I have recentyly began thinking of homeschooling my little ones. I have 2 girls, 2 1/2 and 5 months. I know nothing about homeschooling. Help me please, lol. Is it too soon to think about homeschooling? When do I start? Where do I get materials? How does it All work?
Where do you live?
I live in the u.s. In Washington, but we are planning on moving to California soon.
Ours is almost four years old, and I’ve been reading and thinking about homeschooling for a few years now. There are many books to read about the subject, although there are probably too many introductory books and not enough that go into useful detail. If you want to do a lot of reading in advance, it’s a good idea to start now, as far as I’m concerned. What I recommend (so far!):
“The Well-Trained Mind” by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise - the “Bible” of the classical education movement, definitely above average, but a little too prescriptive for my taste and doesn’t go into enough detail about the thinking behind the classical method
“Dumbing Us Down” by John Taylor Gatto - a “modern classic,” a very forceful indictment of ordinary classroom education, which he compares to an assembly line - a little over-the-top and not exactly balanced, but very, very thought-provoking
“Teach Your Own” by John Holt - I find this guy, a father of “unschooling,” quite annoying, and not exactly a rigorous thinker, but he does manage to capture a whole way of thinking about education. I’m not sorry I read it…
Thank you for the suggested reading
My sister (in Vancouver) and cousin (in Edmonds) both homeschooled in Washington state. In some areas the local school district may have a resource center for homeschooled children. Parents must attend school with their children and I think assist with classes. The children can sign up for one class or several classes. They can take classes there that may be difficult to duplicate at home, a foreign language, theater, band, science lab classes are a few examples. Or they can take all their classes there. Classes are not segregated by age but advance according to their abilities. So a math class may have a gifted 8 year old along with a special needs 15 year old. If this sounds interesting to you contact your local school district and ask if this is available in your area.
I agree with APP about the Well-Trained Mind. Just remember that is has suggestions not must-haves. It is a very rigid method, but is also rich in ideas.
And this to APP: How did you ever make it through that John Holt book? I almost made it through, but got so frustrated. He made me mad in some places. Children can teach themselves, but can’t take simple instruction??? He just didn’t make sense for me.
I started a JOhn Holt book, but I couldn’t get through it. It just didn’t capture me, and I rarely leave a book unfinished.
I want to recommend a great book for parents to use with their 4 year olds and up. It is First Language Lessons. It covers first and second grade and teaches kids all about language, the parts of speech and so on. I started it with my 4 year old and he has learned so much about language. It builds a really good foundation and the lessons are easy and short. It is not a workbook, but a guidebook. It tells the teacher what to say. We have to repeat the definitions of the parts of speech often and I know that even my 3 year old is catching some of it. It is designed for 1st and 2nd graders but it was not too much for a 4 year old. You are just explaining to them what a noun is and so forth. I am almost done with the book and will definitely be ordering the next one.
I just wanted to share this great resource. It is put out by Peace Hill Press and you can probably view a sample on their website. I like all their stuff so far.
I attended a home schooling conference this weekend and these were a few from their recommended reading lists:
“Things We Wish We Had Known” Bill & Diana Waring
“A Survivor’s Guide to Home Schooling” Luanne Shackelford & Susan White
and…Raymond & Dorothy Moore have a handful of books to google…I didn’t catch all the titles as they were rattled off.
Krista, thanks for the tip on the beginning grammar book. I was thinking about looking for one. It is the one by Jessie Wise, right? Some of the negative reviews on Amazon are pretty scathing.
I got through the Holt book mostly–I don’t know if I actually finished it to the last chapter. I don’t know, I guess I am used to reading stuff that I disagree with, and interspersed among the nonsense there were some thought-provoking points. And besides, reading it really did help to clue me in a little better to the whole unschooling mind-set.
DadDude,
I was specifically thinking of sharing that book with you, First Language Lessons. I think you would really like it. It is by Jessie Wise. A friend of mine had it and as I looked through it I thought it would be great to introduce grammar to my little guy. He was four at the time. She is very thorough in teaching the parts of speech and types of sentences. The lessons take about 10 minutes or less to get through. I don’t think I ever learned the definitions as thoroughly as a child in school. I think it is a great book.
I had heard so much about Holt that I got How Children Fail. I just never got into it. I respect and admire the unschooling movement. I did try to do it a little with my crew but I just lacked the faith that we would cover all that we needed to cover. I like have a starting and ending point. I do feel that the Classical education has been superb compared to what we tried in the past. I love the STory of the World. I have learned a lot about history myself. I love Writing With Ease. The focus is on narration and writing. You get an excerpt of good literature. Read it to your child and then ask them questions and they are taught to answer in a complete sentence. Then they write a 3 or 4 sentence narration. Some days they have copy work and some days dictation to teach them to write what they hear. The point with this type of work is that if you want a child to be able to write you have to fill them with great literature. These lessons don;t take long either and I just love the book. My son loves Story of the World because there are so many activities you can do to bring the lessons to life. If he had his way we would do history projects all day. It is the first subject he wants to do each day.
