What topic interests you the most about Homeschooling

[mother of faith]

Which topic in homeschooling interests you the most?

free curriculum, scheduling, making your own curricula, activity ideas, or themes

Is there anything that you want to see more of in the homeschooling forum? If so please post.

[jajagary]

hi... am a newbie here

my doter will turn 2 this coming apr... i would love to homeschool her but i may not have 24 hrs as i am a FTWM... maybe u can help me on scheduling and just how can i make this part time HS happen...

i oso dont have any teaching skills .... 

TIA

[TracyR4]

Having four children I'm all about free curriculum! 
I also like activity ideas. I thinking having ideas from others helps and it helps me spawn off others too.

As for the other poster. At the age of 2 learning should be fun and on the spur of the moment. No need to be scheduling a 2yr old's day.  Homeschool scheduling shouldn't start until they are much, much older.

If your 2 yr old is reading , then continue working on learning new words.
Get books out from the library for her to read or you to read along with her.
If you have a child that loves workbooks , then go to your local store and pick up a few. There is LOTS of free worksheets online that you can print out and do together. Coloring (learn to color in the lines, helps with handwriting later on), Counting ( use cereal, cars, counting cubes, stuffed animals etc.) If you use Little Math, use it.

I love File Folder Games as well as my girls. You can go to  www.filefolderfun.com   
Sign up and you can download and print out tons of file folder games for free.
Older kids make Lapbooks, little kids make Totbooks. http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.com/TotBooksTotPacksALL.html
The website I posted up above there has free printables to make Totbooks. Also visit her blog too, as its part of Tot School.
  Play, play , play.
Play time should still be a HUGE part of your 2 yr old's life. Play dress, up, play dolls, have a tea party, have some little friends over. If you have any places that you can sign her up for sports activities at her age , then do so.

Learn jumping, skipping, tying shoes, zipping their coat, setting the dinner table, picking up her toys.
I can keep going on and on. The most important thing of all is to cuddle, cuddle and cuddle some more. They grow up so quickly that before you know it they'll be 13yrs old and you'll wonder where they time went.

[jajagary]

hi tracy....

tq... yup as of now we just play play n play.... she only starts to talk recently... at least i can understand her a bit... 

i would like to teach her phonics ... or maybe i should just use flash cards? dont wanna rush her... just wanna make her familiar with alphabets, numbers n colors.....

wht do u think? is it ok? i dont wanna be pushy n all

[mom2bee]

Hmm...Can I pick 'all the of above'?
Homeschooling curriculum isn't inherently free. MUCH of it is for a fee and you have to buy it. However, I do love the free variety.

One (of the many) reason(s) I really like home school is it allows for a lot more family time and flexibility in the scheduling process of family affairs, since you're kids aren't gone 5-8 hours of the day, 5 days a week. They don't ever have to learn that school is a chore from the beginning, some hard duty to be endured with a stiff upper lip, I want their education to serve them, not the other way around. I fervently hope and pray that I'll be able to instill a strong sense of focus and motivation in my students because in general I don't want them to HAVE to spend more than 4 hours doing their work each day, even towards their highschool years. I want to accelerate certain aspects of their curriculum so that we have less to do and accomplish more. No need to do reading and math as intensively in each grade if they start "K5" with 5th grade abilities...is there?

I'm worried about developing strong writing skills in 3 languages (Arabic, English and Spanish) but not THAT worried. I'm sure I can do it...

I have to say that I LOVE Activity Ideas and themes! I'm constantly dreaming up several activities and trying to figure out what age/stage they'd be best for. I'm going to have to start keeping a log of each activity and making templates. Though I have to constantly watch out for my bias and develop a well balanced curriculum, despite my biases for or against something....

By 'making your own' I'm assuming you mean curriculum and I have to say that this is currently my favorite part of homeschooling!  I'm not just planning my own curriculum, but I'm planning my school system! It goes by stages of development/abilities and skills learned rather than something as arbitrary as Date of Birth :/ (having a December birthday, I always hated that!). Also, since I'm anticipating advanced readers and mathers (, I made a new word., ...) I think it will be easier if I use the tons and tons of free time that I have now to develop detailed at least the outlines for study of history, geography and science materials for them as they grow, since I don't believe in dumbed down curriculum...I don't trust boxed curriculum for these subjects...

Anyway, designing my own curriculum/ school system/philosophy its something I am currently enjoying a lot, my latest hobby  I've already wrote out a simple but detailed plan for my own school system, instead of 13+ years for grades K-12 that Public school models tend to use, I'm confident that I can do in less than 8 years with any of my children what the school system aims, and constantly fails, to do in 13+ years.

My goal is to have my students on a typical college freshmen academic ability by the time that they are 12 or 13 years old as I want them to be able to spend their adolescences truly pursuing their passions and interests...I'm planning to start my students education at 3-4 months of age, so I think thats a fair trade.

I love so many things about home school. I think I'd be heart broken if despite everything I had to put the kids in PS or something...makes me nervous and sad just to think about it.

[TracyR4]

Sure. You can play games like Candyland to learn colors. If anything my 4yr old learned her colors by learning to read the words to the colors here on Brillkids! LOL. She finally didn't get them until one day I clicked on the free Powerpoint here and she learned them.
Some children learn with colored cubes , you can also point on the color she is wearing for the day.

