Okay. So now I've pulled my kids out one week after second grade has started. What that means is that I didn't have the previous couple of months to research how I was going to do this! I am such a planner, but I hadn't planned for this. I had practiced and played with the idea of homeschooling, but when my husband wanted to wait another year, that put me into the position of not to 'plan'.
So, how to start. Well, the library became a good place for us to be. And I had the used curriculum that I had bought over the summer to 'play' with. And I joined a support group. In hindsight, it was a beautiful way to begin. Since I am a planner, I would have probably over planned... which I eventually did! But these first few months, sans curriculum, were wonderful. As I look back, our limited curriculum actually allowed us to de-school. The formula for de-schooling is one month per years of institutional schooling. My daughters had attended pre-k, kindergarten and first grade, so three months of de-schooling was appropriate and we had that and more.
I did begin to research curriculum, but was greatly influenced by our success at just living the homeschooling lifestyle as we leaped in. I became an eclectic homeschooler; picking and choosing what seemed fun and interesting. Child led learning was my philosophy, as that's where my daughters led me. Their love of life and learning really chose our path. I used to begin a day asking my daughters "What do you want school to be today?" and they would verbalize a list that was so long, well there wasn't enough hours in a day! How wonderful is that? Can you tell that I LOVED this homeschooling journey?!
I was mostly concerned about teaching math and after much research I chose the Math-u-See program. The program is manipulative based and has videos to teach the concepts. The videos are intended to be watched by the parent and then taught by the parent, but we ended up watching the videos together. This worked well for us through about fifth grade and then, as my daughters began to take over their education, they started to watch the videos on their own and progress at their own individual levels with one more interested in moving through the program than the other. By 9th grade, they were about a year apart in math. You might think that would be significant, but it was the right place for them and I wasn't worried about it. Now that they are in college, it's obvious that those details were not significant. Education is not a race. We all get to where we need to be in our own time.
For other subjects, as I said, I was very eclectic. For reading, writing and english based curriculums, I mostly just read. I read aloud to my girls until there were about 12 years old. I think the last book that I read aloud was the fifth Harry Potter book (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix). I was soooo lucky to have the Harry Potter book series out during our homeschooling life. What fun that was, to anxiously await each new book. Anyway, since we all enjoyed reading the series, when the fifth book came out in 2004, my daughters were 12. We bought the books at midnight, rushed home and I read the first chapter aloud. Then we all rushed to our respective bedrooms to continue reading on our own. What fun memories! Now, I don't want you to think that the only reading we did was aloud. My daughters are voracious readers, so they devoured books on their own, as well as the books we shared aloud.
Our eclectic style brought me to the Charlotte Mason method of educating. My daughters had copy books, nature books, and a book of centuries. I practiced narration and read living books for history and applied short lessons when it seemed necessary. This is a good explanation of Charlotte Mason's methods: Charlotte Mason Methodology
Although I would say that we homeschooled year-round, our life was different according to the seasons. In the fall, we would make an annual trek to our local, large teacher supply store. I would have my daughters wander around and pick out things that interested them, while I looked around for ways to apply what my daughters had led me to teach. It was always a fun trip that we all looked forward to. Did we always use everything we bought? No way! But it was a great start to the fall season.
We tended to stop our routine schooling between Thanksgiving and Christmas, because there were always so many other things to keep us busy during that month: making holiday gifts, cooking and baking, service projects and social gatherings with family and friends.
We started back with our winter routine of schooling in January and kept with that into spring. We didn't just school at home, though. We belonged to an active support group which had many opportunities available, from classes to one-day projects. My daughters are Girl Scouts, and we often incorporated scouting activities into our homeschool life. We also took advantage of our city's parks and recreation department. And we are avid campers, so we usually began camping in the spring, as well.
Summer was more for outside activities, trips, crafts and art, sports, and more camping, of course! I believe that with math and music, if you don't do it, you lose it, so those subjects were pretty much kept up year-round. And of course reading!
Now, if you read my earlier post, you might wonder how we could live such an eclectic lifestyle while working with a charter. I have to say it was because of our E.S. She was true to wanting the most for her students and through our monthly meetings she could see that my girls were always progressing and learning. And I was good at the 'educationese' needed to turn our educational style into the language that the charter needed to record our progress, so it worked for us. I kept a journal next to my bed and I would write in it at night, right before I went to sleep. I would put in it everything we did that day. When it was time for me to fill out my report for the charter, I would refer back to my journal and I always had so much to put in the report! Our life was full of learning in a myriad of ways.
