Homeschooling...good or bad? (drug, accuse, alcohol, problems)
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Of course it is important to teach kids how to find information, but you are missing the point here. The question about FDR is not a "random fact". It is a very basic question which any educated person would be able to answer. I find it scary that any adult would not know this, and yet I'm sure there are many. It is just so huge, so basic to our relatively recent experience as a nation, and indeed, as a world.
I went to public school and I don't remember learning that. Maybe I did, but I don't remember it. FTR, I graduated in the top 10% of my class as a member of the National Honor Society, so it's not because I was a slacker or slept through classes. :shrug: What you consider basic information, someone else may not. Thankfully, though, I now know off the top of my head who served during WWII, which makes me duly qualified to home educate my children. So thanks for that.
It's off the topic, but I have to say, I'm really shocked people don't know who the president was during WWII. That's as shocking to me as someone who doesn't know who the president was during the Civil War. I don't care where you went to school. How do you not know who issued the command to launch the atom bomb, the only ones ever dropped in history? I'd be embarrassed to admit that.
I see one argument over and over and over. What exactly does everyone mean by "lacks social skills"? Are we talking about someone who hides in the closet all day and hisses if someone opens the door? There are very few people who act like Linda Blair in the exorcist, be they publicly schooled or home schooled. Or are we are talking about the natural trait of each person to be introverted or extroverted? In general, home schooling and "social skills" do not have a cause/effect relationship. And beyond that, "social skills" are not dependent on introversion/extroversion.
This "social skill" argument seems to be all most of you have, and it's bogus. An education system is just that: education. Not a social club. You want your kid to be a social butterfly, send him/her to a social club. Otherwise let's let education be education, not playtime or gab sessions. You don't have to study anything to interact with people; you just do it. You DO have to study to learn what has traditionally been considered common knowledge in a modern society. Let's let school--public, private, or home--concentrate on that, not this "social skills" nonsense. Social skills are the job of the parents, family, and community--not peers in high school, who have no clue in the first place.
It's off the topic, but I have to say, I'm really shocked people don't know who the president was during WWII. That's as shocking to me as someone who doesn't know who the president was during the Civil War. I don't care where you went to school. How do you not know who issued the command to launch the atom bomb, the only ones ever dropped in history? I'd be embarrassed to admit that.
Why would you be embarrassed? There are lots of things I don't know. Or, I know them, but can't pull them off the top of my head. I have a huge chart on the wall with all of the Presidents, so I glanced at it and found the information before I could find it in my brain. Blame it on aging, on sleeping through Social Studies class in the sixth grade, on the public school I went to... what difference does it make, really?
Looking up simple facts is really not that hard... my fourth grader does it every day. What I personally find more disturbing is reading posts full of terrible grammar and spelling. How can someone speak English natively and not know how to use a comma, or which form of your/you're to use? How about using apostrophes to pluralize? That one really gets my goat. Or, even better, how about when the cashier at Walmart has to call over a manager because I gave her a $20 and she mistakenly hit the "$10" button, and can't figure out the change? :twitch: Understanding HOW to apply knowledge is more important, IMO, than rote memorization of dates and names. YMMV, of course.
It illustrates a lack of American history knowledge. My grandfather served during WWII. Many people in my generation have grandparents who served. It would be a great embarrassment to me not to understand why he fought, who fought for and where he fought.
As a citizen of this country, I would be embarrassed not to understand the whos, whats, and whys of our wars. However, I realize many Americans probably don't know and don't care. Same for the constitution. It's sad when non-citizens know more than Americans.
I agree with the generalized lack of American history knowledge and understanding. We host foreign exchange students, and they usually know more about American history and politics than the average American, myself included. They've asked great questions that have prompted me to find out more about our history, far and above what I learned (or didn't) in school. I'm also learning all of these things anew in teaching my children. Homeschooling is not only about the kids' education.
I find the subject of homeschooling and unschooling very interesting and would like to know more. Would any homeschoolers and unschoolers mind posting what a day in the life for them is like? Thanks in advance.
I find the subject of homeschooling and unschooling very interesting and would like to know more. Would any homeschoolers and unschoolers mind posting what a day in the life for them is like? Thanks in advance.
