How to Succeed at Home Education: Principle #2

Imagine you are taking a walk through a park with a loved one who is also a trusted mentor and friend. She tells you that this park is brimming with wondrous sights and sounds, and she promises to show you all of the best ones. This thrills you, and fills you with exciting anticipation.

First she points out a song bird high up in an evergreen tree. Initially it's hard to see, being so far away, but soon you focus in and catch a glimpse. Questions begin to fill your mind, but before you get the chance to think twice, your friend is pulling on your arm to move you on to the next thing: a beautiful rose bush to your right. You begin to crouch down to smell it, only to be interrupted yet again. "You will just love this next thing," she says. But by now you are thinking, "How can I love it when I don't get a chance to slow down and enjoy anything? Don't we have more than enough time to experience it all?"

Suddenly, out of the corner of your eye, you see a snail inching its way along the pavement. You tell your friend you'd like to go touch it and get a closer look. Her response: "No time for that now! We'll get to that later. Right now I have something else you need to see." You are really beginning to feel some whiplash from all this, as well as a sense of pointed disinterest in whatever she intends to lead you to next.

Does this scenario seem vaguely familiar? It should. This is what happens in public schools all the time. It's a natural byproduct of the need to educate large groups of kids while keeping order and equality. Everyone must learn particular things in each specific grade in a certain order. This is unfortunate, but understandable.

The true tragedy in my mind is that so many families take the leap into home education and then simply attempt to pattern home education after public education. It is one of the most prevalent mistakes I see in the homschooling world, and it is a pity because it fails to take full advantage of the opportunities homeschooling has to offer. Instead, I propose that we glean the best educational approaches and practices we can find and apply them at home. The following principles all fall into this category.

Principle #2:  Make homeschooling a lifestyle choice instead of a daily event.

It is very tempting to "do school" daily at home. This seems natural and harmless. The problem is that segregating school time (learning time) from "real life" compartmentalizes two things which were never meant to be apart. To live is to learn. Children know this intuitively and act accordingly, showing curiosity and excitement about new concepts and ideas... until we train it out of them by setting aside a particular time and place to learn and turning it into a checklist item, thus transforming education into a chore.

If you want to succeed at giving your children a world class education, it is all about the environment, atmosphere, and lifestyle.

Environment
Create an environment conducive to learning. Books to peruse are a must. Begin now to collect your own library of classics and children's books, and frequent your local library maxing out your card if you must! Easy access to the internet in a prominent area is ideal for a learning environment. In our home, my personal computer is hooked up to the TV. This way we can quickly access pictures, definitions, music, or online resources as needed. Consider cleaning and collecting leftover food containers and allow your children to play with and explore them as well as any other materials you can easily get your hands on.

(Be prepared to embrace the chaos and mess. I will readily admit that I am not good at this, but I am convinced of its importance. Children allowed to freely explore their surroundings will show more curiosity and interest in a wider variety of things.)

Atmosphere
Create an atmosphere of learning. This might mean an attitude change or paradigm shift on your part. Learning is fun! No really--it is!  :)  Develop an enthusiasm for learning and let it show. Pursue your own education. Read, write, do math, explore whatever subjects excite you, and discuss what you're learning frequently with your child. Enthusiasm truly is contagious.

Ask your child lots of questions and always answer their questions to you. If you don't know, say, "I don't know, but I know how to find out!" and show them! Google it, look it up in an encyclopedia, or check out a book on the topic from the library. Before long, you might be surprised how many different interests your child is pursuing at once. They need to feel safe to ask questions and be enthusiastic, and they will undoubtedly love sharing the thrill of new knowledge with you.

Lifestyle
Homeschooling isn't something you do, it is who you are and how you live. Learning begins at birth, so homeschooling begins at birth. Remember that you are trying to cultivate curiosity and a love of learning. Form your lifestyle to meet these ends.

I want you to develop "new eyes" designed for homeschooling. These new eyes are going to help you recognize the power of the moment and harness it, no matter when that moment comes, (i.e. during dinner, chores, nap-time, right before bed, driving in the car, etc.)

