X-rays, broken bones and other calamaties.

We've had a lot of life happen in the years since we've been homeschooling.  There have been multiple broken bones, including my son's ankle for which he had to have surgery and be non-weight-bearing for 14 weeks.  (That's 3 1/2 months!!!)  We've also home schooled through the flu, strep throat, multiple unnamed viruses, my surgery, my son's hospitalization when he passed out that time and also my Dad's illness and subsequent death.  (Most of this was in 2010, which was NOT my best year!)  We've made it.  We've had to make decisions at times on whether to take a break and have a shorter summer and whether or not to postpone things they are all working on together when one child is sick, or just to excuse that child and make the others continue.   I do not give the kids very many excused days that they don't have to make up, maybe 1 or 2 per year.  When I am sick, sometimes Dad takes over and sometimes the kids just do what they can on their own.  As they've gotten older, the amount of things that they can do on their own has come to mean almost everything.  They are very much self-directed learners now.  I give them a list and they do it.  I could probably be replaced with one of those medication reminder clocks that my mom has, just set it to say "Do your schoolwork!" about every 2 hours! 

Worry.

Worry is a big one for all parents.  We all worry that we are giving our kids what they need.  When you add to the bundle the fact that as a homeschooling family you are also responsible for their education, it can get kind of scary.  Just remember, you can always get help.  You can buy a curriculum that is on DVD or computer.  You can homeschool through a school that provides the curriculum for you.  You can ask another homeschooling mom to teach your child a skill you don't have or take classes like we do through 4H or through scouting.   You can hire a tutor or join a co-op.  With homeschooling, as I've mentioned before, the possibilities are endless.  The trick is finding time to actually stay home sometimes.  :-P

Seriously, though, we do worry that our kids will not be able to cope with "real life" (although what is this, a dress rehearsal?) or that they won't be able to get along with others or stick with things and get them done or speak a foreign language, or know to not end a sentence with a preposition or where to put in the commas or ever meet anyone that they can fall in love with or that they will meet someone ... but these concerns are part of parenting, part of life and they'll be fine.  Really.

Violence/bullying, etc.

I have had people tell me that they don't think my kids will be able to withstand bullying when they become adults because they are not undergoing any bullying now.  I can't see into the future of course, but I think having a strong sense of self and a good idea about how people should be treated will help them.  I don't really think that adults run into problems with bullying the way kids do.  If you are on a job and someone hits you or threatens you, this is dealt with in a different way that it is for a kid at school where it is thought of as normal.  Charges may be filed.  People may be fired from their jobs for harassment.  Restraining orders can be placed.  If you are harassed at a job and you can't get it stopped through the normal channels, you can quit the job.  Kids just can't quit school without their parents permission and quite often feel trapped and hopeless.  Once when my son was being treated for his broken ankle, one of the nurses in the office asked me a bunch of questions about homeschooling.  It seems that her daughter had attempted suicide due to bullying and now was being homeschooled.  I helped her all I could.  I don't know for sure if the kids are missing out on some valuable toughening-up experiences, but I don't think so. 

Ummm.

Well this is awkward.  I don't have anything to say that starts with the letter U for my ABCs of homeschooling series of posts.   In my note to myself, several weeks ago when I first had this idea for blog posts, I wrote "unschooling or unsocialized".  Really though, I don't unschool and I don't know enough about it to write a post about it.  It seems like it would be fun and probably its a lot like what we do in the summer, but that's all I have to say.  As for the topic "unsocialized", I've already discussed that I don't think kids need to go somewhere to be taught social manners and mores by their age-mates.  I think families do a better job of teaching kids how to behave than other kids do.  Or is that just me?

Anyway, I'll finish this kind of non-post with a brief glimpse into our summer. We are exercising 2 hours a day every day, except yesterday (but I feel that everyone deserves a break sometimes!) and we are going to summer reading, going to the city pool, doing skate nights, picking blackberries, playing video games, finishing the book I'm writing for what must be the 50th time,  watching The Amazing Race from Netflix which we've never seen before, getting exhibits ready for the county fair which starts this week and we are going to see Harry Potter 7.5 today.  We have sent in our Letter of Intent to Homeschool for this next year and so soon, we need to start giving what we are going to do this year some thought!

Testing.

