Why Do We Homeschool?

A friend asked me the other day why I decided to homeschool. I rattled off an answer on the spot...Delaney loved to learn, she learned quickly, and by the time she was the right age for kindergarten, I wasn't sure what the teachers would do with her.

I thought about it later, and found that it wasn't entirely accurate. The reasons are so much more than a glib "she was a fast learner".

So, why DO I homeschool?

I had to sit down and make a list of the reasons. After that, I reflected on my reasons to determine which ones meant the most to me. I found that "TIME" was the motivation behind most of my desire to keep the girls at home.

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• Time to work on a project for as long as it takes, or as long as we are interested.
• Time for extracurricular activities/travel.
• Time for family.
• Time for play. 

 Time to work on a project for as long as it takes, or as long as we are interested.

I believe strongly in child-led learning, and I watch it work on a daily basis. The girls show interest in something and go for it. I help by finding books at the library, strewing activities around, Youtube videos, or simply getting out of the way and allowing our schedule to be open so fascinations can be pursued.  They are curious, adventurous, and love to learn. When the interest level comes to an end, there is time to move on to something new. We are not tied to units that must be finished, or test preps that must be completed.

Making homemade pickles

When I taught school, I disliked the "start and stop" of it all. 9:00 - 9:30 - reading. No matter if you are really enjoying your book, or your journal. 9:30 is time to go to PE, and we must be there on time. 11:00 - 11:30 - Math. No matter if the students are having a difficult time, and need more explanation, or are enjoying a concept and thinking of fantastic examples...it's time for lunch. We'll come back to that tomorrow. I was continuously disrupting my students' flow.

I love the freedom of reading as long as we want, doing art as long as we want, playing the game as long as we want. Learning until we are ready to move on. Some days turn into art-day-all-day, some are science and discovering...some days are stay in your pajamas and read on the couch all day. It's wonderful. 

Art in pajamas from morning till the afternoon

 

Children learn at different speeds. I am thankful that I can let my girls learn at their own pace. Some concepts will be easier to understand. Some concepts will take longer. That's fine. As long as their creativity and love of learning is not diminished, they will be successful.

Dressed our best to do math and more art.

Time for extracurricular activities/travel.

Currently, the girls participate in gymnastics twice weekly, and will soon begin swimming lessons twice weekly. Delaney is in Girls Scouts, and attends soccer and basketball class. Sophie participates in a multi-sports class for littles and will assuredly join in more sports as soon as she is old enough.  We meet friends at the park and play or ride bikes, and hike in the forest behind our house. Delaney is interested in art, sewing, dance and theater. We can fit many of these things into our schedule without feeling overrun with activities, and still have time for all of the other things we like to do.

Serious work at basketball. :)

We visit the library at least once during the week. The librarians know the girls by name. Delaney writes and illustrates little books, and gives them to her favorite librarian, who displays them for others to see, or uses them in her story times, which is pretty thrilling for both Delaney and me.

There is a plethora of natural resources around us, within short driving distance. Volcanoes, caves, Native American ruins, canyons, mountains, cliff dwellings. If we drive a little further, we have museums and exhibits, plays, music...it's really endless. If we don't feel like leaving town, we have museums and the observatory, and the university often has cool things going on. We've been able to accompany Cullen when he travels for work, and look forward to more travels in the future. We have time to do any and all of these, and still have time to relax afterwards.

Time for family.

Our family spends a lot of time together. The kids and I are together most of the day, and the whole family hangs out together in the evenings. We plan fun things on the weekends.  We don't have to stress over homework that must be done by the following day, or takes up the entire weekend. Hailey began high school this year, and so far, thankfully has not been saddled with too much work on the weekends. Throughout middle school, that was not the case. I realize that students may need extra skills practice that can't be fit into the day, but when a child is expected to go to school from 8am - 4pm, and brings home 2 hours worth of homework each night, not to mention the 4-5 hours worth on the weekends, something is wrong. It leaves no time for family, or for play. I am protective over my family time, and do not want to share it with a pile of busywork homework. I am also protective over play time, at every age. We need time to play!

Hiking at Sandy's Canyon

Which brings me to my next reason.

Time for play.

All humans, not just the tiny ones, learn through play. Through play, we are creative, we learn to problem solve, we learn about impulse control, social etiquette, how to observe and learn from the feelings and experiences of others, and the consequences of our actions. Difficult concepts can be incorporated into and puzzled through during play. Play is open-ended - there are no wrong answers. While playing, children feel confident in taking risks and making mistakes, then trying again.

What have my kids learned through play this week?

Well, the huge Amazon Subscribe and Save boxes arrived, so, this week, they have revisited construction. They've experimented with how to cut the windows just right so they will open and shut, how to measure the door so it is big enough for both girls to crawl through, how to engineer two boxes to be connected to each other to form a two-bedroom hideout, and how to balance their creation properly to turn it into a two-story building.

