Home*School*Home: Encounter at the Library

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Encounter at the Library

The kids and I were at the library, checking out a few Hank the Cowdog books and The Homeschooling Handbook and Homeschooling For Success. A lady who was checking out her books beside me and out of the blue, she turned and looked at me and said "Keep homeschooling! Make sure they have plenty of opportunities to do things outside the home too, but keep homeschooling! It's worth it." I talked to her for a few minutes, she'd homeschooled all of her kids and was a "retired' homeschooler. One of the pioneers, I guess. Anyway, I thought it was kind of cool. A little advice from someone who has "been there, done that."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...: Oh wow, Dana, those early homeschoolers who did that in the early days are heroines in my eyes! Too cool that you got to brush shoulders with one!!!; 10:10 AM
Fatcat said...: I know. I wish I'd had a longer time to talk to her, but the library was packed and there were people waiting for us to check out.; 10:35 PM

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Homeschooling Advice.

1. Try it. You might enjoy it. It might change your life. It might not be your thing, but you won't know if you don't ever try.

2. Find out what your state (or country) requires, the bare minimum. Do this and then with the rest of it, have fun with it. It doesn't have to be all serious and it doesn't have to look like the inside of a classroom. You're at home. Relax. Play. Read. Learn together. Enjoy your kids. They grow up way too fast.

3. Don't let a written curriculum boss you around. If it works, great. If it's not working for you, throw it out. If only parts of it work, use those and throw the rest out. It's not the boss of you. When shopping for curriculum, read reviews. Try to go somewhere where you can actually hold the book in your hands and look through it. Print out a sample day or week and try and implement it or borrow it before buying. It's kind of hit and miss buying books without being able to see them.

4. Find a homeschool support group. Or two. If you can't find one in real life, find one online. Get support where ever you can.

5. Make a mess now and then. Go outside and put some mentos in coke. Make alka-seltzer rockets. Make some great art. Make a timeline and a map. Grow some borax crystals. Use levers to lift things. Make a trebuchet out of whatever you can find around the house.

6. Go on as many field trips as you can.

The point of this blog.

"there is a theme, if you read, you'll get a growing conviction that homeschooling is a lifestyle that is worthwhile, that it is extremely good for kids and families, that it promotes bonding, is a personalized education that is superior to what you can get anywhere else for your kids, is fun and can be done even if you have a 400 track mind, no math skills (thankfully my husband does though), through working, job changes, bad hair days, home remodeling, deaths, illness, surgery, broken bones and various other things and it actually makes dealing with these things easier, not harder, than it was when we were in the public schools, because homeschooling is so incredibly flexible. That's the point I've been trying to make for the last 5 years or so."

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Encounter at the Library

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The point of this blog.

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