Learning and Growing

It's important to remember that learning and growing are not just for our children -- we need to keep up with them and push ourselves to keep growing.  Arming ourselves with needed information is one way we as life-learning parents can not only set a good example for our children but also prepare us for assisting, facilitating and teaching them as they get older and into more challenging studies.

I so enjoy learning.  Whether it's taking a class or workshop, reading a book or learning from another's experience, I am always learning something.  I also enjoy sharing what I've learned with others.  I haven't been here to blog in a good long while but I still use this space to direct others to information that has been shared to guide them in finding just what will work for their family.

I'm excited about an upcoming series of workshops that another homeschooling mom and I will be offering in our area for new homeschooling families.  I figured I'd share it here as well in the event you happen to be local or know someone who might benefit from going through some of the basic steps in setting up and preparing to homeschooling their own children.

We've been down the road and have been able to assist so many families already -- I'm looking forward to meeting new families beginning this month.  Feel free to link to my page or share this picture (above) in your networks.

Happy Learning & Growing!

Planning Your Year Anew

It's once again time to begin planning for the new homeschool year, if you haven't started already.  For anyone new to homeschooling and starting at the very beginning of things, I'd like to share with you a series I've done for newbies: How to Plan Series. You'll find seven simply steps to get you on your way. (Anyone looking for a refresher is encouraged to take a look too.)

For many of us who have been doing this for a minute, we may need a few reminders or some pointers on just what we need to focus on as we end a year and start anew.  For those of us in that boat, I'll be sharing some tips and reminders over the next few weeks to help keep us all on track. This will be 'How to Plan 2.0.'

I invite you to join me each Wednesday for a quick tip/reminder and a resource or two.  I'd love to have your feedback and input on how you're already planning; what things you're already doing to put things in place for your children for next term. We all learn from each other and I invite each of you to share as you're able.

Here's the first tip/reminder in this new series: Take time to assess and evaluate where you and your children are at this moment.

Depending upon how old your children are and what levels they are on will determine just how much you'll need to review and reflect upon. I typically pull out the plans and goals I've written at the top of any given year and look to see if we've met them.  I look at our calendar of events to see just what 'impromptu' activities may have helped get us to where we wanted to be and what may have taken us in different directions.  I also review their journals and logs.

As your children grow, I suggest adding conferencing to your assessment and evaluation time.  Yesterday I had meetings with each of my children that focused mainly on their thoughts about this year--what they enjoyed learning, what they didn't; how much they felt they'd learned and what other things they would have liked to cover this year.  After listening to them and asking additional questions based on their answers, I took notes and asked them to start thinking about what they'd like to add to our learning experiences for the coming months. In another day or so, I'll meet with each again for this follow-up conversation--one of many, I must add. Although I did this more formally this year, we speak often about how they believe they're doing and how they'd like to improve.  I have found that they are taking more ownership in their learning since starting this a few years ago.

Depending upon where you live (state) determines just how you're required to do record keeping for this homeschool year ending. In Georgia, we're only required to write a summary on what each child covered in each subject. By reviewing our goals for the year, talking to the children and making my own assessments as to the successes and challenges we've had I can quickly write these summaries in my planning book.  These summaries are the record keeping that is required and are kept with the previous years' summaries. We then will take time to select some of the work we've done to go into our every growing portfolios--many of them have been lap books.

By taking time to assess and evaluate where you are, you set yourself up for figuring out where you need to go from where you are to where you'd like to be.  Don't feel rushed during this step.  Let me say that again--Don't feel rushed during this step. Paying close attention to just what your children know, how well they can complete specific tasks and what their challenges and deficiencies may be will assist you greatly in planning appropriately for next year.

Part of this assessment should include feedback from your partner/spouse and other family/friends whom your children interact with regularly.  If you're part of a co-op, speaking with other parents who teach or have taught your child or interact with them, may be helpful as well. We spend a lot of time with our children and may not always see things objectively.  Allowing other trusted adults to give us feedback on how they see our children is beneficial.  We may be surprised to hear that our children are learning and exhibiting the habits and behaviors we've been working so hard to teach them. Should we hear things that aren't what we expect to hear or would like to hear about our children, we can use this information too in redirecting and reteaching them. Either way, we can use this feedback for the good.

