older woman I knew began babysitting her neighbors’ daughter, but became frustrated when she had trouble communicating with little Annie. The 3-year-old had difficulty answering questions. At mealtime, the woman asked Annie if she wanted a certain food, but the child would not reply to the yes-or-no question. A few moments later, the girl blurted out “Annie pizza!” The woman (expecting only “yes” or “no” as the answer) became increasing upset as she kept repeating the question and demanding, “Say yes or no,” to which the child would innocently reply, “Yes or no.” As the woman shared her frustration with me later, she asked why I thought the child would only answer in such confusing ways. There seemed to be a lack of some basic communication skills. Other children, younger than this girl, had no trouble answering questions, so this woman was baffled as to why this child could not do the same. (Also complicating the situation was the adult’s insistence on repeating the same question, instead of trying other ways to communicate with the child.)

As we discussed the situation, more behaviors were revealed. This very big girl ate her meals in a high-chair, using no utensils, yet she had no disabilities. All food had to be cut into tiny pieces and placed directly on the chair’s tray for her to eat with her fingers, even though other children her age sat at the family table and used plates and silverware. The parents routinely put the girl alone in her bedroom to listen to books on tape before her very early bedtime. The parents were both employed in well-paid professions, worked long hours, and spent very little time with their daughter. The lack of one-on-one time showed dramatically in the girl’s abilities.

To solve the problem of answering questions, I suggested that the woman should ask the child a simple yes-or-no question, such as “Do you want pizza for lunch?” Then when the girl shouted “Annie pizza,” the woman should patiently prompt the child to say, “Yes, I want pizza.” Repeating this a few times quickly taught the girl how to answer the question with the word “yes” and gave the babysitter a few ideas for dealing with obstacles to communication.

Children can learn to converse with other adults under the safety of parental supervision. When we were questioned by friends, neighbors, relatives, or acquaintances as to what we were doing in our homeschool, I often deferred to my children for the answer. If the adult was asking me about the children’s opinion of homeschooling, I felt it was silly for me to answer when my children were standing right there, capable of speech. I would turn to the child, repeat the question (if necessary, in words the child could relate to), and assure the child that he could openly share his feelings with my adult friend. Obviously, none of us wants to encourage our children to speak to strangers when they are by themselves, but we as adults know many people that our children do not know, and we can comfort the children that our acquaintances are all right to speak to when we are present. Adults sometimes avoid speaking directly to children, often because they assume they will only receive a blank stare from an overly shy child who believes it is unsafe to speak to any adult that he does not know. In the controlled environment of having Mom or Dad present, the child can confidently practice speaking to an adult and learn the art of polite conversation.

Lengthen attention span through listening and comprehension activities. Simply reading stories to a child and asking a few questions as you go will get them more involved in the process. Television programming now changes scenes at least every ten seconds, in order to adapt to the modern viewer’s very short attention span, so we must work on teaching activities that capture and hold a child’s attention. I gave in to the purchase of a video game set when I saw how it had the potential of teaching some valuable skills to my elementary-aged children. (This was the Super Nintendo system with one of the harmless Mario Brothers games.) The obstacle course aspect of the game improved the children’s attention spans, increased their memories (when they made a mistake, the scene started over), improved eye-hand coordination, and taught them anticipation. They had to anticipate what obstacle would come next, and, if an enemy would be coming on-screen soon, where it would come, what it could do, and what skill they would need to conquer that enemy. (I do recommend saving the video games for a reward after required work is done, and limiting the time spent playing the games. I also held veto power over the purchase of any games containing excessive violence or occult elements.)

Improve observation skills by having your child help sort out the toys when putting things away or by playing observation games. “I spy” was my favorite game to play with my grandmother as she did her housework. She would place her thimble somewhere in plain sight, and then call me into the room to begin looking for it. As Grandma continued with her tasks, I searched high and low until I spotted the tiny object. When my cousin was also present, we had to call out “I spy” upon seeing the thimble, teaching us patience while allowing the other person a chance to keep looking. I suspect it was also Grandma’s favorite way of keeping little ones safely occupied while she accomplished a few household chores. Now “I Spy” refers to a series of wonderful photo-books, filled with thousands of miniature objects. I find those just as fascinating as looking for Grandma’s thimble on her massive bookshelves.

Improve memory skills through games such as finding matching pairs from Go Fish cards turned face-down on the table. My own memory is very good, a skill I credit to much time spent in memory-building activities from childhood to the present. When teaching my children to remember past activities (such as where one may have left his shoes), I taught them to “walk backwards in your mind” through all their recent steps to “see” the pictures in their minds of where they had been, what they had done, and what they had seen and heard. It was a great exercise in memory — one that the grandparents began using themselves to find their misplaced eyeglasses!

