Home Education Week – Profiling Home Educators Monday

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Describe yourself, your family or one of your children. What is it like to be home educated in your family? What is “normal” for you?

I am a 37 year old New Zealander. I have 2 sons – a 2 year old whom is full of mischief and always keeps us smiling and I have a 12 year old home schooler. We only started home schooling this year (although I have done it before in the past with my estranged daughter)

I have a wonderfully supportive partner whose a computer techie

In our home school we do academic work in the mornings. Our home school day starts with bible study of some sort at the moment we are reading through a book that describes what life was like growing up in Jesus’ day. Then My home schooler and I read to each other. He reads a book that his private tutor whom he sees on a Tuesday afternoon gives him. I read a story book that we both have chosen. I have just finished Treasure Island.

Then we practice phonics. I have found over the years that my Home Schooler needs to practice these often to know them well. Then we do writing, this is a hard thing for my Home Schooler whom has learning difficulties. We take turns writing a sentence with this.

Next after a break we do English we study a book we have read. Sometimes this incorporates other subjects such as history like we are doing at the moment when we are following a study I found on line about Treasure Island. Or it may incorporate science when we study about the parrots the pirates kept as pets.

Then after another short break we do maths. We have played around with different sources for our maths curriculum. Recently I found Rainforest Maths online and I quite like it.

I consider my approach to teaching a bit eclectic in that I gather my resources from all over the place, including the internet. I have said it before and I will probably say it again. The internet is a wonderful place for finding online free resources for our home schooling that I wish had been available to me my first round of home schooling 6 years ago.

After lunch we do more hands on and fun subjects like cooking, science, ball handling skills, art and music. We only do one or two of these subjects per afternoon.

We go swimming on a Friday afternoon. I love finishing the schooling week this way. Sometimes there are other home schoolers at the pools, sometimes not. Either way its a nice family time.

As well as these above subjects My Home schooler also goes to sea scouts which he loves and it has been a place where he has been able to get involved in some great community activities. He goes scroll sawing twice a month with my partner. He attends youth group and church. He also helps out at the playgroup his little brother goes to on a Tuesday morning. He has become a valued helper there.

Home Education Week – Sunday’s topic is Looking Back.

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Topic questions

Share your personal history…before you were a home educator. What was life like? Think about things you miss and things you and your family have gained.

We have only started home schooling again (I home schooled 6 years ago for 2.5 years with my older daughter)  this year. Last year I was a stay at home mum faced with the prospect of going back to work.  Between home schooling my daughter and now my son I went to teachers college and got my bachelor in early childhood education.    So I was faced with a tough (in some ways) decision to go back to work.  I didnt want to.  I liked being at home with my toddler.  I didnt want to miss this time with him.  I also started really listening to the teachers around me.  They had been telling me for some years that he needed one on one.  My son has several learning needs.  He learns better on a one to one basis.  I could see he wasnt coping at school.  I could see this was only going to get worse when he went to high school in (at that time) a mere year or so.  He also started getting into trouble at school too.  He is easily influenced.  I knew I had no choice if I didnt take him out of public schooling it would spell an awful future for him and for us.

Things I miss?

I dont know if I miss much.  Maybe a little bit of time to myself.  Although my partner is good at taking the boys out sometimes.  Also I take time for myself when my home schooler goes to his private tutor once a week.

I also feel we have gained much.  I am teaching, something I have always wanted to do.   I get to still do activities like play group that I attend with my toddler I wouldnt be able to do that had I gone out to work.  I am now much more able to have a hands on approach in my home schoolers learning.  I know that by home schooling him he is learning much more than he would have at school.  One of the biggest advantages to home school for us is that he can learn at his own pace.  I LOVE it when he now becomes motivated to learn and engage in his own learning.  I LOVE it when supportive people say to me that they can see how much happier he is and that home schooling suits him.

My Thoughts

This week’s Friday Meme at The Heart of the Matter is to share our thoughts on the Quote: “Clearly there is an appropriate kind of sheltering. When those who are opposed to homeschooling accuse me of sheltering my children, my reply is always, ‘What are you going to accuse me of next, feeding and clothing them?” ~ R.C. Sproul Jr.

I have never been accused of sheltering my son. I have been told I cant do this successfully however. Im proving those people wrong I believe.

The way I look at it Im not sheltering My Home Schooler Im setting him up for the rest of his life. Faced with the prospect of what it would be like for him to go to high school next year I think I have every right to shelter or as the online dictionary I consulted put it, protect, my son from the peer pressure that is in high schools. I also know my son best as all mothers do. I firmly believe that if I send My Home Schooler to high school he would end up in trouble with the police. With this prospect is it any wonder that I have chosen to home school and therefore in the eyes of some shelter him? Wouldnt you do the same if you could? Or would you simply allow this to happen to your child.

My Home schooler is easily influenced and as I have already found others will put these type of children into positions where they end up the ones in trouble. Through home schooling I can teach him right from wrong in time and he can learn at his own pace. For him this will take time. He has several learning needs. If he were to go to high school there wouldnt be time to spend this invaluable time with him. I am after all investing my time in him for the benefit of the rest of his life.

Dont get me wrong however, I am not cutting him off from the rest of the world nor from other children his own age.  He attends sea scouts, youth group and Sunday school.  At these places he does mix with high schoolers however the difference and its a big one I feel is that at these places the structure and the environment is better manned (or womaned ) than high school school yards are.  At these places how all the children are behaving is governed.

week 9 Monday

Bible study

reading

phonics

writing

 

English- Treasure Island Unit Study – Writing labeled part of a boat, reading comprehension – learning about a parrot (this also contents to Science)

Socializing with a friend of the family who came over for morning tea

Maths - addition, subtraction, multiplication, mass weighting, calendar months and looking at times on a calendar starting using RAINFOREST MATHS program

diorama – art stonehenge in the making

not finished but getting there

Science finished parrot study from this morning including looking at some UTUBE videos about the Kea and Kakapo

and started studying Vegetables started studying in Simply Science Level 4 by RIC Publications