May 31, 2012

Froglet Update


I awoke this morning to discover two things - one sad, one happy. Little Ozzy did not make it, this morning he was found on the bottom of the tank, barely moving and I felt it was time to end his suffering. He will be missed. Charlie, on the other hand has sprouted his front legs, so we have added the floating piece of wood to the tank. I think he will need to be moved to another tank soon. The second largest - still unnamed at this point - definitely has his hind legs sprouting and the twins are holding stable.



The second largest - still unnamed at this point - definitely has his hind legs sprouting and the twins are holding stable. This continues to be one of the most educational and interesting projects yet. I must do in all home ed households!

May 30, 2012

Transitioning a Family from School to Home Education – Tips from the Rearview Mirror

Transitioning a Family from School to Home Education – Tips from the Rearview Mirror
I wrote this article last year, but as it is getting to the end of the "school year" I thought I would repost it for those families who are new to my blog and making this transition over the summer months.

Transitioning a Family from School to Home Education – Tips from the Rearview Mirror



When I made the decision to remove my daughter from public school, I delved into research mode. Learning all that I could about curricula, educational philosphies, "socialization", standard courses of studies, how to get into college without a diploma and anything else that came to mind.  While there are many articles out there that go over the “hows” of taking a child out of school and where to begin home educating, I had a very hard time finding any that went much beyond the standard “be sure to allow the child to deschool.” and many were written by people who have never actually gone through the process themselves.  I am not an expert, but hindsight is priceless.  It is my hope that you will find these inside tips helpful to you, as you begin your Home Ed journey.

Decompressing vs. Deschooling

While deschooling of the child is very important, deschooling the parents should really be the first step in the process.  When you are raised to believe that only accredited teachers can help someone learn, you have to build yourself up and realize that no one is more qualified than you are to teach your child.  Parent's need to break away from the thoughts of what “school” looks like and begin to realize that “education” and “schooling” are not one in the same and often, detrimental to the other.  Most sources will advise that one month of deschooling is needed for each year a child has been in a school system, however for the parents I would, at the very least, double that amount of time.

I like to think of this process more as a decompressing of the learner within – the learner that generally gets squashed away in order to conform and fit in within classroom settings.  Both the parent and child need to be allowed freedom to discover what being educated means to them.  What is truly important for your child to know? This is a question that only the parents and the child can answer.  Often the answer is very different from one family to another and even from one child to the next within the same family. Children who have been schooled need the chance to remember that learning is fun and begin to enjoy learning again. When you take away rote memorization drills and allow a child to explore what they find interesting, or what is needed to solve a real problem, they rediscover the curiosity and enthusiasm that is frequently surpressed by a system that needs everyone to remember the same information in order to pass the test.

A common misconception that the word deschooling brings to mind is that the child is allowed to just “do nothing” which can make a lot of parents uncomfortable.  It is better to think of this time as allowing the family to discover how they learn, what their interests are and what they want their lives to be like.   The child should be allowed freedom to discover what interests them and how they best absorb information. Parents can encourage this discovery by providing a multitude of resources, from traditional workbooks, to living books, to field trips, to television series, to co-op classes and anything else that might pique their interest in a subject.  Learning styles can vary greatly and often a child will enjoy math through hands on manipulation of blocks, but enjoy reading a great historical fiction series to learn about the revolutionary war. This time will allow you and your learner a chance to see what fits for them.

It should also be a time when the child's circadian rhythms are allowed to return to a natural state.  Often a child who is used to being told what to do with every second of their day, has no idea when they are hungry, thirsty, tired or even need to go to the bathroom. They have become trained to sleep when told, eat when told, and hold “IT” for extended amounts of time when necessary.  This causes circadian rhythms to become nearly dormant in a child's body.  When given the chance, these natural feelings will return and a child will have control of their bodies again, often leading to children who had discipline and attention issues to become far more content and attentive.  This is a factor that is very often overlooked by behaviorists within a school environment, but has been noted time and time again from parents who have removed their children from the system.

Swiss Cheese Knowledge Base

The most frequent question I see on home education forums from parents who are thinking of taking this step is some variation of “What curriculum should I use?” For the person asking this seems like such a simple question and they believe it should be fairly easy to get an answer to. Surely, my 4th grader in Wyoming should be learning the exact same information as the 4th grader in Dakota. This could not be further from the truth.  Not only do different states teach different things at different ages, different counties and even different schools within the same town teach things differently.  No matter what standard base is being used, not all 4th graders in any system are going to learn the same information.  For most home educators this is even more of a widespread question because they tend to realize the individual needs of each child and therefore can't tell you what curriculum to use without having any idea what type of child would be using it.  When you take a child out of a system where they are being taught from one set of principles or standards, it is not possible to pick up a catalog and order the 4th grade school in a box set because you have no idea if that system is going to be aligned with the previous one.

