Where do we homeschool?

The obvious answer would be at home.  But in reality, homeschooling happens everywhere.  Most homeschoolers can honestly say that the world is their classroom. 

But you have to have a control center!  And that, obviously, is the home.

Like I said in my previous post, we spend one hour daily, Monday through Friday on what I call table work.  The rest of our day is spent going places, playing games, reading or listening to stories and just living life.  I'm reminded that in traditional cultures, this is mainly how children learn. They just live life along with their parents. They learn by watching and then doing.  And as far as I can see, this is still a magnificent way to gain knowledge.  

But in our modern times we have the privilege and opportunity to learn about things that may be beyond the scope of our experience.  There are also things we need to learn just to function such as reading and writing.  And so we do take some time to sit down and focus on these things.  (This is my personal belief and I would not purport to represent all homeschoolers.  There are so many styles of homeschooling and people adapt and change their approach many times based on life circumstance and the personality/learning style of the student.)

We have a relatively small house but it is quite comfortable, accommodating all of us easily.  (Though I do not love the town we live in, I am falling more and more in love with this house as I work hard to make it a home.)  Anyway, the only place we have a table large and high enough on which to do work is in the kitchen.  The kitchen is the center of our home.  Always busy, always stuff going on.  So I've had to get creative about how to store things so that they are easily accessible to us when we're "doing school", i.e. sitting at the table doing sit-down work.  I will have pictures soon but right now, I'll just explain. 

I use the walls a lot.  I have many hand-written charts on the walls and doors held with mounting putty or clear sealing tape depending on the surface.  Our alphabet chart is on the fridge.    I have the kids' magnetic calendar hanging on the wall next to our family planning calendar.  I would love for it to be lower but Z2 would definitely make a big mess of it.  I just take it off the wall and bring it to the table when we're ready to do calendar work.

On sentence strips on the top half of the back of the door, I've written out Z1's biographical information: address, phone number, country, name, etc . . . Our number chart is on the bottom half of the door.

To store our materials, I have a wide, clear 3-drawer cart.  It holds a lot of stuff so I've removed the wheels to make it more stable.  I don't move it around anyway.  The top drawer has arts and crafts supplies: glue, crayons, markers, pipe cleaners, glitter, etc.  The middle drawer is the math drawer: flash cards, parts of the Right Start curriculum, counting blocks, etc.  The bottom drawer is for handwriting/reading/spelling.  I guess I could call it the literacy drawer.  

On the table, I have four black plastic magazine files.  Here I store the books and notebooks that we use everyday.  One file is for Z2: sticker books and stuff pertinent to his learning.  The other 3 are for Z1: one for math, the other for literacy and the last for science/social studies. 

I'm pretty pleased with the set-up.  I am constantly thinking of ways to improve it.  I wish there were some way to have their books in the kitchen with us but we really don't have any more space in there.  But I'm thinking.  Even if we can't have all their books, there might be a way to display a few that I'd like to really focus on for the week or month.

When I tell people thaI really enjoyed going to school as a child, they often express surprise that I would then want to homeschool.  They don't understand that for me, school represented a proving ground, somewhere to show what I was worth--not knowing that I was priceless just because I am.  I didn't think learning happened anywhere else but the classroom and I was hyper-focused on doing well there.  I didn't realize until after I left school that there is so much more to education than what happens sitting at a desk at school.  I'm thrilled to be able to give my kids a different experience.  So while we do have a classroom of sorts set up in our house, I'm working hard so my children will understand.

Where do we homeschool?  Wherever we happen to be. 

Update and New Unit: Rocks

So after much thinking, I've realized that both Z1 and I would do better with a lot more structure to our routine.  As much as I would like to have set times daily to do work, it doesn't always work because of our activities.  But my goal is to do at least one hour or academics daily and to stick more closely to our course of study. 

We've been doing well in reading (using the Hooked on Phonics program) and handwriting (using the Handwriting Without Tears program) and math (using the School Zone Big Math 1-2 workbook).

Some academic areas I've been neglecting are music, art and science. Z1 takes a music class but it's just singing and movement.  I need to get more serious about showing him basic piano skills and how to read music as well as music appreciation.  We listen to a lot of music but we haven't gotten into discussing it and so this is something I'm looking to do.  Art projects drive me batty--gluing, cutting and all that.  We don't have a lot of space and mess is just too much.  I would like to find some kind of weekly art program that's free or inexpensive so that he gets to make projects and be artistic and I get to keep my sanity.  And then there's science.  We covered the water cycle last but I feel that the gap between when we finished with that and when we started the new unit about rocks (today) was way too long.  Also, I feel our water cycle study wasn't as cohesive as I would have liked so I'm going about the rock unit a little differently.

First off, we're going to be doing our first lapbook for this unit.  I'm excited to see if we'll like doing it (or if it will just be tedious).  I'd like to use books, websites, DVDs and have a culminating field trip and then the lapbook will be the tangible thing we take from the unit.  Just today we learned that there are three kinds of rock.  I know that some of this will be over Z1's head but I don't have a problem exposing him to it. 