I recently came across Noeo Science and it is similar to Story of the World. You read real books and then ask questions and write narrations and write definitions and make notebook pages. It is not fill in the blanks or multiple choice. It forces children to take in information, digest it and then reword it. Noeo is a creation based classical education science curriculum but I have not noticed that Story of the World is.
I am so pleased with the curriculum from Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer so far. I think it is top notch.
If you try it I would love to know your thoughts.
I just checked out one review on Amazon and the reviewer wrongly quotes the definition of a noun. She says that the books says a noun is a person, place thing or idea. That is not what the definition is in the book. The book states, " A noun is the name of a person, place thing or idea."
Also, she has you go back through poems that are taught and identify the verbs and the nouns in the poems. I had a lot of fun with this because as we would be driving somewhere I would point out nouns to my son. He has a firm grasp of what a noun, verb, and adjective are.
I did notice that one of the poems was slightly different when I went to print it out online. Hardly so, not enough to make a fuss about. Anyway, Jessie Wise was a teacher and did a superb job of teaching her own children. Her daughter homeschools her four boys, is a college professor, author and creates homeschool curriculum. That speaks volumes to me.
I will not homeschooling my kids, I know I’ll be frustrade. So we gonna put the kids in a catholic school.
I will work with the kids in the house like I have being doing, but not homescholling 
:wub: :huh: :unsure:
digo, schooling, aff
I have 4 small kids All under 4 and we homeschool them now. there is nothing wrong with starting early. we focus mostly on languages right now. I am teaching them french and sign language and we do little reader every day. we do math that is practical and they are having lots of fun. we read every book in sight and go to the library, park and museum often. there is a lot of things that I would recommend but I will have to look at my list I am not really into books on how to teach my kids I just go with the thought that God gave them to us to teach and mold and prepare and I go out and find things that I think will help me make them into good people. Hope that you have great luck in your search into teaching your children.
Princessclem, wow, 4 under 4!! I would not even think of homeschooling if I was in your shoes. Hats off to you…
I start with my kids when they are 3. Of course, prior to that they are learning all kinds of stuff, but that is when we begin learning to write and working from workbooks somewhat regularly. I got Five in a Row, which is a literature based curriculum. It is really nice. You read a book every day for a week and then do a different activity each day that deals with themes from the book. They have Before 5 in a Row, which is for younger children. I got it for my then 2 year old and it was too advanced for her. We read many of the books, which were very good, but the activities were a bit beyond her. For parents that love to read 5 in a Row is a nice way to read and do activities together each day. You can check out their website at http://fiarhq.com/fiveinarow.info/index.html. I am hoping to do this with my two youngest this summer.
I am starting with the sonlight curriculum P3/4 for my 2.5 year old daughter. Will probably start next month when it arrives. I am also adding Readers K with it, but will do no handwriting or anything she can’t manage yet til she is older and more capable. If she goes rapidly through that curriculum and manges ok with it then I will move on faster to the P4/5 one. www.sonlight.com
It’s such an interesting question…where to start. At their age, it depends a bit on what you want to accomplish. My son is 2.5 and I do play-based learning with him through-out the day. You can read about some of it in my blog -
http://all-about-the-journey.blogspot.com
There’s links to other really inspiring blogs too.
I typically have a theme for the week and work activities, outings and so forth around that theme. This week is birds. We’ve recently made two trips to the zoo, so we’ll review the pictures and discuss those birds, we’ll go to a pet store to see more birds. I’m creating a sheet for him of our common birds in the back yard and we’ll make bird feeders and watch for birds. I’ll give him a bin with bird seed and a funnel, spoon, cup and toys for him to have as his sensory tub. Of course we’ll be on YouTube looking up our common birds and other birds that interest him (like Ostrich) to watch them move and hear them sing. Our letter of the week is N n. While he knows his letters and sounds and is sounding out words, I still keep doing a letter of the week. We’ll run around the house and fill a box with N sounding words. etc. We’ll do art, read books, re-inact, sing songs, read poems, and more.
Just play based learning. While I realize many people so much, much more, I’ve come to peace with the reality of what I’m able to do and do well with my son. He’s learning and we’re having a great time. Our days go by quickly because we’re having so much fun.
Oh, as another thought, one of my friends attends a HomeSchooling support team through her local church. While she doesn’t attend that church, she goes there for their homeschooling idea meetings. You might investigate that if you want to connect with a group, or looking for some personal support!
I really hope some of this was helpful to you.
Wow! Good for you! It is DEFINITELY not too early to start!! We have two girls - 3 months and 16 months and do LOTS of homeschooling!!
For the littlest, we sing lots of songs, I play musical instruments, we go on color hunts and look at our colour books, watch colour videos, we count in several languages, we identify body parts, we do object flash cards, we watch educational videos, we do out phonics flashcards and phonics at www.starfall.com.
For the older of the two, the possibilities are endless! I just finished making her Learning Goals for 2010 - it’s two pages long and COMPLETELY doable!
Good luck to you - if you have any specific questions, feel free to PM!