I could give you a general gist, but I highly recommend the book Homeschooling: A Patchwork of Days, by Nancy Lande. It's an anthology of 25 or 30 "days in the life" of different types of homeschoolers, from unschoolers all the way up to "school at homers." It was the first homeschooling book I had ever read, and the one that convinced me that homeschooling was the way to go. There is also a sequel, called Homeschool: Open House which is excellent.
Here's our ideal homeschooling day. My kids are 10 and 7, and we're fairly relaxed.
7:00/7:30ish: Kids get up, eat breakfast, get dressed, etc. (I get up at 6:30 to drink coffee with our exchange student and I take her to school.) They watch TV or color or play Legos for a while. I try to get some of my writing done (I'm a freelance writer), and usually spend some time chatting with my best friend on the phone. She lives 1800 miles away and we usually talk every morning.
9:30ish: DH leaves for work. At this point, I'm done with working and chatting, and I get in the shower. The kids can watch MythBusters or another educational program, or they might read or unload the dishwasher or play a game.
10:00: We start "school." We do our Bible study work (we participate in Community Bible Study and have a short assignment each day). DS (10) reads a chapter or two of whatever book he's reading. He just finished The Time Machine last week, and he'll start something new on Monday. I might ask him to narrate (summarize) the chapter, or I might assign him a few pages in a reading comprehension workbook. DD (7) and I work on her reading lesson... she's not an independent worker yet. DD also does phonics, and DS may or may not work on grammar or spelling. (More often than not, he doesn't, as his grammar and spelling are quite good and he learns quickly from correcting mistakes in his writing.)
The kids do some math. We use Miquon Math. DS is almost done with the program, and will move onto Singapore math after the new year. Both are somewhat independent with their mathematics, though they may need help, so I stick close by.
Both kids usually write something. It may be a short story, a paragraph, a journal entry. DS uses Writing Strands once or twice per week.
By now it's usually lunchtime, and they can watch an educational program while they eat. I usually take this opportunity to get some laundry going, vacuum, clean a bathroom, or do one of the myriad of tasks that still need to get done even though I'm homeschooling! DH usually comes home for lunch, so they can spend some time with him too.
After lunch, we usually have something to do out of the house. We might meet other homeschoolers at the library, host an art class at our house (twice monthly), go to our weekly co-op (where the kids study science and history), run errands, etc. We usually play a game at the table, and sometimes our exchange student joins us when she gets home from school. I may read aloud (we're currently reading through the Little House books; we're on the second one). I try to shoo them outside to play if we didn't go to a park with friends.
We clean up in the late afternoon and DH comes home around 6:00. We all eat dinner at the table together every night at 6:30. Kids go in their rooms around 8:00, and usually go to bed between 9:00 and 9:30.
Some considerations:
We are part of two active homeschool groups. Every Wednesday, we are busy all day with Bible study and homeschool park day (we live in Florida, so this is a year-round thing). We attend a book club once monthly which takes up a whole day most of the time. We also go on field trips occasionally. Last Monday, we spent the day at an art museum, for example. We do the aforementioned homeschool co-op each week, and there is also a homeschool gathering at the library each week. We also attend church on Sundays, and the kids go to Children's Church with their friends, many of whom are also homeschooled. We have to temper our social activities so that we have time to do schoolwork!
Thankfully we live in a community with a LOT of homeschoolers, because we live in an undeveloped neighborhood. There is one homeschooled girl my daughter's age who lives around the corner; other than her, though, there are no children on our street or on the immediately surrounding ones. Until this past summer, we lived on a busy neighborhood street with a ton of children, so every day (when it was not too cold, because this was in Connecticut) the kids would play outside with the neighborhood (public schooled) children.
Okay, I've written you a novel here, sorry! I'm very enthusiastic about how homeschooling works, and how the kids really seem to thrive. A message board post obviously can't get into all of the ins and outs, but I hope that gives you an idea of what a typical homeschooling day may be like.
I find the subject of homeschooling and unschooling very interesting and would like to know more. Would any homeschoolers and unschoolers mind posting what a day in the life for them is like? Thanks in advance.