~Debbie in So. Cal.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Friday, January 9, 2009
My Journey into Homeschooling
I heard about homeschooling when my daughters were 4 years old. I had always stayed home with them, so the thought of preschool was not what I was leaning towards, but I had another friend with twins who had her older daughter in a co-op style preschool and just raved about it. I checked it out and found out that because I would have twins in the program, I would be working every-other day of the 2 day a week preschool! That seemed like enough of a parent-involved program for me, so I enrolled my daughters. It ended up being a very nurturing experience, which had everything to do with the preschool teacher, who is still a friend of mine to this day. During my time at the preschool, I met mom who was a friend of another mom in the preschool. She was very creative and hosted a wonderful dress-up Valentine's Day party for all of our 4-yr-old girls. She was eclectic and different and had a heart of gold. She was the first homeschool mom I had ever met.
Kindergarten in our neighborhood was 1/2 day and we got afternoons, which was perfect for our laid back lifestyle. I decided to put my girls into different classes and they were each fortunate to get wonderful teachers. I was room-mom for one, but the doors to the two classrooms were connected, so I was very involved with both classes. Again, we had a nurturing, hands-on experience with no forced reading or pressure. Then, on the first day of the last week of kindergarten, the school had a bomb threat called in on it. I arrived in the afternoon, only to be turned away because of the bomb threat. It was shocking and frightening. I didn't want to send my daughters to school the next day, but there were so many fun things planned for the last week, that I did return the next day and asked the teachers if I could just stay at school the rest of the final week with my daughters. They were fine with that and said that there was lots to do to close up the school year, if I wanted to help, which I did. But the experience put a thorn in my heart about school.
I had been talking to another mom about homeschooling during the year and thought that it might be something that I would do for Junior High and High School, because the look of the kids attending at that age worried me, but I thought elementary school would be harmless. After learning about the "Jonesboro Massacre" in March of '98 and our own very real bomb threat, I was now completely disillusioned about school and very stressed about sending my dear daughters into this mess of institutionalized schooling in our country.
But I decided to hang in there for another year and in first grade, my daughters were, again, in separate classes. One had a wonderful and experienced teacher, but the other got a new teacher that seemed very sweet, but was simultaneously planning her wedding while teaching her fist year. She was nice, but a little distracted. Luckily, my daughter who was in her class was a very independent worker, so she fared well. That was my first experience with a teacher that I was less than happy with, but I wasn't so unhappy or worried that I felt
that I should pull her out. I thought that we'll just get through this year. Then, in April 1999,
the Columbine School Tragedy occurred in Colorado. The town seemed so much like the one I live in. It just felt too close. And I still had memories of our previous year's bomb threat and how helpless I felt with that. My husband was out of town when it occurred and I was on the phone with him, in tears, telling him that I didn't want to send our girls to school the next day. It frightened me to my core, that something like that was possible.
The summer after first grade I attended a local curriculum faire and purchased some used curriculum to 'play' with over the summer. I also purchased a book called "Homeschooling: A Patchwork of Days: Share a Day With 30 Homeschooling Families" and read to my daughters chapters out of that book. It described a day in the life of several different homeschooling families. We had also got to know three homeschooling families. The one I met when my daughters were in pre-school; another girl from Girl Scouts; and another girl whom my daughters were in gymnastics with (who also attended our church). As the school year approached I was feeling confident about homeschooling, but my husband, who is slow to make changes, wanted to try one more year in school. I considered this decision to homeschool a family choice and without his support to give it a try at this point, I went along with his idea to put the girls in for one more year.
Our second grade school year began with another bomb threat on the second day. I was not there for this one, but you can be sure that I was at school the next day talking to the vice-principal. I wanted to know what was the procedure for this type of incident and how this particular incident was handled. After school, I went to the sheriff's department to find out what their procedures were for a bomb threat on a school. None of the answers I received were encouraging.
My daughters attended school on that day, while I stayed on campus discussing the situation with school officials and other parents. The other parents were upset, but just shrugged about what they could do about it. I, on the other hand, was prepared to take my girls out of this school. I decided to find out about inter-district transfers, homeschooling through the local school district, homeschool charters that were available in our area, as well as private independent study programs (ISP) which allowed you to homeschool. While I was investigating our options and waiting to see if my inter-district transfer would go through, my daughters went on independent study from their current school. We basically began homeschooling through our school. In the end, we were offered an inter-district transfer. So, wanting to include my daughters in this decision, I ask them separately, (explaining that their decision wasn't going to be the final decision, but we wanted to know what they thought) if they would want to attend the transfer school or homeschool. One didn't mind which way we went, the other wanted to homeschool. At this point, my husband was allowing my decision to reign. He hadn't investigated the practice of homeschooling enough to be confident about it, but he could tell that I was not going to send our daughters back into that school.
