From the beginning, I didn't find homeschooling to be a difficult thing. I do however, find managing many little children, and organizing a household while homeschooling a more challenging task. It helps to start with a good attitude, realistic expectations, and good resources.
There is such a thing as thinking and analyzing too much when it comes to picking resources to use in schooling. On-line forums are full of moms asking, "What is the best spelling program? What math series do you use?" The responses offer dozens of different solutions, "We use XYZ series and it works! Jainey now loves to spell." The poor new homeschooler is left in the same place she was before with no clear-cut solution to her selection process. Usually it is better to not get on the do-it-yourself merry-go-round and just dive in head-first with using an in-the-box program. It seems that it is already enough work to sit down and cover the material with all the children than to add in finding the "perfect" books for each subject, making up lesson plans, and determining grades. Sure, some people are super-organized and use guides such as Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum, but I have found it easier to stick with a good program like Seton and supplement with extras when needed.
So, to respond the statement below, "Its not an easy thing to do," I would say the ease or difficulty of homeschooling depends on how hard you make it.
The state's number of home-schoolers has grown about 6 percent to 9 percent annually during the last decade, according to Raleigh-based North Carolinians for Home Education, a volunteer organization that supports home schools.
Parents say reasons for home schooling their kids vary as much as the dozens of teaching programs available to them. Of the estimated 68,707 home-schoolers enrolled statewide, 67 percent are in home schools with religious themes, according to the state's 2006-07 report.
Others, like Lockard, are dissatisfied with public and private education options.
Starting a home school is easy, but parents caution newbies to do some research.
While getting started is simple, running a home school is time consuming and costly due to lost income, says Waxhaw's Keith Holmes.
"It's not an easy thing to do," he says. "You have to educate your child, and you have no one else to blame."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I think the only thing that really makes it difficult is balancing the needs of the little ones and the needs of the household (like clean laundry and healthy meals).
I recommend Seton to everyone who asks and almost went that route myself. Mother of Divine Grace provides Laura Berquist's Classical Curriculum in a box (so to speak), and I love her program, but it's definitely a program that builds on itself year after year and tempts a mom to worry sometimes if her 4th grader hasn't memorized all the countries of Africa and neighborhood kids have.
But I totally agree that too many moms worry too much about *THE BEST* math program or *THE BEST* spelling program or whatever. I've only turned to an alternative text twice, early on, once when the phonics program didn't suit me and once when my mentor highly recommended a spelling program.
I think it really depends on your children whether it's easier to do a boxed curriculum like Seton, K12, Calvert, etc. or to put together your own. While I really like some of Seton's materials, I find that I often have to heavily modify them to meet my oldest's needs.
A huge issue is that what she can do from a cognitive standpoint is way ahead of what she can do from a motor skills standpoint. With a workbook-heavy program like Seton that's a big problem. Seton's grade-level workbooks would bore her but she can't do the higher grade level ones as designed.
Since I'm already having to modify the boxed curriculum, it's really not that much harder to put something together on my own. But like I said at the beginning, it really depends on the kids' needs.
We have a Homeschooling 101 program sonsored by our support group every year for new and potential homeschoolers, and the second half of the program is a curriculum Show and Tell. We just have 15 or so parents set up individual tables with whatever curriculum they use. Participants are free to walk around, look at the material, talk to the user and pick her brain, look at more material, etc. This is popular not only with newbies but with long-time homeschoolers who might be looking for a change or want to see the material and talk with someone before they purchase. Of course that's still not a guarantee that a certain curricula will work for a family, but it does help to have time to peruse without vendors encouraging you to buy!
Visiting from the CoH,
SmallWorld
Post a Comment