If she knows her letters and sounds you could try  phonics. Some children take to phonics and some don't.My 4yr old is just starting to get a little bit of phonics but in reality she is teaching it to herself. Teaching phonics can be a good or not so good thing.
My 2nd and 3rd daughters have speech issues. But they took to learning to read phonetically with ease and it actually helped with their speech. Then my two daughters 1st and 4th speak well, have no speech issues but teaching them to read phonectially has bombed. Don't get me wrong. My oldest did learn to read phonetically. It just took her MUCH longer than her 2nd and 3rd sisters.
My 4th daughter was following the same pattern as my oldest so I decided to drop phonics for a little bit and teach her using whole words. It is working so much better for her. I wished I had known that when began teaching my oldest. My oldest did figure out phonics on her own as well but she didn't read fluently until she was about 8 or 9. Sad but true. So if you find that your daughter isn't getting it. Just back off, do what your doing and then try again later with phonics. Don't push it because they will push back so to speak. My oldest shut down for a very long time when I continued to teach reading phonetically ( because as everyone kept telling me when I first began homeschooling, that teaching to read phonetically was the ONLY right way).  The best thing to do is to take your daughter's lead. You will know when she is ready for it.

At two you can definitely teach her numbers and colors and so forth.
I don't always use tv for teaching but Leap Pad videos are great for teaching early reading and math skills.

[jajagary]

tq so much tracy....

i will try to teach her color n number while we play everyday... n maybe i will use Brillkids flash cards power point 

i hope i can HS my kid  do pray for me

[mother of faith]

Homeschooling can be free if you have the time to provide a plan.
I do believe that a 2 year old needs a schedule not just for school work but for a every day life. You don't have to be a teacher to teach your child you are her mother, caregiver, instructor, and so on so therefore you are her teacher.
If you want free curriculu to print out there are tons that are free and are great! If you want to pay a small fee then there are some from 8.00 a month to 20.00 and so on. My co-op offers a ministry where were we print the curriculum for a fee of what it costs and we ship it to people all over of cours ethe parents pay the fee.
It can be hard to homeschool a little one but if you organize your life and the little ones you can do it for as little as 5.00 or less a month.

I start my homeschooling curricula at age 6 months and a schedule for my 3, and my other 15 homeschoolers.

PM me and I can tell you more if interested.

[jajagary]

pm-ed u huhuhuhu 

[nellie]

it's 0205 hrs and I'm glad I didnt sleep yet to read thru this topic.

Wow Tracy, I didnt know 2yo can do so much. I definitely need to learn how to play pretend and tea time and stuff. And do they really can learn to color in line? Any tips?

As for me..think would be 'all the above'?  . But I know I have to work harder on scheduling because the routine keeps changing. I was steady for 3 months but then stopped LR and LM for 3 months (due sickness) and now have to keep everything back on track. Poor my baby because she loves LR & LM so much but I was too sick to have the session with her    Now that I'm all well trying to plan good reading session and playtime with her and hope everything can be back to normal 

Mind telling me how do you homeschool with theme? Why we want a theme? Sound silly now but I'm really clueless 

Hehe..mother of faith...sent you a pm! 

Thank you!!

[TracyR4]

Sure, young children can learn anything you give them a chance to learn.
As for coloring within the lines its a process.  The best way to teach them is to put your finger by lines that way they aren't coloring past your finger. It eventually teaches them to stay within the lines.

As for themes. They can be helpful. Say for instance your child likes cats. You can color pictures with cats, make cat counters to count. Learn about  about cats, different kinds of cats. Find worksheets to practice writing the word cat etc.

Same for any theme. Say for instance you are studying Egypt. You can learn to make a mummy ( by using a toy), you can learn geometry by learning about pyramids. You can study what the Egyptians believed, how they lived and write a report.
Its very helpful if you ,or you and your child like to study or focus on a given subject.
It is fun once you learn how to teach that way.

[nellie]

Thanks for the tips!
Now I get how we use a theme. I guess having a 'The Beatles' theme is not a good idea then.    Before I have my little girl I used to listen to the CD everytime I do the housechores, now not anymore. Is it okay to have an activity sessions with grown-ups songs? I always think it's inappropriate..

I'm gathering info for my 18mo curricula, material etc and I love the links in this thread. Thanks again TracyR4.

And I need help to schedule sessions for LM. Until Day75 I realized I didnt set the screen to be 'icon-numeral-word'. All this while I have only 'icon' screen played for daughter. Maybe that's the reason she feels bored of LM? Anyway, I think I have to start again from lesson Day1 (with 'icon-numeral-word' screen) right?  I did download the other language too with the foreign words. Please help how do I schedule the session for her. Should I go:

Mon engx2 sessions japsx2 sessions
Tue engx2 sessions chix2 sessions
Wed engx2 sessions japsx2 sessions
Thu engx2 sessions chix2 sessions
Fri  engx2 sessions japsx2 sessions

or..

Mon engx2 sessions japsx2 sessions
Tue engx2 sessions japsx2 sessions
Wed engx2 sessions japsx2 sessions
Thu engx2 sessions japsx2 sessions
Fri engx2 sessions japsx2 sessions
and the following week for chinese language.

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