So, our homeschooling journey began on the second week of second grade. I pulled them out and, after interviewing with representatives from several of our options, went with a local charter school. We were blessed with a wonderful ES (Education Specialist, as the charter refers to the teacher that we were to meet with every 20 school days.) She was our ES throughout our charter experience. We followed her through three different charters during our time homeschooling. We left the charter after ninth grade and joined a private ISP. (More about that decision later.) I know that some don't consider belonging to a charter true homeschooling, but it was our path and it worked for us.
~Debbie in So. Cal.
Kindergarten in our neighborhood was 1/2 day and we got afternoons, which was perfect for our laid back lifestyle. I decided to put my girls into different classes and they were each fortunate to get wonderful teachers. I was room-mom for one, but the doors to the two classrooms were connected, so I was very involved with both classes. Again, we had a nurturing, hands-on experience with no forced reading or pressure. Then, on the first day of the last week of kindergarten, the school had a bomb threat called in on it. I arrived in the afternoon, only to be turned away because of the bomb threat. It was shocking and frightening. I didn't want to send my daughters to school the next day, but there were so many fun things planned for the last week, that I did return the next day and asked the teachers if I could just stay at school the rest of the final week with my daughters. They were fine with that and said that there was lots to do to close up the school year, if I wanted to help, which I did. But the experience put a thorn in my heart about school.
I had been talking to another mom about homeschooling during the year and thought that it might be something that I would do for Junior High and High School, because the look of the kids attending at that age worried me, but I thought elementary school would be harmless. After learning about the "Jonesboro Massacre" in March of '98 and our own very real bomb threat, I was now completely disillusioned about school and very stressed about sending my dear daughters into this mess of institutionalized schooling in our country.
The summer after first grade I attended a local curriculum faire and purchased some used curriculum to 'play' with over the summer. I also purchased a book called "Homeschooling: A Patchwork of Days: Share a Day With 30 Homeschooling Families" and read to my daughters chapters out of that book. It described a day in the life of several different homeschooling families. We had also got to know three homeschooling families. The one I met when my daughters were in pre-school; another girl from Girl Scouts; and another girl whom my daughters were in gymnastics with (who also attended our church). As the school year approached I was feeling confident about homeschooling, but my husband, who is slow to make changes, wanted to try one more year in school. I considered this decision to homeschool a family choice and without his support to give it a try at this point, I went along with his idea to put the girls in for one more year.
Our second grade school year began with another bomb threat on the second day. I was not there for this one, but you can be sure that I was at school the next day talking to the vice-principal. I wanted to know what was the procedure for this type of incident and how this particular incident was handled. After school, I went to the sheriff's department to find out what their procedures were for a bomb threat on a school. None of the answers I received were encouraging.
My daughters attended school on that day, while I stayed on campus discussing the situation with school officials and other parents. The other parents were upset, but just shrugged about what they could do about it. I, on the other hand, was prepared to take my girls out of this school. I decided to find out about inter-district transfers, homeschooling through the local school district, homeschool charters that were available in our area, as well as private independent study programs (ISP) which allowed you to homeschool. While I was investigating our options and waiting to see if my inter-district transfer would go through, my daughters went on independent study from their current school. We basically began homeschooling through our school. In the end, we were offered an inter-district transfer. So, wanting to include my daughters in this decision, I ask them separately, (explaining that their decision wasn't going to be the final decision, but we wanted to know what they thought) if they would want to attend the transfer school or homeschool. One didn't mind which way we went, the other wanted to homeschool. At this point, my husband was allowing my decision to reign. He hadn't investigated the practice of homeschooling enough to be confident about it, but he could tell that I was not going to send our daughters back into that school.
~Debbie in So. Cal.
My Story
After working in the television industry for 15 years, I got married and was blessed with identical twin girls in May of 1992.
My husband and I were enjoying being parents and tried for a few years to have more children, but it was not to be. I was plagued with medical problems and so we were set as a family.
I stayed home with my daughters and enjoyed being a mother I continued doing things on my own, too. I edited my Mothers of Twins Club newsletter and started a website or them. From that first website, I got work creating other websites and it became a small side job that I could do from home. I also made resumes for people and eventually took on a Mary Kay Cosmetics & Skin Care business, which I still have today. I was determined to be able to stay home and raise our daughters.
Having other interests also allowed me the ability to see things completed. One thing I noticed about being a stay-at-home-mom (SAHM) is that you don't get to see things to fruition very often. IE: you are never done raising your kids, the laundry is never completely done, the kitchen is never completely clean, there is always shopping to do, the whole house is never clean at the same time, etc.
