homeschooling wise....
It took some time but I feel like we’re finally in a stride with homeschooling. It took a lot of trial and error on different curriculums too. Long story short - we have a hodgepodge of stuff we’re doing and it’s fantastic and working for us! I think we might even be on our fourth attempt at a science curriculum, but I feel like it’s finally working! It’s sad, but I need to preface this with the fact that we are not experts and we do what works for us and our family because that’s what matters. This is a safe space to ask questions and I’m happy to answer to the best of my ability. This is, however not a safe place to bash and judge. There’s zero tolerance for that.
I’ve had a few friends ask me recently how we homeschool and what we do. I’m not an expert by any means but I thought that if I had somethings written up I could give a thorough answer each time. It’s a pet peeve of mine without rude people are on Facebook when you ask a question and how nasty and vague some are. So I really try and give the answer that I would want.
First and foremost I want to address why we homeschool. The simple answer is, because we want to and it fits our lifestyle. For the 2019/20 school year, we did a virtual school called Connections Academy, ironically we chose this before we know COVID-19 was going to come into play and it was what we thought we would work best because we weren’t sure where we were going to settle in our RV. While I’m impressed that they run a virtual school the way I think it should be run with 30 minute time blocked classes 2-3x a week depending on the subject, I was not impressed with the rigidness and the fact that it was NOT flexible like advertised. However, it did open my eyes to alternative schedules and affirmed my belief that I am not a fan of public schools and how they do things. We decided to go full fledge homeschool this year and it really opened the doors.
Organization.
I have a planner that I write in because I am that person. I enjoy seeing things and writing them down to a schedule. We also use Google Classroom. It allows me to put documents up for the kids to read, it gives them an easy platform for creating documents or answering questions and it works really well for us. I can separate everything by individual class and then in each class add things by topic.
Curriculum
It’s a mixture, go figure huh?? We are currently using, SchoolHouseTeachers.com and weeding out some of the heavy Christian material, Apologia Biology, we have the book (Kindle version) and spiral notebooks, and Aleph Beta. We also are doing hands-on history and science. I use what’s available to us in our area. We have different memberships with excellent reciprocal benefits so I try and take advantage of that the best we can and then add in other free or minimal cost activities too. I’ll go through my thought process and more detail when I go through each class.
We decided to do one grade for homeschooling. I use the word grade incredibly loosely too because we’re really just doing high school. Even that sometimes we’re going farther back to pick up gaps that our kids have.
We do things in time blocks. I will say OK, for the next thirty minutes you will work on ELA. This works best for us so they know to work for that entire time, the effort is a big issue here, and then they also know it’s not an endless amount of time.
Hands-on Learning:
So really we try and add learning opportunities whenever possible, this just gives me an avenue to structure it and go back and ask questions and create assignments. We’re focusing on history and science. We abandoned a structured history curriculum, just this month - February because it wasn’t working for us. Instead, we’re now committed to doing something weekly with history where we go somewhere and absorb all it has to offer. Since we have plans to go ALL over the country we’ll be able to do and see some amazing things. Our first field trip was to Edison Ford Winter Estates. It was really neat, we did a guided tour which was done through an app on my phone. After we were done both kids did a Google Slides presentation on one area and did some research on their own too! The plan is to find something intentional for history each week, this is in addition to what we might be doing with our novel study in ELA (more on that later).
For science it’s another easy opportunity, with science museums in just about every city we want to experience that and take the chance to absorb and learn. Again, this is in addition to what we are doing in biology or something that could again fit into an ELA novel study.
Biology
We are using Apologia for our biology curriculum. We have the book on kindle and each kid has it on their tablet. We also have the big spiral that you can purchase, it’s an investment yes, but this seems to be working well. We do not do this daily, but instead 3ish times a week. So Monday, Wednesday & Friday they do a traditional assignment. They will read, take notes and make flashcards. After that, they review their flashcard terms. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, they run through their flashcards to make sure they are truly learning the terms. I preview the content when I schedule out the module and make sure we are exploring and talking about things hands-on as well. Module three is all about the eco system.
Fulltime.Life
This is our family blog and everybody contributes. I like the fact that I can organize thoughts and ideas with them with the classroom setup. It also gives them real-life experience with design and editing in WordPress, photoshop, and other programs.
Public Speaking
We are using schoolhouseteachers.com for this. For the most part, I’m following exactly how it’s meant to be. It breaks things into units and weeks. It’s a 2-3 day a week commitment. I figure out where our school load is the lightest and slide it in there. I download the reading material and then put a copy in google drive for the kids to read and they go from there. We are currently on weeks 6 & 7 and they are doing an expository speech. I had them give me five ideas on what to do after reading the explanation. However, we take our time too! Week 5 was a shark-tank-themed pitch and we actually spent 3 weeks on it because they were so into it!
Mind & Body
This is solely for the mental health factor. It’s our number one concern when it comes to our teens. It’s so important and underestimated by so many people. I have yoga videos, mindfulness clips, affirmations, all sorts of stuff in there. It really helps solidify why we are homeschooling and why we put some much care and effort into mental wellness being a top priority.
Judiac’s
I love being able to share the religious pieces throughout the day and have designated time for education. We have focused on learning about the holidays and growing a deeper understanding of Shabbat. I’m liking AlephBeta and My Jewish Learning. Since it's Spring, we are working on Passover. I have found a Haggadah for us to use for the seder and we're going to really dive deep into the meaning of freedom and truly celebrating the holiday.
ELA
This is the subject I’ve put the most focus on. I’ve wanted to really grow our kid’s confidence in this area and make sure that they have a strong foundation. We are doing daily writing prompts that I get from schoolhouse teachers. It’s a mixture of the regular ones and the “this day in history” set. We are also doing a creative writing course and exploring literature. In the exploring literature course, we’re not following it like it’s written. We don’t align with all of the books and at the end of the course, I want to do both books offered as choices in the last two units. That’s where the freedom and beauty of homeschooling come in. We're currently doing "The Swiss Family Robinson" novel. They read a chapter a day and are keeping a journal of all of the animals they come in contact with throughout as well as a list of vocabulary words. It's a lot of fun, I'm excited to show them the movie. I've also looked up different hands-on activities as we work through the book.
Pre-Algebra & Algebra
Jason is in charge of math because that’s his area of expertise. We go for understanding and weed out the busywork. They are actually working through both at a time. They will start with the lesson on pre-algebra and then move to the same thing with the algebra problems. Some days are better than others, but progress is progress.
Thanks for sticking with me with a truly wordy traditional blog post. I hope this encourages someone who has been thinking about bucking the norms and taking charge of their kid's education. Not a day goes by that I regret this decision. I will reiterate, that this has taken a lot of trial and error and we just needed to figure out what works for us.