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E4 ½, years.
I have noticed E4 has a love for Biology. She has enjoyed non-fiction books about plants, the human body (senses) and most recently birds. She has also taken a keen interest in learning about our new compost bin, like what can go in and what can’t, how it breaks down, what it is used for.
She is also LOVES being read to. We have read all her books so many times, and I’ve just taken a huge leap and started The Magicians Nephew by C S Lewis. We have read four chapters in two days and while she probably doesn’t understand all of it, she is enjoying the fantasy and adventure of it. I have been questioning her about the story and she also stops me to ask questions. I’m enjoying re-reading it anyway.
She also loves to draw and write in her little notebook. She has enjoyed drawing pictures and writing letters to Uncle Geoff, Nan and Pop and Nan and Grandad. She enjoys the process of deciding what to put in the envelope, writing a letter (she dictates to me) and after I address it, she decorates with stickers. She likes to stick on the stamp and put it in the postbox.
B 2 ½ years.
B2 enjoys being included in daily activities. He loves water and will happily play at washing dishes. His other great love is trains. He loves to spot them when we’re out and about, and makes his own imaginary train tracks in the house which he drives over with cars, buzzy bee, or anything with wheels. The imaginary train tracks can also go over people, like today it went over my shoulders and back down on to the floor.
He has previously shown great interest in drums, although this seems to have waned lately, however we haven’t been actively encouraging it.
He seems to naturally be a critical thinker and likes to work things out for himself. He seems gifted at working out how something works. He is very good at dressing himself, and shows great perseverance and determination. He’s not easily discouraged.
Been thinking and reading so much lately. I’ve been keeping a list of advantages and disadvantages of home schooling as I go along and here it is. It’s a list for me, and not necessarily how others will see it, or how their experiences may be. They are in no particular order. I may add to or edit this as we go along.
PROS
· We determine curriculum
· Easier to fulfill biblical requirements e.g. Deuteronomy 6:6-7, 11:19
· Less daily travel
· Tailor teaching style to child’s learning style
· Develop close relationship with the children
· Character Emphasis
· Instill a life long love for learning
· No school fees
· More time for child to pursue interests/talents
· Freedom to travel anytime
· Can do things during school hours
· Can protect children from bullying or other negative influences
· Less peer pressure related to academic performance
· More efficient use of time (e.g. not waiting for 30 children to be quiet, 1 hour lunch breaks etc)
· We are with our kids 24/7
· Children can learn life skills e.g. house, baby, car, home maintenance, money,
· Impartation of our values
CONS
· Less child free time for me.
· Loss of potential income
· Fewer same age peers
· Messy home
· Home schooling expenses
· Less concrete feedback on progress
· No school photos
· Harder to run errands
· Extra stuff in our house – e.g books, material
· With my children 24/7
· Having to justify our decision to others
· Requires my full commitment to encourage, motivate, instruct etc.
I came across this post called Making Edisons and thought to post it here to remind myself to stop having entirely unrealistic expectations about the messes my children make. It’s a beautifully written piece about ‘giftedness’ by a home schooling father of 5. If I am going to survive home schooling then there’s a lesson I need to learn here. The author points out that stifling our children’s creativity is like keeping their ‘gifts’ wrapped.
I find that I get quite fanatical about keeping control of the mess when they play, and I think it just comes from a fear of not being able to cope. Orderliness helps me cope with the busyness of family life and while our home is far from organised, I still feel like I’d rather keep it as it is than mess it up entirely.
Mess for the sake of it is not good, but I need to lighten up when the kids are busy cutting up magazines for a collage (as they did today leaving tiny bits of paper all over the floor after I just vacuumed), or outside playing with the hose and getting wet to their socks. I find myself letting it go so far and then being the kill-joy by telling them “that’s enough” and “tidy up all this mess”.
The way I see it, there’s something to be said for everything having a place and putting things away when finished with, and it’s important for the kids to learn to be tidy and organised. If they know how to tidy up afterwards, then mess in the course of play and fun and learning is a good thing.
Letting go a bit is going to be a stretch for me because as much as I hate to admit it, I’m a bit of a control freak. I really don’t think this all means we just let it all go and live in dirty, disorganised homes. In fact, I think that a clean and organised home is the way to nurture creative children. However, kids are messy by their very nature and I certainly don’t want them growing up under my constant disapproval of their play. I’m sure there’s a middle ground to be reached here.
