What Are You Doing?!

So, I have decided (along with my lovely wife) to start homeschooling my children. I have no degree in elementary education, although I do have three elementary teachers in my close family (my mother, grandmother, and aunt). I know that I am not as skilled as a degreed teacher, however I feel that my children will get an above average education at home.

People like to think that home-schooled kids are weird. Sure, maybe they are, since by definition they are definitely not normal. The biggest thing negative that I have heard about homeschooling is this: SOCIALIZATION. What about it? Let me answer this gripe before doing anything else. My oldest child, C, went to Pre-K this last year. While there his best friend would often punch him in the face, he learned what the middle finger means, and he was covered in some other kid's blood on the playground, and had to wear bloody clothes the rest of the day. Sure... He was getting socialized so well. But there are so many good things about public school, right? He is told when he can talk, when he can eat,  even when he can go to the bathroom. He learned that he has to rub his runny nose on his shirt, because he is only allowed one tissue per day. He is forced to stand silently in line for long periods of time. Hmmm... which one of those is my favorite? The only good thing I can say about public school is that it is a great daycare.

Anyway, though, I don't want to only complain, I want to advocate a position that I have taken.

First I am going to describe my impetus for homeschooling, why I decided to home-school to begin with. Then I am going to provide you with some of my reasons for choosing to home-school  Next I will explain the methods for homeschooling that I have chosen. Lastly I will describe my facilities and introduce my children.

IMPETUS

My impetus for home-schooling is this:

The child, teacher, and parent are all equally responsible for the child's education. I think the state is failing at supporting the teacher, therefore the teacher is failing my child.

REASONS

Here are my reasons for homeschooling in no particular order:

• Newtown reason #1: Safety of my children is important.
• Newtown reason #2: People have overreacted, advocating for armed volunteers in schools now.
• Newtown reason #3: My oldest son was in Pre-K when the shooting happened in Newtown. The school then forbade parents from entering. Parents are a critical part of the learning process, and were thrown to the curb. We could no longer check bulletin boards, talk to the teacher, or visit mid-day.
• Personal one-on-one instruction will increase drastically.
• Music Class,
• Art Class,
• Recess,
• Weekly Field Trips...
• And all of those other things that build a child up which will be disappearing in the near future.
• Class sizes in public schools are ballooning.
• Language learning. I want my children to learn more than one language, and I want them to learn new languages before they are in high school.
• Money lessons. Why is money management not taught in schools?
• Factory model of teaching does not produce a good product.
• Standardized tests.
• And on and on and on. Add your own reasons in the comments.

METHODS

When considering home-school we looked at all types and styles and methods to go about running our own home-school. From the comically lazy unschooling (Also known as the "Let kids teach themselves. Or not. Whatever" method of homeschooling), to the scary strict school-at-home method (Also known as the "Sit down, shut up" method).

During C's spring break we tried a couple of methods out, and came up with our own style.

I believe that a child needs formal instruction because there are things that they just will not try to teach themselves (math, civics, history, money) which are critical to learn. However, I think that a child needs time to explore learning in a way that is accessible and safe. We are going to try for a balance between these two ideas, with structured learning in the morning, self exploration centers in the late morning, and a focus on one subject in the afternoon. Here is my skeleton schedule (which can be changed as often as needed):

8:30 - Circle Time and Lifeskills

During circle time we sit on the floor and prepare our minds to learn. We sing a song, read a book, and recite the one thing I want them to remember all day "What can I learn?"

For Lifeskills we talk about the day of the week, the month, and season we are in. Then we check the weather and record it. Lastly we have a lesson on telling time, or tying shoes, or brushing teeth, something like that.

9:00 - Hour of Power

For the hour of power we complete 5 basic lessons in 60 minutes. This is the formal instruction so that specific important basics can be touched on every day in every subject. We focus on building a skill slowly every day to reach an end goal, instead of spending one hour on one subject and moving on. The six subjects I try to include (may change) are: Math; Reading & Writing; Social Studies & Civics; Science; Language & Culture.

10:00 - Daniel Tiger & Snack

From doing our test runs I know that my kids hate sitting and learning. So after an hour of cramming things into their heads while they are expected to sit still and listen well I let them watch Daniel Tiger to learn some social skills. They also get a healthy snack.

10:30 - Recess

Running, jumping, being loud, pretend play, imagination time, splashing in the summer, etc. It is recess.

11:00 - Centers

After recess we come back inside for centers. I will lay out 5 or so centers around the house, and then let them explore the topics on their own for 10 to 15 minutes. Then they move on to the next center. They rotate through centers until an hour has passed. I try to pick activities and centers to compliment our long-term goals. Things like addition games, tangrams, volume games, animal classification, etc. I will also throw in some fun centers, like pbskids.org, or coloring, or music.

12:00 - Lunch & Storytime

At noon we eat lunch. While they are eating I will read a chapter from Narnia or Wizard of Oz, or maybe a picture book.

12:30 - Physical Education

After lunch we go outside and stretch, and exercise, and learn about sports. Being their dad means I need to show them how to hit a baseball, throw a football, run with a soccer ball, dribble a basketball, etc. We'll get to the lesser sports too I guess.

1:00 - Rest Time

I want them to sleep. They probably won't.

1:30 - Single Subject Exploration

After rest time we have an hour or so to explore a single subject. We will do a science experiment, or go to the library, or play shopkeeper (money lesson). We might do art and music one day. Or maybe they need more time outside, so we'll go find bugs in their habitat or collect leaves. 

2:30 - Chores

Responsibility is important. Every day we do chores to keep the house clean so that everyone can live happily together. It is all of our house, so we all have to keep it nice. Chores are the end of our school day. 

This is just the skeleton schedule. If we are not feeling it one day, then we may change the order, go on a field trip, etc.

We have a way of measuring behavior called "stoplights" where if they are misbehaving they change their color from green to yellow. If they are good they can change it back. But if they are still misbehaving they must change their color to second yellow (or last-chance yellow). Misbehave again and then they are on red. Once on red you cannot change it back. We track daily performance on a little grid. Each green day is a check, each red day is an 'x.' Checks are points they can spend on prizes.

If they are not on red at the end of the day, and have done a good job cleaning, then they can play video-games or watch pbs kids, or just do whatever.

We will follow this schedule 4 days a week, and on Friday or Saturday we will take a field trip to the art museum, zoo, park, or other location, and have a little lesson before or after.

We follow a 3 weeks on, 1 week of schedule so that there is no long summer break. During the week off we encourage self-paced Montessori style learning.

For legal requirements a day of school is any period in 24 hours where a child is learning for 6 hours or more. The state standard is at least 170 days of school per year. Our schedule provides for over this requirement if we consider 13 periods of normal learning that have 4.5 days each, plus about 2 days of learning over the 13 break periods. This gives over 200 days of learning each year.

FACILITIES

We are set up in our dining room. I bought a whiteboard from the ReStore (Habitat for Humanity). It only cost $10! We bought some class room wall stuff from the dollar store, maybe spending about $50 in total on supplies.

These are my 3 children. From the left we have S (4 years old), C (5 years old), and D (2 years old). I expect C to keep up with everything I am doing, I expect S to try and match his brother, but may get bored, distracted, or lost at times. I don't expect much from little D, she can join in when she wants, or play a special D activity by herself, or watch a PBS kids show. 

Well, that's basically it. I am going to keep the blog updated with what we are learning daily so that family and friends (and the state) can check in on what we are doing. Also it will be nice to have a record of our time, to help me remember what we have done, and what we could do better.