Another thing that is often not discussed in regards to where to begin is the concept of a “Swiss cheese knowledge base.” Children who have been in schools have often been taught a lot of information in a very disconnected manner because the focus of so many schools is to teach to the test – CAT, FCAT, MCAS, SAT, ACT or whatever acronym your state has chosen to best “measure” output. This causes many children to have blocks of information scattered with all kinds of holes where the information is missing or has not been connected to anything to make it permanent in the child's memory. In order to truly learn something it must be digested and connected with a real world application or situation. This is why so many children learn from movies, activities and games – they are using multiple senses and therefore can more easily retain the information. I highly recommend approaching each topic as though the child has never encountered it before. This allows you to set the pace at which you move through things, skimming through content that seems to be coming easily to the child, focusing on areas of great interest for as long as the child wants, or slowing down and going deeper on something that needs more time to be fully understood.

What about socialization?

Inevitably the “S” word is always brought up during a transition from a school system to home learning. For families who have been traditionally educated it is hard to fathom how their children could possibly make friends or learn to be productive citizens when they spend every day at home with only their family to interact with. It may be hard for many parents to believe, but although they may not be as “socialized” as their public school counterparts, home educated children are generally more social and outgoing.  "Socialization" is manufactured, living and learning is natural.


A very important thing to keep in mind is also this, kids feed off of the fears of their parents so it is important for the parents to assure their children that they are not the only ones on the planet that have made the choice to learn at home.  Join online communities and local support groups to connect with other home educators in your area. You may need to put yourselves out there, even if it is outside of your comfort zone.  By getting involved with a wide variety of classes, hangouts, park days, co-ops, field trips etc. you widen your chances of finding families with common interests and outlooks. It can be difficult at times for kids to feel connected so try to not feel discouraged if after your first attempt you don't meet anyone that your child hits it off with. If you just keep trying you are likely to build friendships that are based more on common interests, than on what class you randomly got placed into.  Many families find that their children develop bonds with people in the community – local shop keepers, librarians, museum workers – because the kids have a true and honest interest in obtaining knowledge from experienced adults, rather than textbooks.

Just Live!

Once a family has their feet under them in this new world, they tend to come to the realization that learning and life go hand in hand. You will begin to see that kids absorb information when it is presented in a format that resonates within them. I have heard story upon story of parents being astounded at the accuracy of knowledge that flows from their child's mouths, often on topics the parents themselves know nothing about.
When given a chance to follow their own interests, children learn more quickly and deeply than is comprehendable by traditionally schooled parents. The greatest gift given to anyone is life and the chance to just live it!

JASON Live! -- Tracy Drain - FREE EVENT



JASON Live! -- Tracy Drain:

'via Blog this'

May 29, 2012

2012 - 2013 Ed Plan revisited

In light of recent decisions and adjustments in regards to DN's direction over the next "school year" I have decided to repost a corrected outline for our ed plan which only lists KM's resources. I will also post what we decide to have DN use once that has been finalized, but for now here is what she will be doing -


Subject
Summer '12
Fall '12
Winter '13
Spring '13
ELA -
Literature
&
Writing
Historical Fiction




Math

Science




Health & P.E.
Bowling
Bowling
Bowling
Bowling
Social Sciences –
U.S. History
& Geography










Election Study









Elective







This will be her summer schedule -


 and for the fall - 

May 27, 2012

Unschooling Summit Week 2



Unschooling Summit | Embracing the New Education Paradigm


I truly enjoyed and was really inspired by many of last weeks speakers. Can't wait to listen to more this week!

Here is this week's schedule -

May 26, 2012

This time of year...

causes most home ed blogs to have long bouts of silence. I try to plan ahead and have at least some interesting links, videos or something up as I know that the warm weather, outdoor activities and outdoor responsibilities take up a good majority of my day - especially with CJ on the road so often -, but I thought I would take just a few minutes to write a sort of wrap up to our 2011-2012 educational year.

KM has stayed the course and continues to excel as she has for quite sometime now. She is really at a point that she is taking charge of her education, enjoys the lessons that she has chosen and works pretty independently. She has been very busy with volunteering, activities at the library, and finishing up her spring session lessons. She is finally feeling better and we have been able to be out and about quite a bit. She should be able to finish things up over the next week so that she will have the full month of June as a break from book work and will begin her summer lessons the week after the 4th of July. She is really looking forward to getting into her cosmetology books, working on her GED essay skills and to continue studying Japanese.

DN will be working over the summer and things will be a bit different for him in the fall. He will begin working toward his GED with no extra studies. We have all tried to peak his interest in something, but it all just seems to be a waste of time. I don't know if he just truly doesn't know what he is interested in or if he just has no authentic interest in anything. His retention skills are extremely limited to things that we have physically done - certain science experiments - and/or covered repeatedly - the basic information about the revolutionary war - and then he often needs hints or multiple choice to get the answers correct. He wants his hand-held through every step and at nearly 16, that is just not reasonable when there is no positive outcome. It really is frustrating for all involved and feels as though it is just a waste of time. I have to wonder if the situation would be different if he were here all the time, but as that is not an option, I try not to let my thoughts dwell in that arena for any length of time.