At present, I am seeing that my children are feeling pretty good about where they are right now. Each of them wants to do more and sees the areas in which they are challenged. I'm looking forward to hearing more from them about what interests they have and what subjects they may want to explore further in their learning. Of course I have a list of things I'd like them to learn too (smile), but that will come after I hear from them first.

Where are you with regards to assessing and evaluating? Have you started this process yet? Remember, knowing where each of your children is and how they're doing is key to planning well for next year. Take your time, listen and we'll move forward to the next step next week.

See you next time.

Be well.

How to Plan Your Homeschool Year :: Step 7

If you're reading this (and have been with me from the start) I want to begin with a 'congratulations!'  We have covered a lot of ground and you have completed a lot of work!!  Do you feel ready to start?  Don't worry if you answer isn't a resounding 'YES!' as many of us don't feel quite ready most of the time.  This is ok.  (For those of you who do feel ready count this as another blessing.)

Step 7 is simple.

How Can I Afford Homeschooling?

For many homeschooling families this subject isn't always at the forefront of the initial decision to homeschool. If you're still making the decision to homeschool or have just thought that homeschooling can be an option for your family, it's important to note that there are expenses to homeschooling--some you may not have considered.

So, just how can you afford homeschooling?  Let me share some ideas.

Whether you plan to purchase an 'all-in-one' curriculum or not, there are monthly fees for items and activities you'll want to do with your children that if you aren't aware of can put a strain on any budget.
Here are just a few of the purchases homeschooling families regularly make:

• Tickets to museums and other site-seeing venues
• Gas for vehicles and/or passes for public transportation 
• General supplies: crayons, pencils, paper, etc.
• Group/Individual Classes such as swimming, gymnastics, music lessons, etc.

These are typically yearly costs:

• Membership fees for homeschool groups and/or co-ops
• Memberships to online resources such as teacher resource sites and gaming sites
• Homeschool Conference Fees

Just as setting family goals, deciding upon a homeschooling method/approach and mapping out a schedule that matches your family's ebbs and flows are important, figuring out just how your family will afford to homeschool is crucial.

I've learned from experience and from listening to others that any family can afford to homeschool.  No matter what your budget is. The key is to plan out a budget that will accommodate it.

A word to the wise: You and your partner should have a detailed conversation about this subject. Both of you should know what the expectations are and how it will affect the overall household budget. This is one of the ways that knowing your family's goals can be used right away in planning for homeschooling.

A typical homeschooling family lives on one income. Adjustments are made, on a regular basis, to make this work. Perhaps you already know first hand that car-sharing, meal planning and watching your spending on expenses are all a part of this balance. With more and more families choosing to homeschool, you can now find single parents, full-time working parents, business owners and other entrepreneur types finding creative ways to make homeschooling work for their families, too.

Because it is important for each individual family to come to terms for themselves on what matters most, I will offer you some guiding questions to help you determine how best to create a budget that can include homeschooling.  I will then offer some ideas as to how you might make it work.

• What is your monthly income?
• What are your monthly expenses?
• Can all of these expenses or, at least, your basic needs, be met on one income or do you need both incomes to make it work?
• Are there expenses that you could eliminate? (For example, could you lower your budget for gas by using public transportation?)
• Are there extras in your budget that you'd be willing to cut or eliminate to homeschool? (For example, can you limit or eliminate your cable bill, dining out budget, or clothing allowance?)
• Have you thought about just how much it will cost for you to homeschool your children (see bring list of expenses above)?
• Have you considered what homeschooling can/will do to your current budget?

