Message for TINA - and other homeschoolers

Hey Tina! CONGRATULATIONS!!
You've done the hard bit. So, regarding your question "how do you fit in working with homeschooling..?"

Trust me, you are not going to have a problem as long as you take time out to prepare. Set aside a few days and plan what you want to do. Then once you have tried it, chop it down a bit! Its my guess, but we all start out making our kids do WAY too much stuff. They really don't need it.
If I had a £1 for every timetable I have drawn up and then thrown away, I would be rich!

Your situation, expectation, child and way of education will be totally different from any other homeschoolers. No one will be doing exactly the same as you. Keep in mind, that you don't now have to become 'the school' either. Your are simply a facilitator for your child's learning.

Working and homeschooling is not easy, but then what is? Its easier than seeing my child unhappy that's for sure!

Just for pure example, here's what we do:
We just cover as much as we have time to do. We don't worry if we miss a day of 'regular school work' because chances are its because we are shopping, or out meeting people or seeing something cool... our whole life and the way we live it has now become our 'school'.
Basically we do 'regular 3R's' in the mornings for about 2 hours a day. Doesn't seem much, but its HEAPS. Read the whole post to see why.

(Remember this is just me everyone! All homeschoolers are different.)

My DS is 8 (nearly 9). He would be in the UK year 4, US Grade 3.
I made a list of the things I wanted DS to cover at the beginning of this year - not what the state system want him to cover - what I want him to cover.

For me, the following are really important:
English/ language arts
Maths
Reading
Handwriting
Spellings

These form the core of our 'curriculum' if you can call it that.

For English, Maths, Social Studies and Science I use http://www.time4learning.com/ which is FABULOUS and they can do it on their own with minimum input. They love it because its on computer and has games after their set lesson time. It is a tutor too, not just a load of questions. Its also all backed up with worksheets that you can spend a couple of days printing out, binding etc. It takes time, but it totally worth it.

I also use http://www.meleto.com/ for maths as this is a British site therefore covering English money and other things not covered by the US sites. So really poor DS is doing twice the amount of maths that he should do, but all it does is reinforce and support his learning.

For learning to read (as DS could not read when I took him out of school) I use a book called Toe by Toe by Keda Cowling. www.toe-by-toe.co.uk its EXCELLENT. For kids, for adults or anyone with reading problems including dyslexics, or simply just learning to read which is what I used it for. I used this along with the Ladybird books (Peter and Jane books).

I also use http://www.readinga-z.com/. Its got a load of printable books online and http://www.raz-kids.com/ has the same books online with quizzes too. Its good because you can use a benchmark book with your child and work out their reading age and if they are doing well and stuff. Again, takes a bit of time reading and getting your head around, but I worked it out, so anyone can!! All you need is time, and a glass of wine!

For spelling I use http://www.wizardsspell.com/ which is hard work to prepare at first, but once its up and running (i.e. you have created all the spelling lists for your child from their extensive graded library) its a piece of cake. DS does this before DH and I are even out of bed and I just test him once a week. If there are words he still needs to practice, then he gets them for another week ;o)

For handwriting I usually find online poetry or stories and cut and paste them onto word. I then highlight them and change the font to D'Nealian handwriting or Cursive. I then make sure its just one A4 page and print it off. I clip this weeks worth onto a clipboard and cover each sheet with tracing paper and he does it every day. We use cursive now for all handwriting, and although he used to be really bad (spiders crawling all over the page) now its becoming more and more obvious that its working from his independent writing he does. Its also amazing how quickly this has happened. Its also amazing what he picks up as he can't help but read as he goes along! Simple, but VERY effective.

There is an excellent course for learning to write properly... expository, fair tale, composition, that kind of stuff. It helps them to organise their thoughts and make it in a logical order. Again prep time for you, but easy learning for kids. its at http://www.writinga-z.com/ You can mark it using the 6 traits which are used in schools in the States. (I even learned stuff too!!!!)

So, I have printed all the supporting worksheets and booklets and things IN ADVANCE - takes me about a week to prepare for the whole year. Yes, it takes time. Yes, its a hassle, but I know that the week I take out to do it saves me Soooo much time as a working Mum. I then look at my writing my timetable.

I work on Monday 3:30 - 9pm, Wednesday 3:30 - 9pm and Friday 1:30 - 9pm and all day Saturday teaching the piano.