Or a box-o-lantern...

 Delaney turned the larger box over, got inside and peeked out. Cullen told her that the box looked like his old tv set from when he was a boy. She spent the remainder of her evening writing a tv show, with pictures and a script, and performed it for Sophie and me from the "tv" the next day.

The Delaney the Doll Show!

And a documentary on cheetahs, of course.

The girls have been watching the BBC's "Jungle Book" series on Netflix, and desperately want to swing from vine to vine like Mowgli. They have been using different types of rope on the tree in the backyard to attempt it...yarn, rope, a plastic jump rope...they are learning about weight and balance, and gravity, team work and experimentation.

Delaney made up another recipe earlier this week...this one included crushed Cheerios, lemon and lime juice, honey and salt. She learned about measurement and risk taking.

Making me a special breakfast. She's a good kid.

Sophie and I play a money game that she made up. She gives me handfuls of change and I count it back to her. She tells me what each coin is worth, and as she watches me, she is learning how to count it as well.

I introduced Delaney to the Mad Libs app on the ipad a few weeks ago, and she is able to play it by herself now. Mad Libs are the most fun way to teach parts of speech! When she completes them, I read the final story in my best "radio announcer" voice, and we laugh and laugh.

I could go on and on and on...this is just a snapshot of their independent play. I play more structured games with them also, board games, math games, logic games, ipad games. They ask one million and five questions, and we look up the answers. We play and learn all day. It is really fun.

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I anticipate that we will continue to homeschool as long as life allows, or until the girls request a change. I'd be perfectly happy if that doesn't happen until the college level. I'm excited to see what they will be interested in as they grow older, and to be able to give them opportunities to pursue those interests in an authentic context, rather than through a textbook and classroom.

And the next time someone queries about my decision to homeschool, perhaps I should just say, "Because it's fun!"

The Way They Learn

I took Delaney and Sophie to an outdoor art event last weekend at Heritage Square, hosted by Willow Bend Environmental Center. The presenter talked about the water cycle with some visuals, and had a game/art project for the kids to demonstrate it. They had to begin at a station (clouds, lake, groundwater, soil, ocean, animals and a few others), roll a big die, and go to the station it landed on. For instance, from the ocean you could go to the clouds (evaporation), from the clouds to most of the other stations (precipitation), etc. Each station had different colored beads, which the girls put on string, and had a pretty bracelet by the end of the game. It was a fun way to learn the water cycle.

During the talk, Delaney didn't say very much. I couldn't tell if she was even listening, and she definitely wasn't participating. She enjoyed the game, but I still couldn't tell if she comprehended the purpose. Sophie had a lot of fun running around and making a bracelet, but she is a little young for the learning part.

But then, three days later...

Delaney sat at the kitchen table with Sophie, two bowls of water, a paper towel and some change. I asked her what she was up to, and she told me it was a water experiment.

She explained to Sophie that the first bowl was the ocean, the paper towel was a cloud, the second bowl was a lake and the change was different types of fish.

She soaked up the water from the first bowl, and explained that the cloud was full.

She squeezed out the water into the second bowl, onto the "fish", and Sophie said, "it's raining!".

It was an excellent reminder to me that answering questions when put on the spot is not necessarily the only way to tell if my kiddos are learning, and just because you're only 2 doesn't mean that you don't comprehend big concepts.

My kids teach me something new every day.

Learning Year-Round

I often wonder what my friends envision when they think of me home schooling the little girls. I've been asked a few times if we have school through the summer or if we take a break. The truth is that we home school every day, every week, every month... The girls are always learning something, or I am learning something, in everything we do. I've also had some comments to the effect of "You can't make them learn all the time. They need to have some fun too!"

My goal with their schooling is to teach them the joy of being interested in new things and that everything and anything can be a "school" experience. I don't want them to consider learning what they have to do between the hours of 9am - 3am after which time they get to have some fun. My hope is that they will be gaining knowledge from the moment they wake up until they reluctantly go to bed at night, and enjoy all of it!

This is what "school" looks like at our house.

Who needs pretend food for the play kitchen when you have paper and scissors?

 It may look like a super-mess, but it's really a bakery where bread and crinkle cut french fries and cakes are being made.

This is an art studio where songs are written and fine motor skills are sharpened by a funny little two year old.

Backpack full of books on a Saturday morning.

Physics lab

 

Sometimes we do some structured stuff... in pajamas...

Popcorn! 

 

But mostly we fill our days will a jillion books, and fun trips and talks about big ideas. We look up the things that we don't know about, and we are thankful for awesome resources like YouTube and Netflix and libraries.