There are books that offer homeschooling parents creative ideas and ways to homeschool for free or nearly free. I strongly encourage you to read the ones you can find at your public library.  Here are a few titles you might check out:

• Homeschool Your Child for Free by LauraMaery Gold & Joan M. Zielinski
• Homeschooling On a Shoestring by Melissa L. Morgan
• Homeschoolers' Guide to Free Teaching Aids by Kathleen Suttles Nehmer

There are also whole websites, blogs and Pinterest boards devoted to helping homeschoolers find free homeschooling materials. Explore your options before settling on purchasing any curricula or other materials. A simple 'homeschool for free' search online will bring up lots of these sites.

If you find that you do need supplies, which, you will, always look for deals. Wait until the traditional school year begins as supplies are lower then.  If your state offers a tax-free holiday weekend, take advantage of those dates and shop then. Watch your local stores for clearance items. I am always surprised at just what I can find right after the 'Back to School' time has passed. Last year, I was able to purchase most of the supplies we are still using now (pencils, erasers, notebooks, crayons, glue sticks, etc.) by waiting until they were marked down further.

If you decide to use a curriculum, attend used book/curriculum sales. These sales are hosted by homeschool groups and organizations. They typically take place toward the end of the traditional school year (April, May or June) and in some places at the end of the summer (July and August). There are also online sites where homeschooling families sell curriculum/resources throughout the year. Some of these sites require a small fee to join, yet there are many others that do not--go that route whenever possible.

What else can you cut to lower your budget?

Meal planning is all the rage now. If you're anywhere near Pinterest, you know exactly what I'm talking about (smile). From freezer meals and meal sharing, to cooking from scratch and eating clean--all are ways to reduce the amount of money you spend monthly on food.  Many families find ways to better use the money they spend on food, thus creating money that can be devoted to homeschooling costs.

Thrifting: Purchasing clothing at thrift stores and/or consignment sales is another option for creating funds for homeschooling. Just as there are used book sales throughout the year, consignment sales are schedule around those same times too. Many growing families use this option since children typically grow a size a season. You can also find books and sometimes curriculum at this places too.  Keep your eyes open. 

Trading and bartering services with another family or going in on bulk items from a 'big box' store can also help cut your costs. There may even be co-ops in your area for this very thing. All you need to do is ask around. You may be surprised at just what the homeschooling families in your area are aware of and willing to share with you.

Using the library as your main resource for books and online resources will definitely lower your costs. Librarians are some of the first persons you'll want to make friends with as they can help you locate many things throughout the library system and online. I am thankful for the number of resources my library system carries that are COMPLETELY FREE and available to anyone with a library card.  This one way has helped keep my homeschooling budget low.

Asking family members and close friends to support your homeschool financially is another option. I'm sure that this would be a difficult request to make in that form, however, you could share your wish list of items and request that family/friends give those as gifts throughout the year.  I have asked family members (grandparents and aunts/uncles, mainly) to give us school resources for birthdays and holidays.  Initially, not all were on board, but now we regularly receive books and art supplies. We've also received games and other interactive learning resources.  I have also requested family memberships and magazine subscriptions as gifts. Over the course of this year we've benefited from instruments and lessons--all gifts from family and friends. The people you and your children matter to can assist in keeping your budget low.

Opting for yearly memberships to museums is a way to cut your costs for field trips and other outings. These memberships, although a big investment upfront, will usually pay for themselves by the second or third visit--depending on the size of your family.

Joining other families either through a homeschool group or co-op for group memberships and group discounts is yet another way to take advantage of personal savings.

I'm sure there are several of you reading this that are already finding and creating ways to make homeschool work for you.  I'd love to hear what you've found to work for your family.  I'm sure others reading this would too. Take a moment to comment below so we can continue sharing ideas in making homeschooling affordable to everyone interested.  Thanks in advance!

Be well.

How to Plan Your Homeschool Year :: Step 6 Finding Support

 

One of the most important steps in homeschooling, once you get goal setting out of the way and settle into a homeschooling method, is finding support from others.

I believe too many of us think that we can brave the new world of homeschooling on our own. Whether or not you have the support of your family and friends, you cannot under estimate the need to be connected to other homeschooling families. (Now if you have family and friends who also homeschooling, count yourself among the blessed!!)

