(Begin Where You are)

Chapter 5 Begin Where You ARE! Who you ARE!

Begin homeschooling with a curriculum and structure level that you are COMFORTABLE with!

"When you consider homeschooling as learning without school, you realize that all parents have been homeschooling their children since birth."
- Begin with your strength as expert on your child.
- don't look for the "perfect" method - it will only discourage you and your kiddos
- Homeschooling should ALWAYS be comfortable - especially at the beginning - so, where you are RIGHT NOW is the most comfortable (Ginger will be taking Art & Music at the neighborhood school so she can have some of what we have RIGHT NOW)
- Being comfortable makes it a lot easier to tinker with homeschooling until it fits your family's lifestyle.
- THERE ARE NINE DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO HOMESCHOOLING:

1) Traditional School At Home - online government or private institutions with similar structure - but can be under any philosophy - Core curriculum, Waldorf, Montessori, etc.  It has the same vocabulary as institutional school, which your child may have just left.
   - this is also more useful in states with stricter accountability laws
  - Children will be at the same academic level as age peers if they return to public school
  - ready-made curriculum provides a starting point
  - keeps the family on track with regard to grade-level content if they alter the hours/days/months of the public school calendar
  - Easy way to satisfy state legal requirements

2) Classical Education
- The classical method is based on a revival of the educational approach called the trivium, a three-part process of literally training a child's mind.
- Preparation for College academics
- to study history in chronological order
- to use original source books in teaching
- to study the trivium (Grammar Stage, Logic Stage & Rhetoric (Poetic) Stage)

3) Charlotte Mason
- Core Knowledge accompanied by fine arts
- Use of "living books" (classical literature) in lieu of textbooks
- narrative summaries of learning in lieu of written tests and exams
- creation of a "Century Book" which serves as a timeline and an organizational center where information gleaned from reading, field trips, and other sources is placed into "the big picture"
- copy work
 - Reasons for Charlotte Mason - If your child is an avid reader
                                                   - Provides plenty of attention to fine arts, classical music and literature
                                                   - promotes concentration
                                                  - focuses on what child knows, not on what the child doesn't know
                                                   - enriches parents' education at the same time

4) Unit Studies
Theme or topic-based and use as starting points anything from historical eras to good books, science topics to cultural expiration.  Learning occurs within a framework provided by the topic, and study of the topic incorporates literature, science, social studies, art, music and more.
- cuts down on lesson-prep with multiple age kiddos
- allows time to study a topic in depth
- offers guidelines w/o the rigidity of a curriculum
- easily blends child's and adult's learning interests
- often reveals 'side learning trips' that the child might not have discovered otherwise
- good fill-in when life circumstances get crazy, such as a new baby, moving, or illness.

5)  Eclectic
-  Do whatcha wanna do :-)
- inexpensive
- easy to incorporate kids natural interests
- frees one to do "real-life"
- by accident - instead of planned lessons
- easy way to start with early years kids
- children develop an enthusiasm for learning
- helpful for kids who've had a difficult time in school
- didn't like paying for curriculum that they didn't end up using

6) Interest (Child) Initiated or Unschooling
- "Unschooling: The process by which a person acquires specific and nonspecific skills and information as determined by the needs and interests of the person(s) doing the learning and by methods suited to, and chosen by, those doing the learning."
- an extension of printing their children as honorable and joyful, full time work (OK, is this a little hokey?)
- it mirrors the way many adults go about leaning something they want to know
- can nurture both learning styles and interests at the same time
- allows for the most efficient, accurate learning in all arenas
- had previously observed how much their children were learning simply by asking questions and receiving answers.

7) School Sponsored Homeschooling programs
- has similarities to homeschooling co-ops
- potentially makes it easier to receive needed special education assistance
- accountability levels are low
- attending classes fills socialization needs
ability to pick and choose what to learn at home and what to learn at school
- to fill in perceived gaps in education due to personal constraints on time, ability, or other life circumstances.

8) Independent Coop Learning Situations
ILC's are fee of government regulation, free to be what-ver those who create and utilize them want them to be.
- get together with other homeschool families learning similar things or different
- creates a community of support for parents and kids
- interaction with other children
- combining funds to reduce costs of lessons to individual families
- offers choice of classes that might be unavailable otherwise
- parents have learned how to come together and blend their different approaches to learning

9) Online Learning - a K-12 or other private online curriculum
- Childs ability to research any subject of interest
- information available at all times, day or night
- availability of wide range of opinions/approaches on topics
- child enjoys using the computer
- programs are convenient, as they can cover an entire curriculum.

one of the "takeaways" was that I will probably combine a few of these approaches...

another quote was from a homeschool parent " We are convinced that a prepackaged curriculum is the most comfortable way to start homeschooling your first year.  After that, you can start to loosen the structure -  "  I liked this because I am worried about what i'm doing - and it takes away a lot of stress to know what you are going to do when you wake up in the morning.


OK - I was also just futzing around and found the following - 

Check out some of the amazing homeschool/unschool opportunities there are - These are just a couple that I found on the web at first blush

http://unschooladventures.com/?page=trips
http://www.hscconference.com/main.html

The CHEC conference in Colorado seems like it offers great break-out sessions but the demographic will be interesting I think, based on the speakers.

There is a conference on Educational Technology every year for teachers and professionals and I'm DYING to go - but, until then, I found out that there are standards for teachers, students & curricula that we may want to pay attention to as homeschoolers so that our kids enter the new tech job market ahead of the curve:  http://www.iste.org/standards.aspx

To get ready for the upcoming conference, and selecting our curriculum, we had Ginger go through an assessment test this week through a professional Childhood Education Counselor (PhD) so that we would know what "grade" to start her, for what subject, get an idea of her potential (IQ) her strengths, weaknesses, areas of interest and learning styles.  It ain't cheap, but I am so excited to have that information under our belt when solidifying curriculum in the coming weeks.  I know that there are some online assessments you can give your kids for free/cheap as well.

Ginger had so much fun at the assessment that she said, "mom - when are we going to GET to WORK on homeschooling?"
To which I replied, "that's the great thing, honey - you don't need a bell to tell you when to start learning.  It's all the time!"

We'll have Grant go through the assessment next year, or, whenever he's ready to come home for school.

I need to get reading glasses -  :-) g'nite!