This can be particularly difficult when it comes to naughty behavior. Believe it or not, much of what we label as "naughty" behavior is actually just curiosity and experimentation. By ALL MEANS, punish truly naughty (read: rebellious) behavior, but be gentle with your little explorer-scientist! Lay down ground rules and limits, and enforce them. But use your new eyes to quickly recognize the signs of a curious and ready mind, and pounce on that opportunity! Lead the little one to safe and acceptable ways of exploring, experimenting, and pursuing his interests.

I like to call these little opportunities "learning launching pads." They give you a clue into what your child is going to be particularly receptive to right now and a point from which to launch into either greater depth or variety of topics. For example, my two-year-old had a week where she just kept sneaking into the bathroom, turning on the water and proceeding to pump out an entire bottle of hand soap. I got so frustrated each time the door was left open again and my patience ran very short. Until one day it occurred to me that she was fascinated with the bubbles. (Light bulb moment!) I took her into the kitchen, filled a bowl with some milk, gave her a straw, and then showed her how to make bubbles by blowing through it. She was delighted! Yes, she still made a mess. But I didn't mind it nearly so much when my paradigm shifted to see it as a learning moment instead of just naughty behavior.

"Learning launching pads" can come in all sorts of forms: questions, incessant talking about a particular topic, "naughty" behavior (as discussed above,) obsession with a certain toy or book. The best thing about these launching pads is that depending on your child's age, you can take their intense interest and expand it to cover everything from history, to science, to math, to literature, and so on.

All of this boils down to the fact that I believe in child-led learning, but it is incomplete unless it is properly parent-facilitated child-led learning.

As you develop the environment, atmosphere, and lifestyle to make your homeschooling efforts successful, keep in mind that at its core parenting and homeschooling are synonymous and all good parenting principles apply.

How to Succeed at Home Education: Principle #1

You've decided. You're going to homeschool.

Excitement and jitters set in as September approaches. The smell of new textbooks permeate a perfectly organized and well-stocked schoolroom, complete with glue sticks and paint. A carefully planned schedule is prominently displayed on the bulletin board. Everything is set and ready. All that you're waiting for is the official beginning of the school year.

Then it arrives.

You gather your little ones around the table, hand out work-sheets and crayons, and begin the instruction. Between new books, new school supplies, and maybe even some new clothes, everyone has been anticipating this day for some time. And school at home doesn't fail to impress!

Until it does... about two weeks later.

By this point, it's like pulling teeth to get the kids to participate in the brand new curriculum which cost you a small fortune. You've tried everything from bribery to threats to get them to comply, but to no avail. You feel greater and greater anxiety setting in as each day fails to align with the schedule you set up. You are falling behind already and you have no idea how you are going to make up for the lost time. Your anxiety causes you to lay into the kids a little more than usual which, of course, doesn't help at all. In the midst of the contention and tears, you find yourself wondering, "Is this really what I signed up for? This is not how I imagined it at all! How do the other homeschool moms do this for years? This can't be what homeschool is supposed to be like!"

And you'd be right!

This is NOT how homeschool is supposed to be. But sadly, it turns out this way far too often, even for veteran homeschoolers.

If you want to succeed at homeschooling, I have some principles which will help you. They won't make homeschooling magically easy, and they WILL require you do a major overhaul on your educational paradigms. But I promise that these principles are the keys to having the positive and productive experience you want out of home education.

These principles are particularly applicable to the first ten years or so of your child's life. I believe they will still continue to be pertinent after that point, but they will have to be modified and perhaps applied in different ways or to different degrees. I will explain this in more detail later.

(Keep in mind that this is only part 1 of a series of blog posts, and keep on the lookout for future installments.)

Principle #1:  Keep it simple and inexpensive.

Especially when you are just beginning to homeschool and your children are very little, there is absolutely no reason to go out and spend a fortune on books, toys, supplies, or curricula.

If you determined early on that you would educate your child at home, you have the advantage of many birthdays and Christmases before you officially begin. Request educational and multipurpose toys. Ask for simple art supplies, paper, pencils, crayons, scissors, and glue. Buy your children books ranging in difficulty from very beginner to classic novels. In this way you will find it easy to gather ample resources.