How to Plan Your Homeschool Year :: Step 5 Planning

 

I know this is something I've written about before. The more I learn, from doing and by listening to the experiences of others, I see just how important it is. I also see that not too many of us homeschooling families value it and thus don't give enough time to it. Especially those of us who have been doing it awhile. If teaching is your thing (whether by training or by gifting) it's easy to trust your ability to 'wing-it' or 'go with the flow.' I know this is something I lean on strongly. However, there are subjects and topics that my children are interested in that I don't really know enough to do a lesson justice. As they grow and discover more things, this is actually happening a lot sooner than I had originally thought—and this is where planning come in.

How to Plan Your Homeschool Year :: Step 4 Curriculum

It can be one of the harder decisions, once you've decided that you're moving forward with homeschooling. Should you purchase a box curriculum or should you try and put one together on your own?

First, let me say that with so many homeschooling families there is a wealth of information that you can gather from books and searches online. Starting from scratch is actually not something you have to do anymore for there are families doing just what you want to do who have already started down the road in creating the resources or at least cataloging them where you can find them with some ease.

So I guess the choice may be between piecing things together to match your family's needs, interests, and goals or finding a full boxed curriculum that has already done this.

How to Plan Your Homeschool Year :: Step 3 Learning Styles

If you're just joining the How to Plan Series click here to read the previous steps.

So where do learning styles fit into homeschooling? Depending upon which homeschooling method you're looking into for your family, you may be preparing or purchasing curriculum to use with your children. Knowing the ways in which your child/ren process and understand new things can be beneficial in finding appropriate resources and building lessons.

Over the years there have been divisions on just how many there are and what exactly they are. As an educator by training, I've seen them change names as well. You can do your own search on this topic but the two most recent ones I've done I found two lists. One with four learning styles: spatial-visual, kinetic, language-oriented and logical; the other with seven: linguistic, logical, spatial, musical, bodily, interpersonal and intrapersonal.

How to Plan Your Homeschool Year :: Step 2 Homeschooling Philosophies

 

So you've decided to move forward with your hopes to homeschool your child/children. You've taken the time to write out your goals, your ideas of how you'd like to your family to be. (If you haven't complete this first step, click here to read more.)

Now, take out those goals to look at. Knowing the direction that your family is looking to grow will help make finding methods and styles that work for you.

Homeschooling is as much a lifestyle choice as it is an education alternative. Your beliefs about child development, learning theory and life in general will influence the homeschool philosophy you embrace. Many parents begin homeschooling with a particular style and shift to other methods as they gain experience.

What fits? You know your child/children best and if you don't, you soon will. Every child and family is different. As you've found out in exploring your family's goals. Explore all the options. Talk to other homeschooling families, read books, search the internet, and choose to do what fits your family. As time goes by your style may change...enjoy the ride. And remember—there is no one right answer.

The following is a list of many of the popular approaches to homeschooling. This is not an exhaustive list. For anyone who has been in the homeschooling community, you probably already know how quickly new ideas and styles take shape and are created. I have taken some of the text from www.homeschoollearning.com and those are marked as such. 

How to Plan Your Homeschool Year :: Step 1 Goal Setting

I've decided to do a series of posts based on the workshops I've done for homeschoolers over the course of the past several years.  If you're just starting out or considering homeschooling your child or children, there are definitely steps you can take to make this process less overwhelming and stressful.

I'll start by saying that the fact you've decided to take full responsibility for providing your child/ren with a learning rich environment and thus opening up the world to him/her/them is admirable.  You may be feeling excitement about your decision and as you explore the world of homeschooling may also feel lost in the sea of all your options.  Surprisingly enough there are a great number of options now readily available to homeschoolers now days.  There are more and more families opting to homeschool for various reasons and thus there is a large market now just for us.

2013 Fall Planning :: An Overview

It's definitely that time of year--planning time!

