Adventures in Homeschooling :)

Can you believe I actually remembered to do another blog post??! Yay!!

SHOULD I OR SHOULDN'T I?
So, about a year ago we started thinking about homeschooling. We made it a reality this school year, for our daughter Leah. When I was starting to think about homeschooling I did a lot of reading. A great book that a friend recommended to me is Cathy Duffy's "100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum".

I read a lot of great books, but this was the one that helped me get started the most by far.

WHERE SHOULD I BEGIN??

That is exactly what this book answered for me and why it was so helpful. It helps you write a homeschool mission--what it is you really want to accomplish--based on your own priorities. You can then make yearly goals for each child. It  you opens the door for you to discover what learning styles work best for you, and for each of your children. It also goes on to explain the best way to incorporate those learning styles into school.

Lastly--and this is the best part--Cathy suggests curriculums for purchase for each subject that would work best for each learning style. So you can find out how your child learns, and what curriculum would work best for them! That is what I loved the most.

MY HOMESCHOOL

I am so glad that I had all of those many months to read and plan! I would not have been as prepared as I was otherwise. Ultimately, I determined I like writing my own curriculums for everything except for language arts. (It's only 1st grade after all.) And it is also a lot less expensive. I planned out topics (unit studies) for each month of our year. Then I based science and history, literature, and music, around them the best I could. Day-by-day I plan out a month in advance. I look ahead at the end of one week to see what supplies I might need the next week.

FLEXIBILITY

I suck at flexibility. It is so not my forte. I like to stick to a schedule. So, of course, before beginning HS I wrote out a wonderful schedule. It went something like this:

9:00 Reading
5 minute break
9:30 Math
10:00 15 minute break
 etc. etc.

Well, before the school year began I was talking to a friend and opted out the times, but kept the linear schedule. I was still expecting to have to change things in practice, which is easier said than done.

THE FIRST FEW WEEKS

Oh my gosh. Each day was taking 6 hours to do school. Insane.

(Homeschool should only take about 3). It was frustrating to me and to Leah. Lucky for me, my mom has a friend who homeschooled. She suggested that I did not have to do every subject (or even every main subject) everyday. So that brought it down to 2-3 hours. What a relief! The only thing we do every single day is reading. Math is MWF. Language Arts in between. So much better.

LETTING GO OF SOCIAL "NORMS"

Society is full of them.

The ones I had to break off of recently were so hard for me to do! Mostly because I generally agree with them. Leah does school best at night. We start at 7 or 8pm. Go until 9 or 10pm. I've recently had to let go of the early bedtime for kids norm. I mean, I have been putting Leah to bed at 9pm for two years now. For the last year she would stay wide awake in her room until 10/10:30 no matter what we did (looking at books, playing with toys in room, make her lay still). Drove me crazy at night!

 The last couple of weeks I have decided to let her be. She can now stay up quietly and play with toys etc. out of her room, as long as she doesn't bother me (I need me time at night). She now goes to bed at 10-10:30. (I don't know about you, but if I hear about a 6 year-old that does that I would think "what??" not anymore...) Major difference. She falls asleep right away. There is no struggle between us. We are both happy. DO NOT BE AFRAID TO DO WHAT WORKS FOR YOU/YOUR CHILD! Lesson learned. My nights are a lot more like this now:

Only, I'm not quite that hot.

Those are my lessons in homeschool in the past month of so. Many, MANY more to come, I'm sure :) Thanks for reading!

Kochan Family