5 Things to Consider Before You Homeschool

 For me homeschooling has been an absolute joy! Quite frankly it has been a joy from the very start, what was not enjoyable was the preliminary deluge of should I's or shouldn't I's. While I am still very new at homeschooling compared to my close friends and my favorite bloggers, being sort of a "newbie" has its advantages. One of which is the fact that I am still very acquainted with what "beginning" to home school feels like. That's not a quip to the more experienced homeschooling moms, their information, blogs and experience have all been and continues to be a huge support and comfort to me and thousands of other homeschooling families I'm sure!

All of that being said, I woke up about 4 mornings ago and thought to write a post on 10 things to consider before you homeschool. After atetmpting to organize my thoughts on the subject, I've cut the list in half (grin). It's not that there aren't 10 things that you could considered, honestly depending on who you are, your circumstances and your child(ren) there may even be more than 10. I don't advise going overboard in all of the "beforehand" drama of making the decision to home school. However, it does take an equitable amount of forethought.

The list that I've complied though, I've taken from my very own experience and whittled it down to what was most pressing or important during that time of transition. So here goes...

1. The time commitment. Homeschooling is indeed serious business. It can be fun and I hope yours is. In my experience all work and no play makes for cranky kids and burnt out mommy. Essentially you are saying I volunteer to be responsible for teaching my child(ren) everything that they need to know for whatever age level your children are. That is honorable, in my opinion but also a big responsibility and commitment. On average a home school day could range from 2 to 4 hours. Do you have that kind of time? While it is true that most home schooling parents are also stay-at-home parents, I know several moms who work full-time in the home, moms who work outside of the home part-time and I've recently met a mom who still holds down her full-time job at Bank of America who also home schools. In each of these cases though, a serious look at what sort of time you have available is a prerequisite if you are earnestly looking at homeschooling. There are regulations in place that  specify from state to state what is expected time-wise for home schools. Which leads me to number two on my list...

2. Your State's home school laws. You will find this listed on every single home school website and blog that deals with entertaining the possibility of homeschooling. You absolutely must find out what is expected of you legally before jumping into the warm, sometimes hot waters of homeschooling. While some view the government's involvement with education an overstep...I think it should not only be important to parents but to our Nation's Leaders also how educated out kids are. The kids will one day run our Nation or start vital companies within our economy, etc. and how sad would it be if they could not read, add and subtract, think critically and objectively, and a whole host of other things that it takes to be a productive part of society? While I may differ in opinion with our National Leaders on just how involved they should be in the educating of our kids...concerned and involved and I think they should be. So, check out those laws by going to the Board of Education website for your City and State. Check out the Homeschool Legal Defense's website (you'll read about this organization on almost every home school website or blog as well, and rightfully so).

3. Financial commitment. As I read once, homeschooling isn't free! It can be very nearly close to free but it is not 100% cost prohibitive. Whether you will be purchasing curriculum every year or faithfully searching for and printing out information, worksheets, creating binders and so forth...there will be a level of cost that is strictly related to your home school so consider that. It may not necessarily be for curricula, you will probably buy more supplies than you normally would if your children were going away for school. You now have to think about Teacher supplies. Where you might have opted out of the class field trip given at school you will most definitely want to take your home school student on field trips to get you both out of the house once in a while. And yes, you can do field trips sometimes for little to no money but there will still be some cost associated with it that wouldn't be there if your child was in public school. I have heard of a website about home schooling on a shoe string budget. That being said, there is information out there on how to do it inexpensively so don't allow the fact that it will cost you something to be a deterrent from homeschooling.

