A hectic, urban family's homeschooling journey

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Our homeschooling life

Every family's homeschooling experience is different, and seeing how different families approach it gives you confidence that you can do it, too. So I wanted to share my experiences of how we integrate our busy working life with our very relaxed homeschooling style. Welcome to our world.

(the photo here features my boys holding one of the squashes we grew in our garden in '08)

Contents at a Glance

I used to be a work-at-home homeschooling mom . . .
THIS WEEK'S HOT LINK!
The latest from our homeschooling blog

The power of conversation
My boys' latest Lego creations
Reading instruction and school

more...

I used to be a work-at-home homeschooling mom . . .

until I had to become a take-your-kids-to-work homeschooling mom

We miss the days when we were at home most of the time, but life is life. I work part time for my church and for the private school our church runs. My boys (right now they're 10 and 7) come with me. My challenge is to help and guide them through their day and be productive at my job at the same time. I never would have imagined that I could spend all day with my children and still wonder whether they were getting enough quality time.

But, miracle of miracles, I see them growing and learning. It's beautiful.

THIS WEEK'S HOT LINK!

JG is practicing his reading skills using an internet classic:
The Evil Overlord List

The latest from our homeschooling blog

I'm blogging now to keep some record of the things we discuss and learn. I think it's partly to reassure myself.

Fetching RSS feed... please stand by

The power of conversation

A lot of the most powerful learning my kids have experienced came from spontaneous conversations with me. No book, no lesson plan. They wanted to know something, so they asked me. Or we saw something in the course of our day that sparked a deep discussion.

This is the kind of learning that's impossible in a school setting. Even the best teacher can't give that kind of attention to 30 students at once. And nothing boosts your confidence as a parent like realizing what a wealth of knowledge you have to share with your child, and how eager your child is to learn.

And you can educate your children while you drive! How cool is that?

My boys' latest Lego creations

Reading instruction and school

One of the things that homeschooling (especially unschooling) parents find is that, if left to their own devices, different children will learn to read at very different ages. I know a family whose son didn't learn to read until he was nine years old. By the time I met them, the boy was twelve and was reading science fiction novels.

To most parents of schoolchildren, the thought of a fourth-grader being unable to read would make them pretty frantic. It is taken for granted in school that learning to read is the first order of business.

When we started into our homeschooling adventure, I'd had the same assumption. First, my child would learn to read. Then he would be able to learn other things. I've figured out now that it doesn't naturally go that way.

JG, at the age of four or so, learned the principles of phonics. By the time he was five and six he was and doing well with basic three-letter and four-letter words. But he found it difficult to buckle down with a long word and read it syllable by syllable. I come from a family of very early readers (I learned when I was three years old, both of my brothers were two). One of my brothers expressed concern about JG's "slow progress."

But was his overall learning limited to monosyllabic words? No way! He was learning to identify trees we saw in our neighborhood. He knew the difference between nocturnal and diurnal animals, between insects and arachnids, and between carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores (and those were the terms he used to describe them). We would talk about history and geography, theology and ethics, money management, the three states of matter (solid, liquid, gas), and how the toilet and the washing machine work.

Now JG is ten, and he has a lot more reading skill, but he's still not the total reading whiz that my brothers and I were. Reading has opened up new avenues of learning for him, but he is primarily an auditory and kinesthetic learner. And everyone in the family is impressed with his intelligence and comfortable with his educational progress. BT is on the learning curve now with his reading, and I'm not worried about how he's doing.

This points up one of the obvious differences between home education and institutional schooling -- the amount of personal attention a homeschooled child receives from his "teacher." I can give him information verbally based on the interests he shows, he can ask endless questions, and I can assess what he has learned from listening to his statements and questions. A teacher who is instructing 30 students can't sit down with each one and teach or assess them through long conversations. That's why it's so crucial in schools that reading and writing be taught first. Lacking the opportunity for one-on-one time with the teacher, the children need to get their information from a book or worksheet, then read questions about it and write the answers on a test that will be graded later. A student who struggles with reading (like my husband, who is dyslexic and to this day will not read anything unless he's forced to) will have a hard time learning anything else. No history, no science, nothing else will be learned effectively as long as the reading is giving them a problem.

