Homeschooling-when and with what?

[linzy]

For those of you hoping to homeschool when do you plan to start and what program/materials do you think you will use and when do you think you will start?

If I am lucky enough to be able to homeschool I hope to use a classical curriculum based on many of the recommendations in "The Well Trained Mind". As far as specifics at least initially I am thinking about either Shiller Math or Right Start for math and transitioning into Singapore math. In addition to that just reading aloud from history books and modified versions of the classics. We already read from Story of the World, do a lot of starfall and of course do lots of tracing, cutting, coloring and reading activities.

I brought this up because I know this is a very well read and dedicated group of parents and although I am well read on this subject I would like to hear what others thoughts are. Also, I read the starting criteria as well as the initial lessons in some of the math programs and I feel like my son knows much of this already and they already seem very much on his mental level as far as ability to understand. Of course he is getting a lot of this from the Doman stuff, but I feel like learning it in another way (ie w/ manipulatives) might help even further solidify it. However, I think many people might think I am crazy for thinking about starting a kindergarten level math program with my 2.5 year old.

Anyway I'd love to hear your ideas/plans.

[THen]

I've been homeschooling for about 8 years now, but didn't know about early reading until my fifth child.  I've started him on Little Reader and we'll see how differently things go with him. 

With by other 4 (7th to kindergarten) I'm using:
Veritas Press history (My boys love the song that goes with it and love getting read to.  We use Story of the World as supplement, too.)
Rod and Staff for grammar with my 7th grader
First Language Lessons for grammar with the younger ones (I love it)
Writing Strands for writing for the two older
Writing with Ease for the 2nd grader.  The kindergartener just copies sentences I write on his notebook. 
Math U See for math for all of them (If they understand the topic taught in a lesson very quickly, we'll skip to the test, then go on to the next lesson)
Apologia for science for the older one
We mostly follow the Sonlight science for the younger ones.  Lots of Usborne books and such.
The oldest does violin and trumpet at the local school (Colorado is nice and lets us take just a couple of classes).
The younger ones get piano lessons from Dad when he isn't too busy. (Which means, not too often).
I'd like to start a foreign language but haven't yet. 

Kindergarten math does sound funny for a 2.5 year old, but if he likes it, I'd say, let him enjoy it.  The Math U See program uses base ten blocks and is pretty visual.  You could check their website at www.mathusee.com   We used Singapore math for a little while, but my oldest liked Math U See better so we switched.  We actually use their older curriculum.  The first 3 grades were covered in their Foundations book.  I like the Foundations book, but like the newer books for levels past that. 

Just an add on, when my boys started learning to write, they loved shaving cream.  We'd spread some on the table, then we'd practice writing letters or words using our fingers.  My older ones would do their spelling words (we use Spelling Power) in shaving cream if I'd let them.   

[linzy]

Thanks for your imput.  I will definately need to try the shaving cream idea.  I have looked at math-u-see also and heard good reviews of it so it's good to hear another one, the sample video on their site seemed kind of boring though, so that was one thing that turned me off

[THen]

You're right about the video.  But according to them, the teacher is supposed to watch the video and then teach the kids.  Now that I know the material, I don't use the video with the two younger ones.  But, when I'm lazy, I let the boys watch the video and figure it out themselves.  Since I teach all their other subjects, they seem to like it.  And Mr. D...(can't remember his name) is funny at times. 

[tatianna]

http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-other-topics/if-you-did-how-did-you-decide-to-homeschool/

[texaslady22]

We've done Doman so far, but we are going to homeschool.

One thing we're trying to do is transition to longer learning sessions -- a set of card only lasts 30 seconds, but we want our son to be able to sit still and do work (focus on a task) for a longer period of time. So in addition to the Doman activities we're already doing, we're starting My Father's World K curriculum. Timothy won't quite be 2.5 years yet, but he's totally ready for it.