I work for myself, so it changes often - People drop out, new people come and I don't work holidays and stuff like that. But basically we only have the mornings to do home school

So on any morning of the week, as I have already prepared his stuff, he does his spelling and handwriting on his own. He then has breakfast and plays about until DH has gone to work. I then start to clear the breakfast things, do the dishwasher etc whilst he does his Time4 learning. He will do what we call 'One circle' like a module. If he gets stuck I go and help him. The computer is in our classroom which is downstairs, so he is close by. Then he will probably go and feed his fish and muck about for a bit. Then I will go through the Toe by Toe book for a couple of pages where we are working. We are currently just over half way through the book and we have been homeschooling for 3 years now. This doesn't mean we have taken 3 years to get half way, but that we don't have to do it every day religiously. We have months off. I just judge how he is and let him go at his pace. I don't want to force my son to learn, or for him to be too far ahead of his peers as I think that's just as damaging for them. So I let him run with the things he wants to do, and make sure he does a little of the stuff he doesn't!

So after Toe by toe, I will get him to do another 'circle' on time4 learning and go through the worksheets with it for maths or whichever circle it is he is doing. Then probably that will be it. He will watch kids TV for schools or go and read a book. Right at the moment he is asking me if we can smelt lead this afternoon *SIGH*.

It seems to be that you need to forget what regular schooling is.

When you divide the 6 hours your child would be at school between each of the 30 children in the class... you kid can only get 12 minutes of one on one attention from the teacher. That's if they don't have play times and lunch. You are looking at an awful lot of time working with on their own, or just playing about. DS gets about 2 hours one on one... It seems like so little but in fact its Sooooo much more.

Schools work the way they do as there is no other way, but we don't have those confines.
I make sure he does the 3R's regularly each day and does them well and everything else will come during the normal day... for example... I don't know what category to place smelting lead under but I am guessing it will mostly be in SCIENCE, I am guessing we will chat about the HISTORY of metal work and other stuff too. Conversations tend to lead to different things and cover a huge range of topics... so I think he has a seriously rounded education to be honest.

He also gets to explore what ever he wants to for the rest of the day. At present he is MAD for Robin Hood and Warriors, and battles and Medieval ages and castles and knights and did I mention Robin Hood? So he watches the film a lot, plays with his bow and arrow that he made a lot, pretends to be Robin Hood a lot, asks a LOT of questions a lot... etc etc.

That's our schedule.

Homeschooling doesn't take a lot of time, but it takes a HECK of a lot of preparation. The more prep you do, the better. If you have just taken your child out of school, I would consider not bothering with anything structured for some time. DS needed a period of UN-schooling. He couldn't get to grips with learning at home until he realised that it was going to be different, and it wasn't going to be boring. He learnt all kinds of things in that De-Schooling 6 months or so. I took him out of school at the beginning of starting this blog (you can read it in my history on the right) and we weren't really into any kind of routine until the following September, and that was mainly because he had to chill out, and I had to prepare.

Home schooling is actually easier if you work I think. If I was home all day long with DS, even though I obviously love him to bits, he would do my head in. Going to work gives me a chance to do my thing and be on my own and stuff like that.

There is a saying that "If you have got something that needs doing, give it to a busy person to do". Busy people are better at pigeon holing time, and fitting things in.

Also remember that schooling doesn't have to be from 9am-3pm it can be at any time.

So a sum up of fab sites to use,
http://www.time4learning.com/
http://www.meleto.com/
http://www.writinga-z.com/
http://www.readinga-z.com/
http://www.raz-kids.com/
http://www.edhelper.com/
http://www.wizardsspell.com/

Now, each of these are subscription, but surprisingly cheap.
The a-z ones are part of the same family group. The others are individual.

If you are not sure of what you want, try http://www.edhelper.com/ as it has every subject and all kids of worksheets in grade order just to keep you going until you settle on something comfortable. Its taken me about 2 years to get to this comprehensive list. I don't use anything else other than these to educate my son (well, other than the library and my own time and brain and stuff).

There are so many different places to go to get stuff for homeschooling, but a lot of them are not comprehensive or easy for your kid to use on their own. That's important as they like to be independent and you want time to get on with housework or cooking dinner or something.

This works great for us, but there are as many ways to home school as there are grains of sand in the desert! You might really want to push your child, or you might want to take a completely autonomous (child led) approach. Basically just remember that you do what YOU and YOUR CHILD want. School is over now. So are their constraints. Your child is now totally free range!

If you want any further info on anything I have written, then just leave a comment or email me at cge@talktalk.net

http://www.education-otherwise.org/