We love our video club

Videos are an important part of their learning. JG has made a lot of progress in his reading, but he still has some dyslexic-type tendencies, so it would be tiresome for him if he had to learn absolutely everything from books.

We've had a membership with A+ Educational Videos for at least a couple of years (I don't remember the exact length of time). A+ Videos offers the same kind of arrangement as Netflix (pay a monthly fee, keep the videos as long as you like), but ALL of their videos are educational. They have a large inventory of titles covering many subjects. My boys are mainly drawn to the science videos, but they check out other subjects as well.

Here are the titles that are currently in their request queue (August 2009):

Multiplication - Math For Children Series

Drawing Excitement with Thomas Kinkade

All About America

123's Discovering Numbers and Counting - Winnie the Pooh

Measurement - Math For Children Series

JG's videos recommendations

I asked JG what his favorite educational videos are, and he gave me the following titles. We almost never buy videos, we usually rent them:

Bill Nye the Science Guy: Atmosphere Classroom Edition [Interactive DVD]

They've watched LOTS of Bill Nye videos. JG said that Atmosphere and Deserts were the best ones.

Amazon Price: $29.99 (as of 12/27/2009)

Bill Nye the Science Guy: Deserts Classroom Edition [Interactive DVD]

Amazon Price: $29.99 (as of 12/27/2009)

Schoolhouse Rock: Multiplication Classroom Edition [Interactive DVD]

Amazon Price: $26.99 (as of 12/27/2009)

Schoolhouse Rock: Science Classroom Edition [Interactive DVD]

Amazon Price: $29.99 (as of 12/27/2009)

What my kids do while I'm at work

So, like I said, I bring my children with me when I'm working at the church office or the school office. Here are some of the things they do:

WORK - JG (age 10) is basically a school employee. He does filing, takes messages to the teachers, sells pencils in the office, and he understands the error messages on the copy machine better than I do. Next, I'll be teaching him how to fax. He has also helped out in the classroom at times, reading to the kindergartners or coaching young students in their reading or math. He gets paid for his work. BT (age 6) does a little bit of message-carrying and cleanup in the office and gets a little bit of pay as well.

HOMESCHOOL - Sometimes they will bring educational videos or software from home and use them on the church or school computers or the DVD player.

PLAY - At the church, they have unstructured play with each other. At the school, they can either have the playground to themselves when class is in session or play with the schoolkids during their recess times. JG is Bakugan-playing buddies with one kid in particular.

EAT LOQUATS - During loquat season (springtime) they'll spend large parts of their day at the tree that's on the church grounds.

BABYSIT THEIR COUSINS - My brother has three children under the age of 4 who sometimes accompany him to work as well. :-)

My other homeschooling pages on Squidoo

SquidooSchooling

I just wanted to share some of the Squidoo lenses I've seen that make great educational resources. They're not necessarily written with the intention of being used in homeschooling, but they have great information that could be of interest to homesch...

Math instruction lenses

These are lenses I've found around that give math instruction, and I've collected them into one place. There are lots of other Squidoo lenses as well that link to great math resources, but for this lensography I looked for lenses that have the instr...

My NOT Back to School page!

This is my entry for our Team One "Back to School" lens challenge. My boys and I are celebrating the fact that they're NOT going back to school! We're going to tell you some of the reasons why we love homeschooling. (photos of JG's and BT's latest...

Our homeschooling friends

These are homeschoolers' groups that we hang out with. JG and BT are each other's best friends, but they also have a wealth of friends from park days and church and even from the school where I work!

Both of these homeschooling groups include kids of all ages, from preschool through teenage. I really love the fact that my kids have the opportunity to socialize outside of their own age group. Both groups are also very geographically diverse.

DragonTree: This is a play-oriented group that meets at El Dorado Park in Long Beach. The name of the group comes from an oddly-shaped tree that the kids love to play on.
Rainbow Kids: This is a field-trip and activity-oriented group. Most of the activities are in Northern Orange County.

Some of Mommy's favorite things

Listen and Learn With Phonics Reading Program/Kit

by: Dorothy Taft Watson

A family classic. This is how my brothers and I learned to read (at very young ages). My kids also use it and enjoy it.

