Homeschooling for us has changed. Where I started with a box curriculum, we have had to evolve to how my son learns. Fractions were easier to teach with halving or doubling a recipe. Spelling was tossed out as he learned to spell all on his own, and frankly he is a better speller than I will ever be. Math has come easy until this year and we have needed a little extra outside help.
Current events are a big deal and do a lot of our teaching for us. Like when “New Horizons” passed Pluto and its moon, my son was curious. We talked about space exploration. We watched the Science Channel special. We talked about moons and gravity and how it all works together. Just last night my son asked if he could learn more about black holes.
Political season, we watch all the debates, talk about candidates, and all sides of the issues. We want our child to make up his mind about what he believes. This teaches him critical thinking and gives him the opportunity to think about how others see the same issues. We debate as a family with my husband and I often playing devil's advocate so that he can think his position through.
Science is an everyday lesson, from the wonders of cooking to the amazing things you can find in your yard. The life cycle of plants, growing food from seeds and how to best nurture your garden for maximum yield.
Currently, my son is learning to be a webmaster. That teaches critical thinking, programming and working with a client. I want him to start blogging as well to document his process; there is writing skills and language arts.
Reading is modeled in this household as he has parents who devour books like a man at a buffet who has not eaten in weeks. He is given access to and encouraged to read more and more challenging material. I think he might have been given a copy of “A Brief History of Time” to read as of last night.
This is just us… There are as many ways to homeschool as there are homeschoolers, but as someone who used to be neurotic that I would screw it up, I am proud to say my son wants to learn and is now directing more and more of his education. At 13 he is a smart young man and I am super excited to see how the next four years of high school unfolds for us.
Posted by Heather Garcia
We've evolved through the years as well. I've learned what my kids need and how they learn best. We started off unschooling, if I had to put a label on it. My basic philosophy is "you can't stop kids from learning." And, you really can't.
ReplyDeleteI feel fortunate that my kids love to learn and feed each other's interests which only magnifies the learning. Throw in a little sibling competition, and they're outsmarting each other all the time. They both have a favorite "longest word in the dictionary" which I'm sure they'll be glad to work into conversation so quickly you won't even know what hit you.
My older daughter is very much a free learner, but as we enter high school years and look forward to college, I want to prepare her for a different kind of structure. So, this year, she's taking organized classes in English and Science. Science because I just know she'll love this class, and English to help prepare her for college level writing. She's actually a very good writer, but her confidence needs some outside reinforcement. I also think she'll benefit from being in an intellectually stimulating learning environment with other geeky kids who (hopefully) are excited about the material too.
My younger son is very different. He likes order and structure, which is not something that comes naturally to me. While my daughter is in her classes, we'll be spending 4-5 hours at UNC's library in Chapel Hill to structure our week and work out his assignments. Totally foreign concept to me, but I think it will help him so much.
To me, that's the beauty of homeschooling. Two different kids, with totally different motivations and both getting different approaches to meet their needs. I hope it works!
It is amazing to see what happens when you give them the opportunity to learn in their own way
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