4. Drive and passion. Do you have the drive that it takes? Some may view home schooling idealistically. Meaning, they envision, getting up, having breakfast, getting dressed, sitting down to a school day filled with fun activities, productive teaching, enthusiastic learning, intermittent breaks, healthy lunches, enriching projects, well organized lesson plans, trust me the list of what is "ideal" goes on. Instead you may find, like I did our first school year, that your kid needs LOTS of help focusing and you, like me, will have to spend most of your school time, calling him or her back to attention. Not at all what homeschooling dreams are made of but definitely what a home school day is. During those time you will have to dig deep to find the strength not to slip your hand in the air and say "oops, my mistake, public school is what I was thinking of, not home school" (lol). Trust me it happens! Especially around 2:45 or 3:00 when the big yellow bus is pulling up dropping the kids off from school. So considered your level of passion and drive. What is important to you as it relates to your child's education and is that enough to keep you going when the times get rough? 

5. Do you have a tinge of control-freak-ness in you. LOL! Believe me when I say that I believe the vast majority of home schooling parents (moms especially) have just a tinge of the desire to control things. And in balance, that's not bad. It could actually make for a very productive home school because you will more or less make sure your child knows what, if not more, than the kids his or her age with whom they interact. And then too, why wouldn't you want to know what's going into your kid each day? I know for me, I always had thoughts of "is Madison being pushed hard enough in this area or that." "Is she being pushed too hard in this area or that one." I had these thoughts because after staying home with her for 5 years, I had a pretty good handle on her strengths and weaknesses. See...control freak. I could say more, but I'll play it safely and stop number 5 right here. You get the idea. ::wink::

Bonus. Consider that there will be other things to consider should you definitely decide to home school. Nothing too big though! 

Thanks for reading...hope it helps you.

Stephanie

The Water Cycle Song

This week was full. I'd consider among our best moments...visiting my grandmother who is ill but amazingly strong. Looking at her, anyone might say that she is living her final days. But then you look in her eyes and you see a strength that seems to be in direct contrast to what's going on with her body.

Born in 1928, on the cusp of The Great Depression to a family of 10 children, she has seen and lived through a lot of societal changes.

She has been a phenomenal grandmother. The kind that would keep the grandkids every weekend, always had a smorgasbord of food on the table for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and who seemed to always be on her feet, cleaning.

 In fact, I remember watching her as she finished cleaning her kitchen for the second or third time that day. She was looking out of her kitchen window past the acre of land that was her backyard to the wood line of evergreen trees and she said, "a woman's work is never done...a woman works from sun to sun." I was about 12 years old and that was my first time hearing those words but she was that statement personified.

And even now, at the the ripe age of 84, she's still working. She's still got a fight in her eyes and voice. I would rather that she'd go ahead and leave this world behind but when I look into her eyes and/or hear her speak, it becomes evident rather quickly that there is still so much life in her. This is my first time this close to someone who is ailing and it has proven to be baffling to my brain. I told my mom that it's very strange how looking at Granny's body you'd be convinced that it was time to call hospice, but then at the very same time her spirit is just as vibrant and feisty as it was at 54! That has been a brain buster for me this week like never before. I, for the first time, can see the separation of the spirit and body. So many people believe that when you die, that's it, its over...no after life to speak of. Well, I stand even more convinced now that we are not simply bodies...we are spirit beings dwelling in a body and even when these bodies fail...there is a life beyond what we see. Thanks Granny.

A bit of our lives in picture

Now, to lighten this post, I had no intentions of sharing that much about Granny...oh well...that's why I love blogging...you just kind of follow your thoughts sometimes.

Also this week, we had Monday off from co-op and we literally did nothing. I have those days where I go and go and go than I stop the presses! I may very well hang out in my PJ's or some sweats all day, never go out of the house just really rest hard and so goes the whole family. My husband though, would be in PJ's and never leave the house but would still be working feverishly with school or the business...so I don't know if he ever really rests.

Although we had Monday off, we had three really great school days this week. We got all of our subjects done and the girls did one day of school at their friends' house and their friends came here for one day and we each did a day at home. Very productive. Madison finished her diorama of the Daniel Boone Days. Chelsea completed an entire sheet of Saxon 2 math problems using counting bears.

