10 Ways to FAIL at Homeschooling

1.  Pattern your home school exactly after the public school model.

2.  Spend lots of money. Make sure to buy every shiny new curricula that happens to catch your eye and every gimmicky uni-tasker toy you can find.

3.  Make it complicated. Attempt to cover every possible subject matter in perfect chronological and/or sequential order whether your child shows any interest or not.

4.  Plan things so extensively that you have 100% structure and 0% flexibility.

5.  Have a specific and rigid school time and refuse to do anything school or learning related outside of that designated school time. You're a very busy person after all.

6.  Teach your child what the government says is good for them, not what they are actually interested in or passionate about.

7.   Only have your child do school in the designated school room, sitting in his or her desk for the several hours of school time. Don't foolishly suppose your child can learn in the family room or *gasp* outside.

8.  Keep your child strictly within his or her grade level by age. If they fall behind, push them to catch up, and do not by any means allow them to skip ahead!

9.  Alternatively you could stay completely out of things altogether and leave your child entirely to his or her own devices, because certainly they don't need you to get involved at all in their education.

10.  Do everything yourself. You are super homeschool mom. You don't need any help whatsoever to educate your kids perfectly!

Year Round

Well, we're back into the swing of things again, and I'm loving it!

I have always said that I intend to do school year round and Saturdays too, for that matter. My reasoning is that if our style of learning is inherently integrated into our everyday life then how could we possibly justify changing our lifestyle on Saturdays and during summer, particularly when there are such great opportunities for learning experiences during those times.

That being said, this Summer I thought we maybe ought to ease off the academics and focus more on life skills for a while. I thought it would be good for us; instead everything descended into chaos. There was more contention and boredom than we've ever had before, and I was forced to admit that our family culture is just better attuned to the loose structure that comes with a year-round-school mindset.

So here we are, loving learning and loving life. It's a Saturday and we're all in the car driving to visit family. R is sitting in the back seat reading James and the Giant Peach. She's been burning through it at an alarming rate. This morning she exclaimed, "I just never want to stop!"

We began reading Treasure Island last night as a family because R has taken a particular interest in pirates lately. In the last couple of weeks we finished reading Little House on the Prairie, Doctor Dolittle, and The Enormous Egg. Every night R begs me to read "just one more chapter!"

We had a fun little impromptu science lesson during my breakfast preparations. The girls asked for fried eggs for breakfast, so I had them watch the butter melt as I explained that it was a solid changing into a liquid. Then I broke the eggs into the pan and had them watch as it turned from a liquid into a solid as it cooked. I also explained the terms "translucent" and "opaque." We also talked about the water condensing on the outside of their glasses of apple juice.

Each night when we read books together, C helps me read the simple three letter words. She gets better everyday. She is so close to being able to do it on her own. She just needs to have that "Aha!" moment that all new readers experience at some point.

I can't sufficiently express just how fun and satisfying this lifestyle is for us. I know it's probably not for everyone, but I do wish more homeschoolers would give going curriculum-less a try. I think you'd be surprised by just how much you'd love it, not to mention the immense long-term rewards for your kids.