Honestly, I've been planning since the end of May.  Nothing major, at first.  It started with me going back and re-reading the blog posts I shared at the beginning last school year.  I was also posting for other homeschooling families in my local group as we were doing a series of workshops about planning, scheduling, mapping, record keeping, etc.  Here are just three of the ones I read again today.  You can find them here, here, and here if you're interested. (smile)

Part of this initial planning time has included evaluation--a look at what worked well and what may need to be adjusted or thrown out!  I was talking to another homeschooling mom about this the other day and she was taken by surprise.  She didn't really expect me to be doing this.  From her experience/perspective evaluation is reserved for testing your kids.  I am not sure why this is the only use of the word nowadays--perhaps it has a lot to do with our test-centered learning models in public education. (tongue sticking way out of cheek!)  Anyway, I went on to explain that this is only one type of evaluation and that as homeschooling parents, and, well, parents in general, we use these skills and techniques on a daily basis: to figure out what meal to prepare, what time our children should go to bed, when the best time to do a particular activity, etc.  Sometimes it is a bit of trial and error, other times we 'dial a friend' or family member, still other times we go with our intuition or our prior knowledge based on our experiences.

Evaluation is just a natural part of learning and growing--whether you use that term or not (smile)!

This year we did a good number of unit studies.  At the beginning of the year, I wanted to do more lapbooks with the kids and use them as a way to chronicle our unit study information.  It was a whole lot of work--probably a bit more than I initially expected.  However, it was SO worth it!  Our pace did slow down a good bit.  We didn't cover nearly as much as I had thought or even planned for.  But one of the great things I enjoy so much about homeschooling is the flexibility.  We will continue to work on those topics that we didn't get do.

Another plug for lapbooking -- each of my children retained so much more than we did the previous year with simply reading and doing an activity or two.  The lapbooks can be taken out and used to "present" to the grandparents and other guests (my children love sharing what they've learned and how they've put it together).  Please also note that if you'd like your children to get the most out of lapbooking, wait until they're old enough to make them themselves.  I've seen plenty of 'parent made lapbooks' and although they are lovely and show well, I often wonder how much the children actually remember/retain.  Yes, it did take me awhile to get over the 'how will this look' thing--but it's their work.  They'll learn how to cut and fold from cutting and folding.  Just my 7 cents. (smile)

I have been blessed, yet again, by one of my teaching friends with plenty of the basic supplies and some teaching resources.  I actually don't need the resources--so will be sharing them with a few other families who are homeschooling in the area.  I have been looking through them though and gathering ideas.  Right now I'm liking all the ways to record books for comprehension purposes and way to incorporate book reports other than the 'standard' way we all remember from school.

I've also been up to my neck in history resources.  I will devote an entire post to this subject as I'm seeing how important it to our homeschooling journey.

Needless to say, my dining room has been turned into a mini office/classroom space with stacks all around the room of books and other resources.  I haven't yet taken out my calendars to start scheduling things but I am reading and putting myself in a creative space to find ideas to capture our learning in a few new ways this time around.

Later this week, I'm planning to have a little meeting with the children.  I'll ask them what they enjoyed about what we did last year and what things they'd like to do again.  I'll also listen to hear what new interests they have.  I regularly ask them to make lists of topics and activities they'd like to learn about/learn to do.  Each year I try to incorporate at least three things from each of their lists into our learning time.  As they grow and become more independent, my goal is to let those lists lead them in their own pursuits in learning (i.e. independent study).

The more time I give myself, the more thorough I can be in planning.  Yes, it does take a lot more in building my own curriculum but I feel like I have a better handle on what we're doing.  Perhaps this is more about the actual time I take to plan--identifying, locating, reading through, writing down/out, revisiting, revising, you get what I'm saying, right?!  I do feel better prepared and better able to make adjustments as they come up--for we all know they will.

So, how is your planning coming along?  What new things are you looking to incorporate into your homeschool this year?  Will you be building your own curriculum or using one already prepared?  I'd love to hear what's going on in your home.  If you blog, leave your link.  If not, add a comment.

For those who may be new to this whole homeschooling thing, or new to the idea that planning is an intrical part of homeschooling, I am starting a new series of posts that will be shared over the next several weeks about what things you should be doing now in preparation for starting.  Do check back soon.

Happy Home Learning!