Posted on 07/21/2023 4:43:49 PM PDT by Jonty30
When you homeschool, how do you break up the work? Do you study the entire years of math, for example before moving onto another topic, or do you spend an hour a day per topic until you've completed a normal day or do you follow the school schedule?
I'm just curious. I don't have plans to homeschool anybody.
We used what was called a unit approach. When our daughter was fired up and on a roll in a particular field, we would let her run with it. Not to the total exclusion of other things, but her enthusiasm was the determining factor.
We were also not highly regimented. She went to public high school, graduated at 16, Deans list first semester of college. So we figure our approach was a good one.
There’s a LOT more to it than that of course. Everything was a learning experience as opposed to all classroom instruction.
12 years of government schools would have destroyed a beautiful, bright, inquiring mind. Couldn’t let that happen.
Saxon Math was and still is awesome.
I thought Abeka was ok for science but unless you are a very serious history buff and care about details like who DL Moody’s song leader was, find something else for social studies.
We did Rod and Staff for English and reading which gave the kids a very solid foundation for English.
However, it get very diffiult in the last few grades, they quit at 8th, so we found other stuff to do for English. Plus R&S is definitely geared towrds Mennonites. The pictures in them, mostly drawings, were all of children in classic Mennonite dress.
Excellent advice and methods.
Beautiful!
Rotation is needed.
The brain runs on chemicals. Certain parts of the brain do certain things. When the supply of learning chemicals in a brain area runs low, learning in that area stops. The brain might even dissolve recently set learning links if a brain area is overused.
College classes in a subject are normally about 50 minutes long. Avoid focusing on something for any longer.
The brain is not a computer with a 512GB solid state drive. Don’t try to overstuff it.
Repetition is needed.
Material should be reviewed in about two weeks (and several months and several years) to fortify the learning links made.
Mental stress blocks learning nearly completely. Do physical exercise before and in between lessons.
Make learning non-stressful. Lessons should be clearly understandable.
We used ABeka until myelinaton set in then it was Saxon Math for our two. Saxon was great. They did a little of each of the 5 subjects daily. By January they had finished the books on science and history, thus they doubled up on the math. Because composition and reports were more subjective than objective we had others oversee that subject. Our 16 year old took a course in a local college in English, the two semesters in Spanish, so she entered college at 18 with 12 credits that transferred.
Teaching Textbooks were also quality materials in our view. Our two also liked the way the subjects were approached and explained in TT.
True words. The only way to get better at math is to work the problems
My kids were all math whizzes and we started with Saxon 54 in third grade with them.
For first and second grade, we actually found school workbooks at Sam’s club that did just as well are fancy expensive curriculum in nteaching the math basics. Sam’s (and BJ’s) had books for other sujects, too, like science and history IIRC.
We also did stuff like play scrabble for spelling, and doing games like Yahtzee for math. MY oldest benefitted greatly from a dot to dot book to learn the concept of counting past ten, how you do the teens, twenties, thirties, etc.
We used baking adn cooking for teaching fractions.
A lot of it leaned towards unschooling but as a teaching method, I didn’t depend on it. For English and Math especially, I felt the text book lessons were critical.
Our schedule was to start schoolinn Aug when theys tarted complaining about being bored. Then we’d start with Math and REnglish because they have the most lessons.
My goal was to reach the halfway point by Thanksgiving, and then we’d take off for Christmas and New Year’s and would n ot start again until Jan. WHat I discovered was if I gave them one day off, it was just as hard to get them back into schooling as tkaing the whole month off. So no special days off until we took them all off in Dec. It made the holidays SOOOOOO much easier.
Find your state’s accreditation requirements.
Find your curriculum. There’s a ton of options.
Break it down incrementally on the calendar.
Be firm, loving, disciplined, fun, flexible and organized.
Keep records.
Don’t be like the home school families who say that they’re home schooling, but they’re actually just raising feral low performers.
Homeschooled 2 of 3 kids & now helping to homeschool grandkids.
We go with a combination of formal learning & delight-directed unschooling.
Math, English, Initial Reading & Spelling with workbooks & aimed for every day. Science, History, Social Studies/Civics more focused on what their interests were at the time & less scheduled.
Our schooldays usually ended shortly after lunch. Many outside & informal things can be counted as “school”, as mentioned above.
Did not usually do number or letter grades, just went over mistakes until understood, with a lot of reinforcement & encouragement.
I’ll look at that! Thank you!
We homeschooled our 3 children all the way through high school.
We did everything most every day, but allowed each kid to focus on their favorite subjects.
Oldest liked Math. He graduated PBK in Math from one of the premier STEM universities. Started a software firm, which he sold to one of the largest tech firms.
Middle kid liked Debate. He’s now on a partner track with a nice sized legal firm.