Some sites I've found so far through a preliminary google search:
http://www.rocksforkids.com/
http://www.kidsgeo.com/geology-games/rocks-game.php
http://www.rockhoundkids.com/
http://www.kidskonnect.com/subject-index/15-science/97-rocks-a-minerals.html

I am borrowing The Well-Trained Mind from the library again with the intention of buying.  When I first read it, I thought it was way too structured but I'm more  ready to embrace it now.  I don't know what finally clicked but I'm liking the idea of classical education at home a lot more.

My homeschooling style

A great woman who runs the local homeschooling group asked if I'd be a contact person for new homeschoolers.  I agreed to do it because I'm enthusiastic about homeschooling and also looking to make more connections both for my sake and for my childrens' sake.  Anyway, she asked me to write a blurb about my homeschooling style and this is what I wrote:

I have two energetic boys:  age 4 and age 2, and the fact that they are boys really informs and influences my attitude about and style of homeschooling.  I read a book called Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv and another called the Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn Iggulden and Hall Iggulden and what I took away was that for boys especially, it’s so important to have them out in nature, exploring the world around them.  As such, it’s my goal to give them a learning environment that allows them to be out a lot using their natural, bountiful energy and curiosity to drive their learning.  

Technically, I am only teaching my four year old but my 2 year old loves to tag along. I would say that I take a laid-back approach to homeschooling.  I do not use a set curriculum but I do use the New York State standards and the Typical Course of Study as a guide.  In homeschooling, I’ve learned that I really needed to learn my child first and so I’ve really gotten familiar with his style of learning and the times throughout the day when he is most willing to learn.  He enjoys working in workbooks and so I’ve invested in a few good ones.  One book that has given me some guidance in the technical aspects of homeschooling is The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise and while I find it a bit rigid, it has helped in some important ways. At my son's age, I’m more focused now on him getting concepts as opposed to things that require fine motor skills such as writing.  Initially, writing was very frustrating to my son but I was pushing it.  Now, I am focusing on other things and he has naturally taken to writing and is improving every day.  So I’m learning to trust myself and trust him, knowing that in the right time and space sequence, we will get everything accomplished.  Right now, I’m working with him on addition and subtraction.  We also work on patterns and sequences, telling time and we are slowly getting into money.  I have no set time frame for when all this will be mastered but my goal is to keep him one grade level ahead.  For reading, we are using the Hooked on Phonics program but also taking a very laid back approach to it.  For science, I basically depend on him to dictate what we will be studying.  Last month he showed an interest in the sun and so we did a study of the sun and the solar system.  The study was supported with books, the internet, DVDs, etc.  This month, he was interested in electricity and so we are discovering that.  Social studies right now is rather organic and we learn that as we are out and about in the world.  Aside from all that, I take him to our local library for arts and crafts and I have him enrolled in a Kindermusik class.  I’m really focused on keeping the learning fun and engaging and never forcing him to do something before he’s ready. 

My ultimate goal is to help them become analytical and critical thinkers and to help them enjoy learning.  I want them to be willing, enthusiastic, lifelong learners.   

Capturing and Capitalizing on Interests

I agree with the theory that the best way to teach a child is through his/her interests, that is, finding the things that intrigue and captivate a child the most and using that to teach a myriad of concepts and ideas.

One of the hallmarks of being Z1 is capriciousness, though, but not in that he jumps from activity to activity. Rather, Zion will focus all his energies on one particular interest for extended periods of time and then refuse to be bothered with that activity again. For a long while it was puzzles and all he would do all the time was this puzzle and that puzzle. I bought tons of puzzles and found a great site with all kinds of challenging puzzles only for him to decide one day that puzzles were passe. The same with many other things. So I'm learning that once he demonstrates even an inkling of an interest in something, I have to be at the ready to capture that interest and capitalize on it. I often think that this is certainly one thing that school could not offer him. How could a teacher with 15 to 25 kids, even with the best of intentions, be so focused on my child that she would notice the first buds of interest? Could he/she deviate from her curriculum/pacing guide to capitalize on it?

Currently, Z1 is fascinated with birds. Chris will often throw chunks stale bread into the backyard and you should just see the delight on Z1's face when the birds descend to eat the bread. He gets so excited and scolds the squirrels for "stealing" the birds' bread. He's also taken with butterflies and has spoken about getting a net to catch them. So yesterday at our library, we found a few good books on birds and butterflies although I'm hoping to check out some more at the children's library two towns over. I want to get him some kind of net to catch butterflies with too. As he was hanging out as his friend's house last week, I noticed that Z1 enjoyed playing with a lacrosse stick. I don't see why a Lacrosse stick couldn't double as butterfly net. :) However, a real butterfly net is hardly expensive.