Our homeschooling adventure.

[specsaregood]

specs, you may have mentioned this before but how do you decide the curriculum and how do you teach the choices. Surely you don't know about all the subjects.

We pick them together for the most part.

"Surely you don't know about all the subjects."
--well it is 5th grade, not rocket science. I'm not an expert, but I know enough to find resources and I can learn right beside him. eg: we are both learning piano, and ASL together. He/We chose a curriculum for history (medieval) this year and we are learning that together. The math program he is using is awesome and does most of the teaching/practice work.

I know enough to know what he needs to learn and direct him towards good subjects. And a lot of it is taking his own interests and expanding on them. eg: note-taking that we do every day is him watching a documentary that he chooses (with some guidance) and taking notes. So the subject matter for that changes every day.

 

[hammerhead]

We pick them together for the most part.

"Surely you don't know about all the subjects."
--well it is 5th grade, not rocket science. I'm not an expert, but I know enough to find resources and I can learn right beside him. eg: we are both learning piano, and ASL together. He/We chose a curriculum for history (medieval) this year and we are learning that together. The math program he is using is awesome and does most of the teaching/practice work.

I know enough to know what he needs to learn and direct him towards good subjects. And a lot of it is taking his own interests and expanding on them. eg: note-taking that we do every day is him watching a documentary that he chooses (with some guidance) and taking notes. So the subject matter for that changes every day.

One thing I picked up while taking the construction supervisors classes was that I didn't need to know everything, I only needed to know where to find the answers.

 

[Goldhedge]

because their states/schools DON'T have mask mandates.

but do they wear masks at home school?

skip adding another language for now.

I'd slip in a word as they're learning sign... ex. 'bag', 'bolso' or 'bolsa' (masculine/feminine) in Spanish and whatever 'sign' that is.

You'd be amazed how easy it is for a kid to absorb all that at once.

 

[Goldhedge]

One thing I picked up while taking the construction supervisors classes was that I didn't need to know everything, I only needed to know where to find the answers.

Believe it or not, that's exactly what 4 years of college taught me. Knowing how to do research is the key. If you never went to college and researched and wrote papers on a subject, using a library is sort of a mystery. Not all high schools teach that. College did for me in spades.

These days it's all online and if wikipedia says that G. Edward Griffin is a conspiracy theorist because he exposes how our monetary system was created... it must be factual... never mind that wikipedia is an EDITABLE source.

 

[Fiat Metaler]

There are a lot of pre-packaged curriculum guides that you can get to homeschool. Knowledge of the subject matter should not be a limiting factor. You can learn about these from home school conferences (trade shows with vendors and speakers), message boards and forums, or local support groups and co-ops. Co-ops are more populuar in the middle school years.

As for language instruction, the earlier one starts the better. It can be very advantageous for high school AP credit, college, and a business career. Spanish is a natural choice, but Chinese and Russian are great choices as well, espeicially if you start early enough.

 

[Fiat Metaler]

One I found interesting about homeschooling is that I assumed everyone did it for the same reasons my wife and I did; that could not be further from the truth.

We were part of a Christian homeschooling support group. There were a few families doing it to better emphasize Christian education. Several who could not afford private school. Some did it because the wife wanted somethign to do other than get a job. One family, the husband was a homebuilder, they had built a nice home in an up and coming area of the city only to realize it was zoned for the "wrong" elementary school, and they were homeschooling so their kids wouldn't have to go to school with Mexicans. Some do it because they realize their kid has a learning disability. Not making any of this up. If you go to the home school conferences, you meet an even broader group of people, including a lot of people who are semi-Amish and make their own clothes, etc. I say semi-Amish to mean the level of intensity to which they have dropped out of mainstream society.

Another odd experience we had is Wiccans. Our son was interested in chess and there was a home school co-op in the next county over (in the more rural direction). My wife made friends with many of the parents and she liked the fact that several of them raised their own livestock and had real milk and grass fed beef and butter to sell/barter. Later she found out that most of them practiced Wicca.

 

[specsaregood]

You know your kid is growing up libertarian when you assign him a creative writing project about halloween and in the first paragraph your kid mentions having to pay taxes.

 

[hammerhead]

You know your kid is growing up libertarian when you assign him a creative writing project about halloween and in the first paragraph your kid mentions having to pay taxes.

Teeky should get out of bed and get a job.

 

[specsaregood]

Teeky should get out of bed and get a job.

Hah, that is in the next paragraphs. :)

 

[Fiat Metaler]

You know your kid is growing up libertarian when you assign him a creative writing project about halloween and in the first paragraph your kid mentions having to pay taxes.

Proverbs 22:6

 

[specsaregood]

As I think I've mentioned, one good thing about mask mandates is that its getting an increasing number of people homeschooling.
Where no homeschool group existed just last year, this year is now a group with over 100 families in our general area.
Got a mask-free playtime meetup to attend tomorrow full of homeschoolers.

 

[Fiat Metaler]

I heard someone say the number of homeschoolers has doubled to 5 million