Youngest, daughter, liked Art. She’s now a Graphic Designer, doing well, happy as can be.
Any other schooling option would have diluted their talents.
Our homeschool journey ended four years ago. In 20 years, here's what I observed:
I noticed that most parents whose children attended school (before homeschooling) tried to follow a daily school schedule (one hour per subject) at home.
Meanwhile, the diehard "unschoolers" would laugh at the school-at-home method.
However, the rest of us practiced "eclectic homeschooling." We did whatever worked. We were the vast majority.
Every year, I bought books, and I wrote out a detailed plan. A few months in, I'd have to change the plan and go with the flow.
Every year, my kids covered every subject, and I kept a detailed record of everything they did. Sometimes they focused on one subject at a time, and sometimes they covered a variety of subjects. But, our schedule looked nothing like a school schedule.
Some days, I would give them "homework," and they'd complete it quickly at home. Then, they'd have plenty of free time.
Some days, we did big projects together or played games.
If they were reading books or watching documentaries, I didn't stop them to give them "work" to do. They were learning on their own.
All week long, they'd get together with other kids for fun and learning, and on busy days, I didn't give them "book work" at home.
Each year, I gave them practice tests to check their progress. They enjoyed the tests. There was no stress. Their work was not graded until high school.
In fact, if you asked the typical homeschooler what grade he was in, he didn't know. Always a fun time when the pediatrician would ask, "What grade are you in?"
Homeschooling isn't school. It's family life. Families can learn together all day in a fun way.
On a snowy morning, while you and your little one are curled up with a book, one older sibling might play a math game on the computer, while another reads a chemistry book. That's homeschooling.
Or, your kids might spend the whole day at a homeschool co-op. Then you drive one child to homeschool band and the others to little league. That's homeschooling.
It doesn't have to happen on a set schedule on weekday mornings. It can happen all day at any time, all year long.
By the teen years, many homeschoolers know how to teach themselves. Many also take community college courses to bank credits.
Many homeschoolers do well in college. Some choose to work in a trade. In our community, many are now married and raising families of their own.
I homeschooled my two through high school. They have both graduated from university now so it’s been a little while, but for us, we set goals as a framework and then went with the flow, because if you aren’t flexible, there’s a lot of stress and tears some days! We set weekly goals, and they attended a hybrid school two days a week, plus extra math or music classes at times. Some days, they were enthusiastic and got lots done in just a few hours, possibly finishing a weeks worth of their favorite subjects in a day. Other days, they were exhausted, burnt out, goofy, or whatever - so after a while I’d have mercy on them and let them have the rest of the day off.
That being said, flexibility also meant that they did lessons on beaches, in hotel rooms, or wherever we wanted to be as a family because we had the freedom to travel when the crowds were thinner, which was awesome. Also, I kept them doing light math practice and reading books all summer, to keep their skills sharp - so they schooled all year, just sometimes with fewer hours and subjects.
When they got to high school, they were pretty independent at getting their work done, which helped them greatly in college because they were already used to managing their time and work.
We kept binders with grades and samples of their work throughout, and also administered standardized grade level tests every year to ensure that they stayed at or above grade level, as well. When they got to high school, they were allowed to choose what sciences, languages, and electives they wanted to study as long as they met the state’s graduation requirements. For instance, my daughter chose forensics for senior year science.
I wouldn’t have missed homeschooling them for the world, best thing I ever did besides marrying their dad!
In the 1990s when I homeschooled my children we were required by the state of TN to teach 4 hours a day ...
Only the main subjects were required and we had to submit a school day schedule at the start of the school year.
I added Current Events and my children listened to their guest teacher, Rush, for that hour... (Lunch Hour)
:)
Enjoyable thread.
I learned a new word thanks to you!
Myelination
Myelin
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41583-020-00379-8
“Throughout our lifespan, new sensory experiences and learning continually shape our neuronal circuits to form new memories. Plasticity at the level of synapses has been recognized and studied for decades, but recent work has revealed an additional form of plasticity — affecting oligodendrocytes and the myelin sheaths they produce — that plays a crucial role in learning and memory.”
A book you may find interesting that addresses this relating to education is *Better Late than Early* by Drs. Moore and Moore (a husband wife team)
It was written decades ago and is still relevant. It addresses the idea of how neural development and nerve mylenation is related to learning and why it’s pretty much useless to start a child’s education before the age of 8 - 10.
Formal book education, that is. Certainly not teaching them things in general.
See if your public library treats discards the way ours does. It is very useful for "social studies."
Each child spent about 2 hours in formal homeschooling. One hour was for reading instruction and the other for math.
The library was our best friend. While the children ate breakfast and lunch, I read fiction, biographies, and natural science aloud to them.
Each year we bought a yearly admission to one of the city museums, zoos, or science centers.
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