If your child is already school-aged, keep in mind that all you really need is paper, pencils, the library and the internet. Seriously--that is ALL! Between the library and the internet, there is literally nothing you cannot learn. In my opinion, the best resources are absolutely free.

I suggest making weekly library visits a family tradition. Look at age-appropriate book lists, and take advantage of the holding system. Keep in mind that libraries contain more than books; there are CD's, educational movies, audio-books, magazines, and e-books. Explore the non-fiction section as well as the chapter and picture books. Check out books about math, history, science, and writing to fill out your homeschooling curriculum.

(I know this hardly needs saying, but it bears repeating. Read to your kids every day!)

As for the internet, make use of Google searches to find lots of free resources. Here are some that I literally stumbled upon in the last year:  Easy Peasy All-In-One-Homeschool, Solar System Scope, ABCya, Sheppard Software, Virtual Manipulatives. And here are examples of some other more well-known but equally awesome websites: Khan Academy, TED, Starfall, Google Earth, and Kindle Cloud Reader (free classics).

I'll add more as I discover them, but I hope I've whetted your appetite for finding your own free online resources and persuaded you that homeschooling need not (and in my opinion should not) be complicated or expensive.

Homeschool Memes

I hope you all will enjoy some of these as much as I did!  :)

How do you inspire writing?

As I write, R is doing her writing by herself.  She is sitting at a little end table in front of our family room TV which is hooked up to my personal computer.  Everyday she types into a word processor the words she wants to write, (I downloaded a special handwriting font,) and then she copies down her sentence with a pencil and special handwriting paper.

To be honest, I'm in awe.  She is doing this happily -- without me begging or even needing me to persuade her.  She's doing it because she WANTS to!  This is a huge advancement from only a few weeks ago when doing our writing each day was very much a challenge.  We often had to stop because I was losing patience and she was becoming frustrated.

So, what happened?  I'm not totally sure, but I'll give you my guesses.

For one thing, I think R has a pretty flexible nature.  She may resist things initially, but with enough prompting she'll easily jump on board.  I guess the best way to put it is that she's mold-able and easy to inspire.

I think another thing that helped was that I tried really hard to think outside the box about different ways to practice our writing.  (In the beginning I was tempted to do all letter drilling.)  I kept it light and fun.  I experimented with lots of different approaches until one in particular stuck with her:  writing notes.  She LOVES writing notes to her daddy, grandmas, and friends.  She also likes using the type of writing paper that has space at the top to draw a picture.

Writing has also been better since I stopped sitting right next to her and trying to tell her how to form each and every letter.  That was just too much pressure.  I have started sitting back and mainly praising, only giving a little bit of advice here and there.  I've been surprised by how quickly she has corrected certain mistakes without me having to tell her again and again.

I've learned to be largely flexible myself, letting little things slide, picking my battles, and letting her take the lead in her writing choices.  It's hard sometimes, but in the long run it's been refreshingly freeing.

What matters the most in all of this -- and this ABSOLUTELY applies to all homeschooling -- is that she is inspired and excited and enjoying what she's doing.  I feel strongly that this is the main key to seeing the best progress and educational development in children.  I know that when I feel interested in what I am doing, and when I really OWN it, I do far better than when I feel forced or pushed into things.

What does intentional parenting look like? And what does it have to do with homeschool?

Well, we've been plugging along and having a really wonderful time in our homeschooling adventures.  I haven't blogged for a couple weeks, not because I haven't had anything to say -- I always have something to say about homeschooling.  :)  Rather, I have been learning first-hand just how EXHAUSTING homeschooling can be!  It really takes it out of me.

The truth, though, is that it's not really homeschooling that is so draining per se.  It is intentional parenting that takes everything you've got.  And intentional parenting is the only kind I believe in.  In my world, it is synonymous with homeschooling.

Here's what intentional parenting has looked like for me in the last several weeks:

It means that when the girls wake up, I greet them with a smile and lots of loves.  It means me choosing to be chipper, optimistic, and enthusiastic about our upcoming day.  It means lots of listening, even when the story is unintelligible (with C) or nearly unbearably random (with R.)

It means sitting at the kitchen table with my girls during meals so that we can talk and connect in a casual and comfortable way.  It means taking time to do a little mini-gospel lesson with them during breakfast so that we can start our day on the right foot -- thinking and talking about God.