I like that My Father's World really integrates our religious beliefs into science topics. For instance, the first unit is all about the sun. The verse to remember is "Jesus is the light of the world" (my 2-year-old could easily recite this). We'll learn about the planet, the letter sound S, make a sundial and try to tell time, make our own raisins, paint a sun, etc. So math, science, reading...they're all incorporated into theme units (which we love). One unit is on butterflies and we're actually raising a caterpillar and watching it change form...that will be so awesome, since my little guy already likes butterflies and caterpillars so much!

Another thing about MFW is they really get you to integrate sensory-type activities--tracing sandpaper letters, making jello letters with cookie cutters, drawing letters in salt and sand, making letter pancakes, etc.

As far as early reading skills, MFW just teaches the letter sounds and names (most of which we already know), but it will still be a nice review.

The thing is--our son can't write yet--he simply doesn't have the fine motor control. So all the enclosed worksheets and manuscript writing pages will be saved for later. But we all know that not being able to write is different from not being able to learn!!

My Father's World website is here: http://www.mfwbooks.com/k.htm

[mother of faith]

I am a homeschooling mom of 2, and I have researched and studied of making my own curriculum on a faith bases. I also worked before the kids in the school system so I have put what I know down on paper to teach my children. I have created Bbilical theme units that my kids seem to love. The reason I am creating my own is because being on a tight budget doesn't give me much money to purchase anything. I found that most of the homeschool programs was very expensive. However when my kids reach the age where I can no longer teach them I plan on enrolling them in the ACE Ministries a homeschool academy. There are great resources on the web for toddlers for homeschool that are free that you can anyone can use with little prep time. I have found 2 that I incorprate in my own curriculum that are free. Who else knows there child more than the parents or guardians, who better to teach them?
By the way thanks for the resources.

[mother of faith]

Texaslady22;
I have assisted (taught) a few children who could not write in the traditional way they used alternatives such as a bingo dobber, a computer keyboard, voice activation software, and more. You mentioned tracing letters, you can also use stencils for writing. You don't have to use soemone elses worksheets you can make your own to fit the stencil's size. Also while using stnecils to write you can highlight the lines of the paper, the top line is blue for the sky, the bottom line is green for the grass. This helps, also you can make or by tracing worksheets that are for beginners, they are big and the lines are visible. I created my own for my son to trace with his finger first. I placed his finger on the letter and made the motion following the letter. There are activities that you can do to enhance the fine motor skills such as playing with ribbons, yarn, and stringing huge beads, etc. Which I am sure an Occupational Thereapist, (I think) or Physical Therapist can help you on that. I'm sure the internet has a lot of ideas. Trying differnet writing utensils is another idea. Sometimes it is just finding the correct utensil to use, gradually you can get to use a pencil. When my son started to scribble we used a special crayon that was designed to fit his hand, it has worked, we are gradually moving to a regular crayon. Just a thought! My toddler is 20 months. I haven't heard of Doman?

[Nikita]

I plan to write my own curriculum up based on the standards expected in my state of my country. I will use what my older children did at school to help me, and what I can find cheaply in terms of textbooks and resource materials second-hand (in op shops, on ebay).  I'm already collecting.  There's so much free info online I will try to incorporate as much as I can.  What I like about homeschooling is that you can be more intensive and teach more information, that is, the kids can learn more than if they went to school.  Think about how much our infants are learning now through Brillkids etc... that's becuase we are alrready homeschooling them.  They wouldnt learn that at Daycare or kindergarten... if we left it to the state to educate our children they would be sadly lacking intellectually, compared to their full potential.

[JCS]

you can call IAHP- Glenn Doman's school in PA for information on the evan thomas institute materials also iahp.org

[DadDude]

Great topic--very relevant to what our family has been talking about lately.  We're going to homeschool our boy, who is a few months shy of 3 years old, and I've been thinking a lot about curricula for him.

