Girly isn’t doing much. #fail
BigGuy is doing too much.
Here’s the rundown… Continue reading What we’re ACTUALLY doing…
Tag Archives: independent kids
Someone asked why we homeschool
On a local forum, a mom asked us to share the reasons we homeschool and she was particularly interested in hearing from parents of kids old enough to be in the public schools. My post was apparently too long for Facebook… Continue reading Someone asked why we homeschool
Teaching and not teaching “responsibility”
Okay, bear with me here… this post started with my penchant for country music. My oldest will be the first to tell me that he should be able to listen to mainstream radio because my country music is “just about drinking beer”. Touché
But this morning I was listening to a song as I drove Girly to camp and it got my gears going about how kids who grow up out in the sticks are forced to think in ways that other kids are not. I feel similarly about kids who live in cities like Manhattan and such. My exposure to these groups is that they are required to think about how to handle situations that my kids in the ‘burbs are just not. I started wondering if this was something we should address…
Scheduled unschooling… I’m serious
We are ending our sixth year of homeschooling. For the first 1-2 years, I waffled between scheduled and notsomuch scheduled when it came to academics. If not for all our moving, I might have tried to find a schedule that worked until I gave up. Instead, I threw my hands up and said “He’s ahead–I’m not gonna worry about it”.
But we’ve entered a new phase of life…
To plan, or not to plan… that is the question
Next to packing lunches, planning is the complete bane of my existence. I loathe each with equal passion. Currently, I am detaching from reality each evening with an inflammation-inducing comfort of organic milk (we have been dairy-free for ELEVEN years) and chunky Chips Ahoy cookies (we have been gluten-free for a decade and pretty much flour free because of blood sugar issues for easily 3 years)… because I am in a quandary about how to proceed with my kids educational needs and I just don’t feel like dealing with it.
But I’m going to deal with it, obviously… Here is the quandary…
Continue reading To plan, or not to plan… that is the question
No questions asked: kids need structure
If you have a kid that functions better at school than they do at home, this is the phrase that will make you believe not only that you CAN’T homeschool, but that you SHOULDN’T–for your child’s sake (and maybe yours). I hear this a lot… about how “kids need structure”. I don’t disagree with the concept although I may have a different perspective on how that manifests in real life. My son and I do NOT function without structure. Seriously. Train wreck.
Structure: “something arranged in a definite pattern of organization” (thank you, Merriam-Webster online). So how do you create this when you homeschool?
BigGuy’s first Scouting adventure
It was a weekend that feels like the first day of the rest of our lives… because Boy Scouts is NOT Cub Scouts, people. For one, in Boy Scouts, the boys run the show. There are adults there to be sure nobody is hurt and some basic rules are followed; but the boys live and suffer by their own hands. So when the Scout assigned to build the campfire Saturday night didn’t get to it, everyone ate “raw” s’mores.
And this was BigGuy’s first Boy Scout campout…
Netiquette and other technology lessons…
Oy… did mama get a lesson toDAY. People, lemme tell you something: my Master’s is in Secondary Education with a specialty area of Education Technology. I taught high school in the business department and that included (other people) teaching office productivity applications and an end-to-end systems architecture overview (which I taught) but it did not include teaching typing, netiquette or some of the other ins and outs of collaborating or learning online.
And you do not learn this well on your own. This is how I found out…
Inspiration strikes!
Last spring, our school district and two others started a STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) charter school. The kids had to qualify for the lottery; but homeschoolers and private schoolers were not allowed into the lottery. BigGuy saw the trailer for the new school and was out of his mind with excitement that was quickly squashed. He even asked me “if I go to the regular school for a year, THEN would I be allowed to go to the STEM charter?” It was heart-breaking to see him so moved only to be so knocked down… because he’s a homeschooler.
“What they love” vs. “what feeds their soul”
So, there was an interesting topic recently in a homeschool forum and somewhere along the way, a friend posted:
My mom is a recruiter, and has tried to find jobs for people with PhD’s before, because they can’t even find work in their field. It’s sobering. “Doing what you love” is great, but doesn’t always pay the bills.
It occurred to me that people have a misconception about what “do what you love” means…
Continue reading “What they love” vs. “what feeds their soul”
Educated Adventures 