Amazon Price: (as of 12/27/2009)

Zoombinis Logical Journey

Mommy loves to play this one just as much as the kids do. A fun set of logic puzzles.

Amazon Price: $10.50 (as of 12/27/2009)

The Night We Slept Outside (Ready-to-Read)

by: Anne F. Rockwell, Harlow Rockwell

At the time we found this book, it was just what we needed.

JG was 7, but still working hard on his reading skills (he is a bit of a letter-switcher and his visual memory isn't the best so it took some time and work). I wanted to give him books in which he could work on his advanced phonics concepts and get into some slightly longer words without encountering huge words that would intimidate him. But a lot of the "ready-to-read-it-myself" type of books have storylines that are geared toward really small kids. I didn't want give him books with titles like, "Baby Duck Takes a Nap".

The Night We Slept Outside was perfect. The text was just challenging enough, and the story about two boys who decide to sleep out on their patio one night, was adventurous and fun with a bit of sweetness. I wish I had been able to find more books like that one when JG was that age.

Amazon Price: (as of 12/27/2009)

YOUR thoughts about homeschooling!

My favorite books on homeschooling

Homeschooling for Excellence

by: David Colfax, Micki Colfax

A classic, of course. I read it way before I had kids, before I was married, before I had a boyfriend, even.

Amazon Price: $15.29 (as of 12/27/2009)

The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education

by: Grace Llewellyn

My kids aren't teenaged yet, but I love this book anyway.

Amazon Price: $17.10 (as of 12/27/2009)

Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book of Homeschooling

by: John Holt, Pat Farenga

I read the original version, which was by John Holt only. I'll assume that the new co-authored version retains the same spirit and information.

Amazon Price: $16.20 (as of 12/27/2009)

Grover and the Everything in the Whole Wide World Museum

by: Norman Stiles, Daniel Wilcox, Joe Mathieu

It appears that this book is out of print, which is really a shame. This book is an example of a homeschooler's classroom.

Amazon Price: (as of 12/27/2009)

Software: The basics

If we've had a "curriculum", this is it.

My sons spend a lot of time on the computer. They love these "school in a box" programs. I supervise (or eavesdrop) while they play and offer support when they need it. Here are some of the programs that I liked the best over the years.

Reader Rabbit Preschool 2005 (Jewel Case)

This program is pretty and fun. Both of my kids loved it when they were small. I started JG on it with very little supervision, and the next thing I knew, he knew the alphabet.

Amazon Price: $5.69 (as of 12/27/2009)
List Price: $10.99
Used Price:

Jumpstart Advanced Kindergarten

We loved the Reader Rabbit Preschool program, but the titles that came after that were not as good. We found the JumpStart programs to be better from Kindergarten on up. The main CD includes beginning phonics, addition and subtraction, pattern recognition, art, and music. One element in this game used to crash on our computer (I think it was Eleanor the elephant's story corner), but everything else was good. And the bonus CD that deals with animal science is really super.

Amazon Price: $18.49 (as of 12/27/2009)
List Price: $19.99
Used Price: $9.92

Jumpstart Advanced 1st Grade V2.0

JS 1st grade goes to the next level in phonics and reading, and also covers money, fractions, more art and music, and basic science concepts. I can't remember now what was on the supplemental CDs.

Amazon Price: $19.99 (as of 12/27/2009)
List Price: $19.99
Used Price: $6.00

Jumpstart Advanced 3rd Grade V2.0

This one is the BEST of the JumpStart series. My kids and I all adore Botley's comical adventure through history. The activities include astronomy, measurement, logic, science, and the arts, as well as the three Rs. I didn't think the supplemental disks were as good as the Kindergarten ones, but the main game rocks.

Amazon Price: $19.99 (as of 12/27/2009)
List Price: $19.99
Used Price: $11.88

Math Blaster: Master the Basics

JG told me to be sure to include this one. It was great for building up his speed in remembering math facts.

Amazon Price: $13.95 (as of 12/27/2009)
List Price: $29.99
Used Price: $13.99

_Joan_

by _Joan_

I live in the Los Angeles area and have two homeschooled boys.

Follow me on Twitter! -- HeyJoan

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