Improve motor skills through tracing and other writing-readiness activities, using scissors, playing hopscotch, or walking along a 2×4 board on the ground as a beginner’s balance beam. Work on both fine motor skills (small muscle control: finger dexterity) and gross motor skills (large muscle coordination: arms and legs). Better coordination means the child has more physical control over his own actions and more confidence in his own abilities. Offering plenty of opportunities to use their developing skills (such as cutting paper with scissors) will deter children from perfecting those skills in mischievous ways (cutting their own hair, the cat’s whiskers, their clothing, or the fabric on the back side of the sofa).

All of these skills, though very basic, will prepare your child for interaction with a group. They will instill confidence in your child as he sees his progress, teaching him that he can learn new things. Once he has acquired these foundational skills, your child will be more than ready for you to present more formal subjects, such as reading, writing, and calculus.

[For an encouragement booster, see Learning to Walk — Seen as a New Lesson]

Filed Under: Activity Ideas, Auditory Learning, Homeschool How-To's, Kinesthetic Learning, Preschoolers, Visual Learning

Homeschool Gadgets: An Investment in Your Future or a Waste of Money?

March 28, 2005 by Leave a Comment

You are at the educational supplies store or homeschool curriculum fair and see a fancy teaching gadget on display. Yes, it is cute. It may even be on sale, but will it pay for itself in lessons learned or in time saved, or is it destined to become a liability in storage space?

Not every gadget or tool needs to be purchased to teach the subjects you desire your students to learn. Some items can be replicated inexpensively at home from “found” materials — and then discarded Guilt-Free after they have fulfilled their purpose. We made a few with enough care to be able to use them over and over and have kept them for many years. Others can be done without entirely. I once purchased a plastic board covered with tiny pegs that was supposed to illustrate geometric figures when you stretched rubber bands around the pegs. However, only certain shapes could be accurately portrayed, making even my small investment disappointing.

It is also wise to consider storage when purchasing extras for your homeschool. I opted for the world globe printed on a beach ball — perfect roundness was not necessary for us to understand geography, but the deflating capability made storage very easy.

Mail-order catalogs were a great source of ideas for make-it-yourself learning aids. We “borrowed” ideas for items that we would probably not have used more than once. Sometimes just examining the catalog photo and description were enough to illustrate the principle and give my students a basic understanding of the concept. Other times we purchased an item (such as the wooden set of Cuisenaire rods), knowing that it would pay for itself many times over in multiple uses.

I purchased a gadget that held 5 pieces of chalk in evenly spaced wire brackets for drawing parallel lines on a chalkboard. I drew lines for penmanship, musical staffs, and graphing grids for math. I turned my chalkboard into “graph paper” to tame the wayward numbers in long division or multiplication problems: one digit per box clarifies even the poorest handwriting. (My chalk-holder has been passed on to another homeschool family so I cannot prove this, but I think it may also be possible to insert thin white board markers into the wires for use on today’s ubiquitous white boards.)

I made my own geometric shapes (squares, triangles, pentagons, hexagons) out of old file folders for constructing 3-D figures. I made all the shapes to the same dimensions (2″ sides), and the various shapes could be fitted together for very interesting structures. I included an extra 1/4″ tab-strip on each edge, and we used tiny orthodontic rubber bands to link the pieces together, but the pieces could also be glued or taped together for permanence. I saw this idea in a curriculum catalog at a time when we could not spare the money for many extras. My husband had removed a stack of slightly worn file folders from a wastebasket at work, thinking I may be able to use them for something. My oldest student was barely into geometry and angles but got a sneak-peak at how to use compass, protractor, and straight edge to construct our wonderful new learning aids. Both students had great fun assembling 3-D models of geometric solids, which gave them a boost in understanding volume and geometry as those lessons came around.

I purchased inexpensive math manipulatives by buying sugar cubes to use in illustrating volume. We kept them on a jellyroll pan to contain the inevitable crumbs and stacked the cubes to count how many units/rows/layers it took to make a larger block. We also effectively illustrated multiplication and division by grouping the sugar cubes into rows to show 3 rows of 5 sugar cubes was equal to 5 rows of 3 sugar cubes, and both totaled 15 sugar cubes. A few hundred sugar cubes were purchased for a very small price, enabling the children to build perfect mathematical squares and cubes and study the multiplication facts with their hands as well as with their eyes. Numbers on a times-table chart were much more meaningful after they had proved the facts themselves. We worked with the sugar cubes carefully to avoid unnecessary breakage and crumbling, and were able to reuse them many times.

