Trial Homeschool

When Einstein went on spring break (in public school kindergarten, letting him finish out the school year), I decided to do a trial homeschool week. 

It was SO much fun!!! I am still nervous about full-time homeschooling, but I truly enjoy spending time with my son and teaching him new things. 

We took a trip to the zoo, visited a homeschool co-op, and did a 9-1 "learning time" each day. 

I also learned the importance of writing down our game plan each day- jotting down a line or two to keep me on track, otherwise we wander through the day without a plan.

Academics
Since I haven't picked out a curriculum yet, we just picked a couple cool things to focus on.

Math- We worked on fractions by cutting up "pies" and water in measuring cups

Not my picture, but such a fun way to learn!

Science- The Lifecycle of the Butterfly. We got a butterfly garden for my daughter's birthday, and during this week, the butterflies formed their chrysalises! We measured the caterpillars each day and recorded lengths

Writing- Journaling, writing a story about our trip to the zoo, and keeping up his research journal. He interviewed zookeepers and wrote facts about all the different animals

History- We watched an awesome Florence Nightingale video (clip below), listened to the Magic Treehouse book A High Time for Heroes, which is when Jack and Annie meet Florence before she becomes a nurse. 

Geography- We learned the states and their capitols, and kept quizzing each other. We used our states puzzle that have the capitols written under there.

Reading- We did some independent, some read aloud, and some with Mom reading. We read a BUNCH of books! Einstein is a voracious reader and inhales books, which is awesome!!! He is teaching his baby sister to love books too

Planning for Homeschool

Oh boy, where to begin? I have been researching homeschooling for months now, pulling every book available from the local libraries, looking up articles and blogs online, and trying to figure out what will work for our family.

That is the one common theme I have found from all my research- families are encouraged to homeschool in whatever way best fits their family. 

There are several "types" of homeschooling, including but not limited to:

Traditional Homeschooling
This is essentially doing school... at home. So you have the pledge, set curriculums that you purchase for each subject, and you work on them at home. Many families using this approach will have a designated school room with desks, chalkboard or white board, and it is a little school right at their house.

Charter Online Schools
This is an online charter school that will pay for your curriculum, give you access to teachers online, and send you things like microscopes as the lesson plan requires it. You teach the given curriculum at home.

Unschooling
This is the complete opposite of traditional school. Those whose unschool believe that children learn from their natural environment, so formal, "sit down" education isn't needed. They believe that you learn about fractions from cooking, and math in the weekly budget discussion during a grocery store run, etc. 

Unit Based Homeschooling
This is COOL. Some people claim that this can also be considered unschooling, but others consider it it's own category. This is where you take whatever your child is interested in, and run with it. 

This takes a LOT of parental involvement, because you are effectively creating the curriculum as you go along, AND teaching it to your child. But the retention in kids with this method is just astronomical. 

Example: Your child loves weather. So you will plot major natural disasters over the course of history, discuss the impact they had on the community, take temperatures and do the mean, median, and mode, find the temperature difference, find the average rainfall over x amount of time, all that for math. 

You study the water cycle and how things can affect that. You conduct experiments to test acidity of rain in different areas, plot on a map the weather patterns around the world, and read everything about weather. 


Eclectic Homeschooling 
This is what most homeschool families do. They put together their own little mashup of traditional curriculums, some fun units, or whatever else strikes their fancy. 

My Current Plan
Right now, we are leaning toward the eclectic homeschool. I want a set curriculum for math and maybe history, but science will for sure be unit based and child-led. Then we will dabble in whatever I feel is right for Einstein at the time. 

Homeschooling Concerns

There are several things that scare me about starting to homeschool Einstein. My 3 biggest concerns are:

1. What if I forget to teach him something?

2. What if I can't emotionally handle it?

3. Can I keep up with my regular demands and homeschooling?

1. What if I forget to teach him something?

I voiced this concern to a more experienced homeschool mom. She chuckled about it a little bit, then told me, "Everyone misses something. The beauty of homeschool is that once you realize you forgot something, you can just go back and teach it."

I hadn't ever thought of it that way. In my mind, I was still stuck on the public school teaching method, where if you missed a concept at school, that was too bad, because the class will keep going on, and they can't wait for one student.

But with homeschooling, if I forget to discuss the Transcontinental Railroad, I can just go back and learn about it. There is no big history test that they will fail if they have the flu. If we decide that we will tackle Chemistry a different year because it isn't clicking this year, we can do that! 

2. What if I can't emotionally handle it?

One thing that is very consistent with Einstein is his emotional unpredictability. He will independently decide to study chess on his own for hours, then the next day, have a half hour melt-down because I won't let him wear the same underwear 4 days in a row. His emotions don't just go 0 to 60 in a few seconds, it goes from 100 to -100 then back again. 

But I again remind myself that I have handled him for 6 years so far, and I think of the end goal I want to accomplish- for him to be challenged academically and be shown great role models for behavior. And in order to do that, I MUST be a good role model. So if we need to take a break, we can.

And some great advice I got was to save all my "extra patience" for homeschool time. Because even if I go nuts as a mom sometime, I want my child to love learning. And me freaking out won't inspire curiosity or passion.

3. Can I keep up with my regular demands and homeschooling?

I have a lot on my plate. My older daughter has a rare genetic syndrome that requires constant care and supervision when she is home, plus a baby with the same condition at home all the time, a husband to give attention to, house that needs cleaned, meals that need cooked, lessons to plan, church volunteer work, lots to do!

The best thing that I can come up with here is to prioritize. My family will always be #1 for me. So if we are able to get in some learning and therapy, and be a happy family, then the rest doesn't matter. I do love having good food and a clean house! I feel like the order there helps me feel in control of my life and keep my sanity in tact, but I also know that my kids being educated is more important than the breakfast dishes being washed by 8 am.