 In fact, if you have a preschooler that you need to keep busy but productive while you are teaching an older child, give them some counting bears or any type of manipulative to help them count and give them a sheet of addition or subtraction problems to do. That will occupy them and sharpen their math skills for at least 30 minutes or more. And it will derail any guilt you may have about your youngest child not getting the attention or the education of the older kid(s).

Chelsea's work (my 4 year old)

Lastly, you may notice that we've released (I use the term lightly...very lightly smile) another Silly School Song for your listening and learning pleasure. It is The Water Cycle Song. We had great fun creating this song. Hubby and I make a great team if I should say so myself. Our collaboration is effortless, we really compliment each other's thought process very well. We run into trouble however, when I want him to finish "producing" the song but he's either too busy (which I am sensitive to) or he just doesn't have the passion that I may have about getting it finished. Anyway, today all of that is water under the bridge. We finished it and we like it very much. We hope you do to.

I never mentioned where you can find the lyrics to the songs but if you want to add any of our songs to your school day, the lyrics are found at Reverbnation or by clicking the "lyrics" link in this paragraph.

Thanks for reading about our lives this week. Please comment if you like the new song! Also check out the blogs where I'm linking up this week. Homeschool Creations, Collage Friday, Mom Moments and WUH.

Fun, Family, Educational Time

This week Phil and I decided to have mandatory family time. We have a Friday family fun night most Friday nights in our living room where we watch a movie, put together a puzzle, work on a class project together, make a dessert together and/or play a game together (usually Candyland).

Well we'd been feeling that the girls needed to get out and go to a museum or on a family road trip or something to just get out of our normal surroundings. So we did a little searching and decided on the Tennessee Aquarium.

I wanted to go to Tellus Science Museum here in GA since we are studying Matter right now but the idea of combining a little road trip with an educational experience won out. And I'm glad it did. A two to four hour road trip has become an epic event for this clan. We sing karaoke, the kids do activities, of course we take an abundance of snacks and treats, we try to get as many truck drivers to honk their horns as possible, we count cars or buses or whatever might get our attention and we read. So it's some of the best family time that we have.

Anyway, we had a glorious time in Chattanooga. We saw some of the most amazing and beautiful creatures God has made.The jellyfish was everybody's favorite.

I learned that my girls know more about marine life than my husband and I put together and we have not even studied marine life in school yet. When my four year old stood at this one particular aquarium and said it's an anemone! Look! An anemone! Phillip and I were like...what is she saying? LOL and then we looked at the plaque beside the tank and sure enough, it was a hairless anemone! She said that she got that from Finding Nemo. I'm thinking who watched Finding Nemo and learned what an anemone was? Same with Madison, she recognized this special type of jellyfish from watching Octonauts on the Disney channel. Thankfully I haven't been one of those no t.v. moms because they've certainly learned a lot by watching. T.V.

In school, we are still singing the three states of matter song. The girls finally know all of the words and are still having a lot of fun with it. They look forward to singing it everyday. Their little friends that come over for school one day each week are loving it too and they've learned soooo much about matter in so little time and it has been a blast for all of us!
 
Stayed tuned... we will be loading a new song this weekend or early next week!

We talked solely about the properties of each state of matter and their molecular structure, we did a different worksheet each day and ended the week with the most fun experiment that I found on the Two Posh Little Divas blog; creating a gas to blow up a balloon! My. Girls. Loved. It. We are going to do it again tonight at Friday family fun night so Daddy can join in the fun! If you plan on doing this, my tip is to buy a large bottle of vinegar so that you can do the experiment over and over again! Also, if it has been years since you've worked with vinegar and baking soda (like me)...be ready, the chemicals react fast to each other and it will startle the kids (to excitement)!

 

The Gas Experiment (our second go at it)

Thank you for reading my blog! Leave a comment if you feel so inclined and check out the blogs that I'm linking up to today! Preschool Creations, Homeschool Village, Collage Friday and WUH.

Favorite pic of the week...

Room full of Jellyfish. This was a jellyfish aquarium in a dark room

 

with mirrors so they look like thousands of glow lights.