I read The Well-Trained Mind, and while I like a lot of what it has to say, there are aspects of it that I don't like so well.  While "classical education" (which for homeschoolers means something other than what it really meant in medieval times, for instance) has an emphasis on the classics, generally I think it does not have enough emphasis on good books.  I agree with what I've read about the Charlotte Mason approach, that the best way is to pick the very best books to read from.  "The Well-Trained Mind" has kids using a lot of textbooks and encyclopedias and such, which I don't like so much.  Encyclopedias have their place, of course, and for some subjects like math and higher level science textbooks are fine and no doubt unavoidable.  I'd prefer to use the same sort of highly-interesting books that we've been using with our boy so far.

The authors make an interesting argument that, in order to be properly mastered, history should be presented as a single, unified narrative.  Well, I am no relativist, but history does not lend itself to a single narrative, and anyone who, like Susan Wise Bauer, thinks she can replace all the wonderful history books for children with a single narrative and single point of view, seems to be missing something very important about history.  Learning history properly surely requires learning about the richness of perspectives on it (even of Christian perspectives on it--did all historians agree before the ascendancy of nonbelievers in academia?), and what we can get out of it.  So, as far as history goes, I'm sure we'll be seeking out a wide variety of books about it, emphasizing the classics if they are accessible to my little student, and otherwise seeking out the most interesting, best-written, best-illustrated, often best-reviewed stuff.

In the following I'll just edit & share a little of what I wrote for myself recently.

When we ask about a curriculum, what do we mean?  The possibilities are numerous, and can include any combination of the following:

a. A list of books
b. An actual set of books
c. A general list of readings, exercises, worksheets, and the like—an outline of things to do
d. A very detailed day-to-day program of study, that leaves virtually nothing out
e. A list of general subjects, no more than a few dozen long
f. A detailed list of educational outcomes (e.g., state standards for the 1st grade)
g. A list of all of a child's planned activities while "at school," whether in schedule form or in detailed daily form

So, in general, a curriculum is a set of things to study.  So, I think I would like to have a curriculum.  Why?  Because, I guess, I'd like to know what to teach to my boy.  We're in exactly the same boat here.  Well, I've gone through the above list, and I came to a conclusion.  For me, curricula of all of these sorts are not realistic as educational methods.  Of course, a curriculum doesn't purport to be a method.  The curriculum doesn't say how it is to be used.  It is just "a set of things to study."  Yet, if it is used at all, the curriculum guides and constrains choices, and in that sense it is indeed a method.  Or perhaps a better way to put it is this: to adopt a curriculum is to let your day to day work in educating a child be guided and constrained by pre-established choices of books, exercises, experiences, subjects, and outcomes.  If a curriculum is to be useful, indeed, it must guide and constrain educational choices.

But I stipulate that a child learns best, by far, when he studies what he wants to study.  There may occasionally be essential subjects that he must be forced to study (and I would not start "forced" study until he were, say, five or six), but this seems like a declaration of failure.  One can always find creative ways to study a subject, and thereby fill in conceptual and perspectival gaps that are preventing a child from being interested in difficult material.  This is what we're already doing with our boy, by the way.  Sometimes we buy a book, or I go to the trouble of making a fancy presentation, only to discover he doesn't like it.  What do we do?  Force him to learn?  No--we save it.  He often comes back to it.  We try something else.  As a result, he's always learning, and he's always learning something he wants to learn, so I think he's learning more and better, as a result.  If I think he's not learning enough of some subject, I get another book, or think of some new approach, or whatever.

Therefore, if you're going to take curricula with a grain of salt, at best, as we plan to, you have to plan to be very creative and active in how you teach your child.  Maybe some parents aren't up to that, for whatever reason.  I hope we are, however--we're pretty committed.  Of course, you could also go for unschooling, but the more I understand about that, the more I am persuaded that that is not what we want to do.  It's one thing to respect your child's tastes and aptitudes when he says, "I don't like this book," and it's quite another not to make any decisions for your child at all.