Much of my ‘fear of not coping’ comes from a general lack of discipline. I don’t mean that my kids run riot and get away with anything, but I have been guilty of almost always picking up after them because I’ve been too lazy/tired/foolish to require them to do it themselves. I can see that many of these parenting issues when corrected will facilitate a happier house, more relaxed mother, more responsible children, and these things will support the home schooling lifestyle I hope for.
Everything I have read regarding home schooling young children always emphasises reading aloud to them. A lot. Mindful of this we’ve been making regular trips to the library and coming home with a pile of picture books and a few non-fiction. E has enjoyed books about birds, plants, human body – senses, and most recently Common and Garden Birds of New Zealand. I have found it interesting to note her interest in biology.
However, I’ve been finding she’s less interested in the shorter picture books, and rather chooses longer stories from her bookshelf, which have been read so many times and getting a bit boring for me, and aren’t really very stretching for her either.
So, on a whim the other day I grabbed C S Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia off my bookshelf while the kids were having lunch and started to read. Her attention was captured from the opening line of the first book The Magician’s Nephew: “This is a story about something that happened a long time ago when your grandfather was a boy.” Since then we have read everyday and while I think some of the language is difficult for her to understand we’ve been making steady progress. I think we are up to chapter 9. Most days when I tell her we have to stop, she says “Oh please….a bit more, I want to know what happens next.” She’s so enjoying the adventure and the rich fantasy. I’m also enjoying reading it. I’m so excited that she’s growing up and I look forward to other books we can enjoy together.
I think I had underestimated how much she enjoys being read to, as well as her understanding. I’m so glad I took the plunge to attempt these books.
E will be 5 in 5 months time and I’ve done nothing about finding a school for her. Mostly because I don’t want to send her, and also because I’ve been so busy as always. Despite leaning towards home education, I feel that it would be irresponsible to not at least look at the schools. Then, as I write that I think it’s a stupid idea. If I am going to home school, I must be convinced it’s the better option for us, and if so why research the lesser???
I have been considering home education for a while now, and keep coming back to it. The more I read the more I can’t leave it alone and it’s a bit like what a preacher once said (don’t know who for sure) : “Light rejected is darkness embraced”. I can’t plead ignorance anymore and sometimes I think I should never have started researching it because then I could just be part of the status quo. I guess I’m just plain scared.
My concerns:
1) Do I feel supported enough in this world to do something that is not mainstream, and is often completely misunderstood? (This from another blog but I forget where…..sorry)
2) I worry that it won’t be the best thing for my children if I am stressed and frustrated all the time and unfortunately I am too often that way now. I’m fairly sure that some better parenting skills (read discipline) would help me here, and some days I’m confident that we’ll get there. Other days I feel so completely overwhelmed by the sheer workload, that making changes seems impossible. I feel like a clown spinning plates at the circus and while I know that there’s a better way, I’m too busy spinning to implement change.
3) E says she wants to go to school. We know of home schooled families and I’ve said to her…do you want to go to school, or do you want to learn at home like the C……. family? Her response has been ‘ I want to learn kindy at home and then go to school.’ I realise that it’s not her decision, nor one she can make at her age, but I have those niggling doubts that if I keep her home and she wanted to go to school, it’ll come back to me in years to come.
4) To a lesser extent I fear other peoples opinions and judgements and while I know it’s not their decision how we educate our children, I’m human and it does affect me. Along these lines, I also worry people (particularly friends) will think that I think I’m judging their decision to send their kids to school, or that we think we are superior.
5) Similar to number 3) is I worry that E will struggle with being different to her friends, as they are all getting excited about going off to school and some have already started. I know this is only a temporary thing, as it will settle down once home schooling is normal to her, but never the less, it’s a concern I have.
Having stopped kindy a while back, I don’t get as much child-free time anymore. I’d never wanted to send my children to school to get rid of them and maintain that there’s something wrong if I can’t wait till they turn 5 so I can ’send them off to school’. I cringe when people say things like…’I bet you’re busy…still, E’s turning 5 soon and then you’ll only have two at home’. Anyway…..here’s some questions I need to answer:
How much time is reasonable for me to have alone? (referring to the home schooling mother)
How to manage your day/week so that you get some time to yourself?
(This could turn into a whole other post, but lately I’ve found our days just too unpredictable and I’d like to implement some sort of routine.) What are some good ways to implement a routine and what are some good things to include?
Some recent reading that inspired this post: Rachael’s Soft answers to Hard questions ,this post on Why we homeshcool my regular visits to Just Enough, and some reasons for home schooling from Hawkhill.