And although this just looks like a crazy messy living room, it is really a lab, where all kinds of experiments are attempted. :)

Most days, I love our approach to learning, and love being home with the kids. Some days are more difficult though, and I question myself and wonder how much patience I really have stored up inside of me, and if it will last the number of years that I will need it to. My girls are both pretty intense - emotionally and intellectually, and some days I am just tired.

On one of these days recently, a fellow home schooler in a forum that I am a part of posted a link to this very encouraging post. I bookmarked it, and on the more discouraging days, I plan to read it, and feel good about what I am doing...then treat all of us to some chocolate and a good book. :)

Doubts...and Reassurance

We have been doing many of the same activities over the last few weeks. Delaney spends most of her time writing stories, drawing pictures, writing letters to family members and reading books. We listen to cello music and the girls paint how it "makes them feel", in Delaney's words.

Writing letters and drawing pictures for the Easter Bunny

Read-a-thon

Cello art by Delaney

Cello art by Sophie

Sophie continues to love the alphabet magnets and we work on putting them in order and spelling her name. I downloaded the app, Endless Alphabet, after reading some comments that Brandi made about it, and we absolutely love it. Sophie has to match up letters to spell big words like "gargantuan" and "invisible" and then a cute little monster acts it out while the narrator tells her what it means. I am dying to see if she will incorporate all of these words into her vocabulary as she starts speaking more.

I limit my girls' screen time so their eyes don't fall out and their bodies don't become too stationary, but there are so many fantastic apps for the iPod and android tablet that I don't feel guilty anymore when I let them play for awhile. The land of Motherhood can be such a judge-y place, and I think moms are often made to feel like if they are not talking/interacting/playing/reading with their children every moment, that they are doing something wrong, or being selfish, or any number of other things. I have been having a bit of a rough week in this respect, beating myself up for my "lack of". I need to just *stop* and realize that I am doing just fine. My kids are happy. They are learning. They are playing with each other more every day, making up cute little pretend games. They are both curious. We all love books. There is nothing wrong with playing computer games for an extra 30 minutes or sitting around reading books all day long, doing "nothing". It's okay if we stay in our pajamas until noon, and then enjoy a midday bubble bath. That's the beauty of homeschooling.

Some days I begin to question my belief in child-led learning, and second guess if I am teaching Delaney enough math, and if I need a curriculum, and if I am going to fail her academically some day, and a million other doubting-myself-questions.

Then, she asks me with questions about the aurora borealis, which she learned of while she was watching her very favorite show from the BBC, "Walking With Dinosaurs" (it's on Netflix if you have a dinosaur lover).  We looked up pictures and definitions and learned so much. Did you know that the different colors in the aurora depend on electrons striking oxygen or nitrogen at certain altitudes? I certainly didn't!

And then there was the evening that I pointed out the constellation Orion in the sky (she still has a love affair going on with the sky) and she immediately ran inside, found her constellation book and drew Orion, Sirius and one other unlabeled constellation that I am supposed to look at and identify. (Who knew I would be the one taking the tests? :) )

I've probably said it before, but my very favorite thing about homeschooling and letting her tell me what she wants to learn is how much I get to learn too. She was interested in past U.S. presidents a month or so ago, and we checked out some library books and learned some very interesting facts about our nation's leaders that I would probably never have known had she not been intrigued. She is also curious about gemstones and jewels and how they are formed. Back to the library we went, and we (both) studied those books, learning where and how they are made. (We are saving the rest of that study for when Grandma Gail comes to visit. She is a jewel expert.)


All of these things remind me that I am on the right path, and as long as I nurture the girls' curiosity, and encourage each learning endeavor, we will all do just fine.

The (Lack of) Value in Test Prep

I have to go on a bit of a rant here.

If your kids are in school, or you have anything to do with the education system, you are familiar with standardized testing and the term "teaching to the test". Arizona gives the AIMS test, other states have varieties of the same. Schools are becoming increasingly focused on AIMS test scores and teaching topics that are found on the test rather than authentic learning. This is teaching the students how to fill in the right bubble, but not much long term knowledge that will actually help them enjoy learning independently, or become educated, successful adults. I love how this blogger's daughter put it: "I have a box, and I know what to put in it." 

Some people like tests. I am actually one of those weirdos...I loved taking the ITBS when I was in grade school. It was fun for me. The difference is, however, that when I was in elementary school a zillion years ago, the focus wasn't on the test. I had some fantastic teachers - Mrs. Grossman in kindergarten, Mrs. Byram in 2nd grade, and Mrs. Berg in 4th grade spring to mind - who knew how to keep school interesting and fun, and differentiate learning for all of the kids in the class. By middle school, the content was changing, but we LEARNED, and learned interesting, useful things. We didn't "test prep". We just had one week of the school year during which we took the test, we were allowed to snack during class and didn't have any homework. Woo hoo!