I find with our boy that he is game to read or do most of what we put before him (although it's gotten harder in the last several months...his two-year-old independence coming out), so that "making progress" is not difficult.  And to that extent, a curriculum would be helpful to me, for purposes of making choices.  Similarly with things like study guides, worksheets, and lists of outcomes: I look on it, to a great extent, like a smorgasbord, not shackles.

But then, I don't think that I am "following a curriculum."  I am using a curriculum (a fairly vague one--it's written out, but not in a form I would want to share with the group) in guiding my boy's studies.  The question for me then becomes how we use a curriculum.  I do, after all, have a set of topics, and a set of goals.  Moreover, I do want to read some of what others have written about their curricula, to get ideas.

My bottom-line point is that, depending on what you mean by "curriculum," the curriculum is a rough guide at best, and what you plan to study from day to day or week to week is adjusted based on the interests, needs, and learning style of the child.  I'm sure it is useful to have a general "road map" and some goals, if for no other reason than to get an idea of what you want to do.  But we (I think I can speak for my wife here) feel it would be mistake to impose constraints in advance on exactly what should be studied.

Look at it this way.  Right now, if you have a baby or toddler, you don't want to show him a lot of presentations he obviously doesn't like.  Why not?  Because it turns the kid off to learning, and the kid won't learn much anyway.  Well, why think that will change after a few more years when children reach school age?  Surely they will still learn best when they are learning something they want to learn.  I want to believe that there is some way to teach every subject that you want a child to learn, and more to the point, there is a sequence of information you can impart that will make the classics (and other sources of solid learning) of interest.  You might have to review vocabulary first; you might have to watch the movie, or some sort of introductory video or presentation, first; you might have to read a simplified version of the story first; you might just have to wait and do something else.  But if you have the goal to teach a certain subject, I think you can find a way that the kid will enjoy and, as a result, learn most from.

In one way, I want to make a very ambitious curriculum for my boy (later, I'm sure we'll work it out together), more ambitious than the one in The Well-Trained Mind.  I believe he can read all sorts of great books.  In another way, if it turns out he really hates a certain subject and nothing can be done, or a certain author, or if he really loves a certain subject and author and wants to study it more than I would have recommended, then we'll probably follow his inclinations.

I can already give an example.  We've been reading Winnie-the-Pooh, and he wanted to re-read the "expotition" chapter.  Don't ask me why, he just loved it so he wanted to re-read it right away.  So, instead of moving on to the next chapter, we read that one.  (I read it to him, by the way--I think he could read it himself, but he still lacks the patience to do so.)

I realize that as children get older, their attention improves, and it's possible to discipline their time rather better.  I'm not saying we won't adopt some schedules (I wouldn't try that now); probably, we will.  But we'll make the schedules changeable and flexible.  And, more to the point, the content of the schedule will be determined "on the fly" from week to week (I imagine), in order to keep my boy's enthusiasm for learning as high as possible.

[linzy]

Thanks for the insightful post DadDude.  I have also read the well trained mind and found much of it to be very thought provoking especially about linking your literature to history.  But I do also agree that living books (like autobiographies) are far superior to encyclopedias in giving a child a knowledge of history (and more interesting too). If we are able to homeschool, which is our desire but would be impossible with current work schedules, we likely will just pull the best ideas that I have gleaned from all the sources I've come across to complete our own eclectic curriculum.  In particular the series "Great Books of the Western World" has been inspiring to me. I bought them used on E-bay and the are a compilation of some of the most important works of western literature starting with Homer and going through the late 50's.  I have been reading the originals myself while trying to find more age appropriate versions for my son.  In time I will move him to more complex versions of the literature and then the originals.

[JCS]

i do think instruction in computer science is vital- my kids if homeschooled past elementary would likely need a tuitor since im so unsavvy

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