Educational games are a spending temptation for nearly every Mom I know. However, since many of them tend to be rather expensive, exert your self-control and go for the ones that will teach more than one concept. A game that does not have a “fun” element to it will probably not be played with very often, sliding it into the liability category. Try not to allow your game collection to sit idly on the shelf once the age limit or skill level has been passed by your students. Challenge them to create new rules for the game or find new ways to use the game’s equipment to match their new skill levels. Pre-reading games such as Candy Land can be adapted for math skills (see Alternate Methods for Teaching Math for more ideas).

The biggest consideration for buying educational gadgets, reference books, and homeschool materials is: Does this have more than one function? If it is usable for only one thing (especially if that is a very insignificant function), perhaps your hard-earned money would be better spent elsewhere. If the item will be used for multiple tasks over a long period of time, it is probably a wise investment.

Filed Under: Activity Ideas, Curriculum Choices, Homeschool How-To's, Tactile Learning

Involving Dads in Homeschooling

March 23, 2005 by Leave a Comment

Moms often ask how to include their husbands in the homeschooling process. Dad is doing his best to earn the living that makes homeschooling possible, but he also may feel like he is not directly involved with the children’s education. There are many facets of education, and Dad can fit in during the free time he does have. Dad’s time with the children may often be limited, but it is always worth waiting for.

Reading — My husband did not read great quantities of books to our children, but he did read certain books over and over to them. Children know their favorite books by heart and instantly recognize anything added in or left out. His favorite trick was including a lizard that was never in the actual stories. He would be reading along and just say the word “lizard” while turning a page, change a character’s name to Larry the Lizard, or add an entirely new sentence about how the lizard who lived next door came over to play. The children shrieked with delight at every lizard, and lovingly scolded Dad that there was not supposed to be a lizard in that book.

Dads add character voices and sound effects all their own, beyond the bounds of Mom’s repertoire. It may be the deep resonance of Dad’s voice that can be physically felt while snuggled against his chest, but there is something extra-special about sitting in Daddy’s lap for a book.

Sports — My non-sports-nut husband took our kids biking, hiking, sledding, swimming, skating (standard & inline), bowling, and fishing, usually after a long, tiring day at work. He drove them to soccer practice, attended every game, and even helped out as assistant coach for a season. He got down and dirty playing paintball with our teenaged son and other dads and lads. Meanwhile, Mom, whose idea of cutting-edge sports is doing the Sunday crossword puzzle in ink, was very glad to have Dad’s enthusiastic partnership. No matter how hard I have tried, my athletic ability is moot. What I lack in talent and coordination I try to make up in enthusiasm. I would happily hold the family’s accumulated belongings while my husband accompanied the children on every ride the amusement park offered, knowing there was not enough motion-sickness medicine on the planet to get me through the three minutes of torture from a single ride. Without my husband’s participation, our children’s lives would have been sadly idle.

Rough-housing — Dads play horsey; Moms cuddle & kiss boo-boo’s. Children know that Dad will wrestle and toss them into the air and swing them around and around. Dads make every event thrilling just by being Dad. Too many times to count, I have said, “No, you probably shouldn’t do that — it looks dangerous,” only to have my husband grin and say, “Why not? Let’s try it!” I gave in because my husband was there to supervise, participate, or control the situation from getting out of hand. Dad added an element of surprise, a thrill of adventure, and a safety net all at the same time.

Dads teach weekend home improvement and car maintenance, as much through letting Little Brother watch as through actually allowing Bigger Brother help. Our Christmas breaks were often a time for our son to be Dad’s apprentice for painting, wiring the garage, removing wallpaper, or numerous small projects around the house. At age 18 my son readily stepped into the handyman roll at a friend’s apartment, having practiced the basics with Dad and Grandpa from a very young age.

Some homeschooling families are able to share the teaching responsibilities — we know a few Dads who like to teach their children upper level math and science. Other families have found that Dad’s work schedule did not allow him to contribute very often to the actual teaching process, and Mom could adequately cover their academics. Whatever and whenever Dad can participate, his contribution will leave a lasting impact. Dads are exciting — no matter what they do, it becomes an adventure, while Moms teach quietly unexciting homemaking skills. Dads use tools like drills and saws; Moms use rubber spatulas.

Include Dad in your homeschooling at every opportunity. It will be as much of an adventure for him as it is for Mom and the children. Remember, it does not have to involve books to be education.

Filed Under: Auditory Learning, Encouragement for Parents, Family Unity, Homeschool How-To's, Kinesthetic Learning
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