I'd be willing to give this one a go as well. Interestingly enough, I live one town from Whimsy and we are in some of the same home school groups.
My kids are 18, 13 and 6. I would say we are your average home schoolers.
I'll start this out with a little background so you know where we are coming from. My 18 year old attends a full time public gifted school. My 13 was at the same gifted school up until this year. She was highly advanced in everything but math. I felt she needed some extra attention and decided to home school. My little one is also classified as gifted. I only home school my 13 year old and 6 year old my 18 year old is in public school.
My 13 year old does Florida Virtual School: www.FLVS.net This program goes right along with the public school pace. She is in all advanced classes, except for math. So, she whizzes right through all subjects and can spend the time she needs on math. It works out great.
Here's what our day looks like:
(basically for my little one)
Wake up around 7 or so and grab some breakfast, take care of the many pets and grab a shower.
My little one gets on the computer at about 8 AM and starts on her Rosetta Stone Spanish. She is nearly fluent in Spanish at this point. She will do 2-3 chapters which will take around 45 minutes. In FL (Sarasota co) there is no second language class until 3rd grade.
Somewhere around 9 she starts on Language Arts. We use First Language Lessons, which is wonderful for teaching parts of speech, pronunciation, etc. She then follows up with a computer program called Time4Learning.com and does a chapter on that program, which includes reading. She does 5 pages in her Handwriting Without Tears book and I then give her a spelling test. The words come from our Spelling Power book.
By this time it's around 10:30. We work on Singapore math and math on time4learning for about an hour.
Then we work on our Maps, Globes and Graphs Book for about a half hour.
We stop for lunch and to go out for a bike ride or walk. After lunch I read her a chapter from our McGraw Hill Science book and ask her the questions at the end of the chapter. Sometimes on our walks we can find things that relate to our science chapter.
After lunch we read The Story of the World or our Florida History book for history. On several occasions I have my older daughter read her science and social studies in the car on the way to destinations. I figure we're ahead of the game either way since in 1st grade in FL they're not even doing social studies and they only have science on day a week.
These are a few things we do with our home school group. Every Thurs afternoon we meet at the park. Once a month we do a book review in the afternoon. Friday afternoons we do a different park day. Then we do various field trips to the planetarium, Calusa Nature Center, Medieval Fair, etc.
On a side note, we are not religious and do no "official" religious studies at all. We are however very tolerant of others religions and choose to learn a little about all religions-Jews, Christians, Buddhist, Hindus, etc
Every evening I read a few chapters out of a book to her and she reads to me.
On Tues my little one is going to her grandmothers in the afternoon. We have been studying measurements in math and baking cookies with grandma-measuring butter, milk etc will go beautifully with our lessons. We have also been learning about money and when we go to the store I have her figure out which product is the best bargain, how much money she will need to purchase different items and count out the needed money. Everyday activities can be turned into lessons.
I have a really funny story to tell. I pulled my little one out of school first and went to my middle daughter and told her I'd be willing to home school her if she wanted to go that route. Her immediate response (remember she's a teenager) was that they are probably all dumb and incredibly uncool. So, I told her I could pull her out of public school for one day so she could meet some of the kids and decide for herself. She attended one of the Thursday park days. There were a handful of kids her own age and she decided that a few of the kids were acceptable but one of the kids was definitely not (because she liked the band Green Day and that was not cool). She still wasn't convinced that she'd be able to survive without her public school friends and I certainly didn't want to be the one to make the decision to pull her out of school and have her be miserable. She went to another park day a few days later and decided the kids in the group might actually be a bit cooler than her public school friends. She asked me to pull her out the following day. I did and she couldn't be happier. We haven't looked back since. Oh, and she and the Green Day girl are good friends now
That's pretty much it. I'd be happy to answer any questions.
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There are lots of things I don't know. Or, I know them, but can't pull them off the top of my head. I have a huge chart on the wall with all of the Presidents, so I glanced at it and found the information before I could find it in my brain. Blame it on aging, on sleeping through Social Studies class in the sixth grade, on the public school I went to... what difference does it make, really?