It means including them in the clean up and consistently holding them to their responsibilities, which at R's age consist of simply getting dressed, making her bed, and tidying up.  It means letting them help me even when it means it might take a bit longer.  It means saying yes whenever I reasonably can and should.

It means being ready to follow through with commitments such as "Yeah, I think we could do some painting this week."  It means jumping on as many little opportunities for growth and learning as I can handle.  (For instance, taking the time to explain -- really explain -- what power lines are and what they do when R asked me on our drive this morning.  Far too often we want to give a pat answer and be done with it.)  It means being seriously creative and innovative in my attempts to inspire R to want to do the things that I think she should be learning and working on now.

It means enduring consistently in my love and enthusiasm right to the very end of the day, right up to those last goodnight kisses and hugs.

It means sacrifice and lots of it.

But isn't that why we became parents in the first place?

I definitely don't succeed in this type of intentional parenting everyday.  (Frankly, I'm not sure I could honestly say I really succeed entirely on most days...)  But I have had many really good days, and that's what I aim for.  I strive for it with everything I have because it makes me feel so fulfilled.  It is without a doubt my purpose in life, even though it leaves me feeling completely beat at the end of the day.  I find myself releasing a HUGE sigh of relief when I finally close their bedroom door each night, and for the last couple weeks I haven't even had the energy or desire to hop online and write a blog post about all the fun we've been having.  But we have still been homeschooling, and loving it.

What about workbooks?

I find it beautifully ironic that when R goes off to play by herself she often chooses to "play school."  Some mornings she asks me to play with her.  There have been many mornings (when I had other plans and intended to let her and C just play on their own) when I just couldn't say no to that little face telling me, "You're the teacher," as if this weren't something we do all day every day anyway!

That's the thing: I don't think she realizes that what we do IS school.  There are some days that are more formal than others when I think she is aware that we're "doing school."  But other days she'll make comments to me about how sometimes we forget to do school, and I just have to laugh because she doesn't think that what we are doing counts.  I think that's a great thing, because that means it's natural and fun.  That's my goal.

Sometimes I think she craves the structure more though, and I'm happy to comply.  On those days I instruct her to get dressed, pack her backpack, and then have her sit in her little chair at her little table. C sits with her because she has to do everything big sister does.  I sit up front.  We stand and say the pledge of allegiance, recite our ABC's, and maybe read a book.

Then we break out the workbooks.  We don't do them very regularly because a four-year-old only has a limited attention span.  But when we start a page, I require her to at least finish what she began.  (It is very important to me that she learn to be a finisher.)  This requires me to get creative sometimes, to make it exciting even once the novelty has worn off.

The other day, we did our math workbook with Cheerios.  When R finished a pair of problems, (3+4 and 4+3 for example,) I would give her the number of Cheerios that were the answer, (in this example, 7.)  That was the extent of my idea; I figured she'd eat them and then move on to the next problem.  Instead, she decided she wanted to show me all the different ways she could make that number, (0+7, 1+6, 2+5, etc.) using the Cheerios I had given her.

So, what do I think of workbooks?  They're good occasionally.  They're a great tool in our bag of options, but never over-do it!  I may make R finish any page she begins, but I definitely don't require her to finish any workbook she begins.  We have a whole shelf of different workbooks that I let her choose from depending on her mood and our purposes.  They are great for practicing already learned concepts, but I try not to use them to learn things for the first time.  Mainly this is because I want to take full advantage of all that homeschooling has to offer, and one of the greatest things homeschooling offers is the ability to let your kids learn hands on.  When we first began learning addition, it was always using real objects or people.  (If there are two parents and two kids, how many are there in our family?)  When we were learning about trees, we went outside and felt them, smelled them, looked at them.  We like to get our hands dirty!

But some days I don't really mind "playing school."  :)

Questions?

I was wondering if anyone has any particular questions they would like me to answer about homeschooling here on my blog?  Is there anything you'd like me to elaborate or focus on for a given post?  If not, then I'll just keep on talking about whatever comes to mind or interests me for the moment.

But please don't hesitate to comment below and pose any questions you might have!  I promise I'll do my best to answer them!  :)