In Kentucky, we are not required to do any standardized testing, but a lot of us choose to test, at least occasionally.  I can see that my kids are progressing, but every now and then I like to use some kind of assessment, just to make sure.  The state of Texas releases their previous year's achievement tests for free online at this site and I have used those.  There are also some tests that you can order.  http://www.bjupress.com/testing/stanford.php, http://www.bjupress.com/testing/iowa.php, http://www.setontesting.com/.  Homeschoolers can take the SAT test and the ACT test.   Homeschooled students can also take the Clep tests, AP tests and Dantes Tests and get college credit before they are even college aged.

 I was just looking at my past posts on my blog and realized that there are 2 S's in my alphabet ... now everyone is going to wonder if I am qualified to teach anyone anything ... LoL.  

Strange?

Are homeschoolers strange and is homeschooling as a practice strange to the human race as a whole?.  You'd think so if you were judging by the way people sometimes look at me when I say I homeschool.  The truth is, that government run schooling has just been done for the last couple hundred years and at first it was not compulsory.  Parents educated their children at home and if there was a free public school in their area, the parents decided whether to send their kids or not.  I remember reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder book, Farmer Boy and wondering at how few days he actually attended school.  The parents were able to decide if something was important enough to miss school for, or if he'd learn more at home or if they just needed him for farm work that day.  My point is that people have homeschooled their children since the dawn of time and organized education is the newcomer, not homeschooling.  Whether we are strange or not, I'll leave that up to you.  :-P

School at home versus homeschooling.

So, school at home and homeschooling, aren't those exactly the same thing?  Well, I guess yes and no.  When I say "school at home" I do have a different mental image than I do when I speak of homeschooling (although this may just be me.  :-P).  With 'school at home' the picture that comes into my mind is the family getting up early, eating breakfast, and then switching into school mode, where mom is the teacher and the kids are sitting and doing schoolwork for 6 hours, then switching back into home mode.   With homeschooling, it's a lifestyle and schooling is done at the family's convenience (within reason) not getting up earlier than normal and doing lessons in a relaxed way.  I came home one day to find my daughter lying on the couch in a ray of sunshine doing her math lesson.  This is what I think of when I think of homeschooling.  Also, science experiments in the kitchen and the backyard, watching DVDs together and discussing them, reading books together, playing games, going to the library, doing art, reading or hearing about things and immediately going to look them up because we want to know about them.  It's a family lifestyle now.  I am sure going to miss it in 5 years when we are done.

Addenda:  ;De pointed out that they do school at home and it got me to thinking.  I realize that I sounded kind of critical of this way of doing things and really, I don't mean to be critical.  I only meant to say it's not our method.  The point of this post should have been that you can do homeschooling any old way you want and if school at home works better for your family then choose that way and if lying on the couch works better, then do that.  The wonderful-est part of homeschooling is the flexibility.  Some families need more structure than ours does.  Our family would drive other people crazy with our procrastinating (actually we drive each other crazy with that too) and with sometimes the school-work not being done until bedtime!  So structure, no structure or somewhere in the middle --- you get to choose!

Reading

If you start homeschooling at the beginning of your child's academic career then you will be the one teaching your child to read.  This is a bit scary for many parents, including me.  When we started homeschooling, our kids were in the first, third and sixth grades and the first grader had not yet learned to read.   A lot of people we knew had success with this book, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  I personally tried various things, phonics programs, etc, but had the final breakthrough with him with the Leapfrog videos and illustrated sight words cards pictured above).  Now we are faced with the issue that at 13 he can read very well, but can't spell very well at all, so we will probably be using resources from this site Dianne Craft.   For my daughter we have used Sequential Spelling for several years and now her spelling is really good.  My oldest came out of public school reading and spelling very well so we didn't really have to address much of this with him.   One of the more difficult things, I think, is to bring up a child who loves reading because reading is so good for the brain.  We've done read alouds for years and are still doing them and I think that helps too, as well as frequent trips the the library.  A lot of times we go to town and my youngest will walk through stores with me and will have a book in front of his face, reading the whole time.  People will ask me how I got him reading voluntarily and I don't know what to say.  Sometimes I just say "I homeschool him."  other times I just shrug.  My whole philosophy of education is just too long to discuss at the Walmart, you know?