Hailey returned to public school in January, and on her first progress report, I found she was being graded for "AIMS Test Prep". There is a program called Study Island from the Dept. of Education that is basically a zillion multiple choice tests in the subject areas covered by AIMS and worded like the AIMS. She is assigned a bunch of these weekly in math and language arts. In previous years, they were assigned, but they were not graded. I received a progress report today from her Language Arts teacher, and her grade has dropped a few letters because she hasn't completed these multiple choice tests.

Now, forgive me but I am wrong, but I think that she should be doing some actual work in order to learn and practice these skills...not sit in front of the computer for hours and fill in bubbles and try to do them as fast as she can so she can go do something more interesting. (That's what I would do, anyway.) And the fact that her grade depends on these makes me SO MAD.

 The validity of the AIMS test has been questioned by many (that particular study looks at high school, but it is applicable to the lower grades.). The benefits of standardized testing have been questioned for years, and teachers in Seattle and Chicago have flat out refused to give standardized tests recently. It is becoming a national movement that teachers, parents and students are joining. These teachers, parents, and students believe that the tests are a waste of time, waste of money, and destructive to quality education in the classroom. (Which they are.) Even young students are writing protest letters. I love this one from a 5th grader in Maryland.

Now, my child's grades throughout the year are based on practicing for a test that has about 0% value in the real world?

So again, forgive me if I am not upset because she isn't completing these tests on her own during her weekends, or if I do not force her to sit in her room and complete them instead of spending valuable quality time with her family, doing fun things like playing games (in which she learns communication and strategy), going outdoors (learning about nature and the environment, and soaking up some vitamin D) or simply having good conversations with her family (vocabulary, persuasive speech, descriptive language, grammar, history, science...shall I go on?)

Completing AIMS test preps are a waste of her time and our family's, and I don't support them. Please, please, Kingman Academy of Learning, go back to your roots when the charter school was about academic excellence, not high test scores. I want my girl to enjoy learning, and be creative and think critically.  These tests do exactly the opposite. I can't be the only parent who feels this way.

Did you know that you can legally opt your children out of standardized testing?  The United Opt Out site offers a lot of information regarding opting out. There are also many Facebook groups for individual states, including one moderated by a teacher in NY who has a lot to say about standardized testing and the Common Core Standards.


Thankfully, Arizona's homeschooling laws are fairly liberal on the subject of standardized testing. If the laws have changed, however, by the time Delaney and Sophie are of "testing age", we will be opting out. 


P.S. I have a few friends who are teachers, and I know you teach with your whole heart and love those students to pieces. Bless you. You probably hate all of this as much as I do. :) 

Growing a Garden, Homeschool Style

Homeschooling means taking a perfect morning to go to Home Depot, pick out very own flowers for the garden, then learn how to dig holes and mix soil, plant and water.

It means watching the way the sun shines in your yard, and the way the wall casts a shadow over the garden, and why.

Observing how many hours the sun shines on the garden, and figuring out if that is long enough for your pretty flowers to grow, learning about how flowers grow, and watching it in action.. (So far, so good. :) )

These two plants have new blooms already!

Homeschooling means doing out subtraction lesson on the sandbox table under the shade from the trees, while Sophie practices climbing up the ladder to the slide and sliding down all by herself, or plays in the swing.

Math is always more fun with a little bit of sunshine and the wind in your hair.

It means writing poetry and drawing pictures at lunch time, or watching YouTube to see what surfing really looks like.

Delaney said, Look Mom, I wrote a poem!

 

Under the ocean

Is a fish.

 

It means learning about things we are interested in in as much or little detail as we like...for as long as we like. (Hello, Month 3 of the Sky and the Universe...) Doing a whole chapter of math in one morning if we are particularly inclined, or just reading about Laura and Mary for hours, because it's a really good part.

It means to work on skills until they are mastered, in an order that makes sense, and not have to skip around and quickly learn things that will most likely be on a standardized test, but don't make a whole lot of sense to learn right now...Yes, AIMS, I'm talking to you and your arbitrary skill set. Hailey did the test all last week, and I tried not to get annoyed every time I read the "Make sure your child gets plenty of sleep and has a good, healthy breakfast." emails. Shouldn't she be doing that EVERY DAY, not just during precious testing time? (No offense, teacher friends. I know it's not your fault.)

It means a bathroom break or water break or snack break whenever you need one, without an evil eye looking at you for daring to be thirsty or need to go to the bathroom.

It means becoming friends with the nice people that work at the library, or the grocery store, or the many places we go...learning to talk politely with people of all ages.

I'm so thankful to be able to raise my kids like this.