I enjoyed having things that I could see through to their fruition, like the newsletter I edited. I could begin working on it and I could finish it and hold it in my hands. The same with the resumes that I made.
It was also very different for me to be a SAHM. I had worked in a male dominated career (television) for 15 years and SAHM is definitely a female dominated industry! I had to learn to be around women. I really enjoyed how women networked! They could get anything done! The coordination of these SAHMs was like a well oiled machine. Anything that would happen in the lives of these SAHMs would be able to be managed by the network of SAHMs. Hospitalizations, new births, car problems, babysitting issues, natural disasters, family deaths... all were handled in a beautiful orchestration of help among SAHMs.
The one issue I had working in this network of SAHMs was that women, when working together, can be a little gossipy. I wasn't used to that and it really bothered me. I handled some of it head on, directly speaking to the gossiper, but mostly I learned to just not participate and to 'let go, let God'.
Many of the friends I made when I became a SAHM are still my friends today. It's wonderful to see my daughters interact with the children of these friends as adults now, knowing that they have known each other since infancy. I think it's nice for them, too, to be so grounded in their community, even though some have moved away, they have remained connected.
To have friends whom they have known so long. I think it doesn't happen very often anymore, in our world today.
~Debbie in So. Cal.
It was also very different for me to be a SAHM. I had worked in a male dominated career (television) for 15 years and SAHM is definitely a female dominated industry! I had to learn to be around women. I really enjoyed how women networked! They could get anything done! The coordination of these SAHMs was like a well oiled machine. Anything that would happen in the lives of these SAHMs would be able to be managed by the network of SAHMs. Hospitalizations, new births, car problems, babysitting issues, natural disasters, family deaths... all were handled in a beautiful orchestration of help among SAHMs.
The one issue I had working in this network of SAHMs was that women, when working together, can be a little gossipy. I wasn't used to that and it really bothered me. I handled some of it head on, directly speaking to the gossiper, but mostly I learned to just not participate and to 'let go, let God'.
Many of the friends I made when I became a SAHM are still my friends today. It's wonderful to see my daughters interact with the children of these friends as adults now, knowing that they have known each other since infancy. I think it's nice for them, too, to be so grounded in their community, even though some have moved away, they have remained connected.
~Debbie in So. Cal.
Introduction
Hi,
My retirement from homeschooling kind of snuck up on me. Kind of like when I was finished breastfeeding. That might sound odd, so let me explain: When I nursed my twin daughters, the last nursing that they were doing was the morning one, and one day I realized that it seemed to be more my routine than their need, so, during the day, I decided that I wouldn't nurse the next morning and see what happened. Well... they didn't even notice! I guess they were done! It was sad for me when I realized that the previous day was my last nursing and I didn't 'savor' the moment because I didn't realize it was my last nursing. But, life went on and would prove to hold many wonderful moments for us.
My homeschooling retirement was similar because I didn't realize that I was done until after it was over. My daughters kept taking more and more classes through our local community college and I was teaching less and less at home. In the fall of '07 I taught Economics to my daughters and a few of their friends, with the intention of teaching Government in the spring of '08. Then, my daughters decided to take Political Science in college for the spring of '08, so I didn't teach. I then realized that the Economics class that I taught was the last 'homeschool' teaching that I was to do in our homeschool journey. (Now, we all know as a mother, you are never done teaching, but I was done homeschooling.)
It took me until June '08 to realize that I was just kind of standing around waiting for life to happen. I was still a chauffeur, as my daughters would not be getting their driver's license until July, but I could tell that once that happened, I was really going to be standing around! So I had some decisions to make.
But, before I get into where I am now, I feel that I need to share how I got here.
~Debbie in So. Cal.
My retirement from homeschooling kind of snuck up on me. Kind of like when I was finished breastfeeding. That might sound odd, so let me explain: When I nursed my twin daughters, the last nursing that they were doing was the morning one, and one day I realized that it seemed to be more my routine than their need, so, during the day, I decided that I wouldn't nurse the next morning and see what happened. Well... they didn't even notice! I guess they were done! It was sad for me when I realized that the previous day was my last nursing and I didn't 'savor' the moment because I didn't realize it was my last nursing. But, life went on and would prove to hold many wonderful moments for us.
It took me until June '08 to realize that I was just kind of standing around waiting for life to happen. I was still a chauffeur, as my daughters would not be getting their driver's license until July, but I could tell that once that happened, I was really going to be standing around! So I had some decisions to make.
But, before I get into where I am now, I feel that I need to share how I got here.
~Debbie in So. Cal.
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