Before I get attacked by anyone who might say something like - "Just because he cannot regurgitate the information for a test, doesn't mean that he is not getting something out of it." I want to clarify a few things; first of all I fully acknowledge that this is true, he is getting something out of it, at the very least he is being exposed to things that he otherwise would not encounter. Secondly he not only doesn't remember things in a "sit down and take a test" situation, but even basic conversation or contextual situations he doesn't recall information that he read about, watched a show about, did a project on or even discussed at dinner  - I don't want to get into disclosing the specifics of the information, but believe me I have tried everything and been quite astonished at the things that have gone in one ear and out the other. Thirdly, I am quite aware that all kids learn differently and at different ages, so this is not a "you need to know this by this time type of situation," by any means. I have tried strewing books on things that he has mentioned having interest in, going on field trips to places he says he wants to go or that have things we think he might like, going to the library to look up information on a topic of interest, searching the internet for the answer to something that we weren't sure about, all to no avail. So for this child, who is unlikely to go to a four year college that would accept a transcript for a home educated student the GED really seems to be the best route to the next stage of his life. It will give him a wide variety of options, including starting out in a community college and then moving on to a four year if he find it necessary, but not limit or cause him to be looked down upon if his application just says "homeschool graduate." Also focusing specifically on GED related materials will free up his time and lessen the stress on his relationship with all the adults in his life that feel as though they are pushing him and although there is no resistance, there is no results. This will give him a concrete end goal. 

May 20, 2012

The Real Reasons People Home Educate

I have no idea where they got their data or how accurate it is over the home ed population in it's entirety, as there is no way to know how many home educators there actually are - since some states have no regulation processes, but it is interesting to see the variance in reasons, since so many still think it is all about religion. 



Unschooling Summit - FREE Virtual Event


From the site -
Whether you are an experienced “unschooler,” a current homeschooler or you are eager to try a new approach to learning for your child, this summit provides information and guidance for parents who:
  • Realize the education paradigm has shifted and that children need more than rigid or ‘pigeonholed’ curriculums for real-world success.
  • Desire to educate and empower their whole child—mind, body and spirit.
  • Want to learn the differences between ‘unschooling’ and traditional ‘home-schooling’.
  • Long to expose their children to more experiences and opportunities not afforded by ‘traditional’ education.
  • Want a closer, deeper, heart-centered relationship with their children and be fully present as they move through the milestones of their lives.

Unschooling Summit | Embracing the New Education Paradigm


Although we aren't "unschoolers" and I don't particularly like the term, there are some really great speakers who have inspired me on my journey and some incredible topics scheduled. A great way to be inspired to allow your children to be the best educated individuals they can be!

Here is this week's schedule -


May 18, 2012

2012-2013 Ed Outline

KM has been quite under the weather over the last few weeks and feeling like she didn't want to go anywhere, which gave me a TON of time to get next year's education outline completed for both kids - YIPPEE!!! AS I ALWAYS SAY - I don't have this carved in stone, but I feel SOOOOO much more confident when I have it all planned out. DN will be 11th grade next year and KM will be 10th grade, however since KM is a bit ahead and DN has some remedial work to catch up on, there a few areas where they are working on the same things and a number of areas where KM is actually doing higher level work than DN. DN will also be working this summer and therefore will have a more intense schedule over the fall, winter and spring sessions.


Education Outline
Summer 12 – Spring 13 Sessions

Subject
Summer '12
Fall '12
Winter '13
Spring '13
ELA -
Literature
&
Writing
Historical Fiction - K


Steck-Vaughn G: Language Arts, Writing  - K

Glencoe Literature - D
Movies as Literature -    Both


Movies as Literature -    Both


Math





Science

Chemistry (Science) -    Both



Health & P.E.
Bowling - K
ExerBeat - K
Bowling – K
ExerBeat - K
Bowling - K
ExerBeat - K
Bowling - K
ExerBeat - K
Social Sciences –
Current Events,
U.S. History
& Geography









Living Books & Historical Fiction - D



Election Study




Living Books & Historical Fiction - D







Living Books & Historical Fiction - D



Elective

Cosmetology - K 


Stossel in the Classroom - Civics - D    
Cosmetology - K 


Stossel in the Classroom - Civics - D 
Cosmetology - K 


Stossel in the Classroom - Civics - D 


Here is what the planned schedules will look like -

KM - Summer Schedule ~~~


KM - Fall Schedule ~~~~~~~~



DN - Fall Schedule ~~~~~~~