We homeschool....we do not school at home...so what we do kinda NEVER looks like school. When someone asks my kids about school, until they are about 3rd gradish, they just give a blank stare and look at me....
I don't unschool either.....sigh....so I don't fit into that pattern either.
My life is very unpredictable due to our circumstances and dh's business....soooooo....we school when we can throughout the week...whether that is in the evening, in the morning, on the weekend etc. I have been known to teach a kid to read with foam letters on the bathtub wall or on the dust of a car in a parking lot. I drill my kids on spelling,Latin noun declensions, math facts, vocabulary words, parts of speech etc. as we go through our day. I never call what we do "school." I call it learning or lessons. What we do is not really school. It is learning and having lessons.
We will have lessons on the couch, in the kids rooms as they play legos or color, in the car, on walks etc. We spend inordinate amounts of time talking, looking things up in books, on Google, at the library. We watch all sorts of videos, listen to all sorts of music, make all kinds of food, craft, garden,study art, read Shakespeare, recite poetry, write notes to eachother in haiku for weeks. Now don't get me wrong, our life is not a pretty little Victorian picture with Mom all sweetened up wearing a gown and make-up with 3 little perfect darlings in frocks looking longingly up into her face as she reads them a story and the hazy lense on the camera. Life is lived here...hard and fast. We are not trust fund kids. We come from very poor people...and we strive to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps...nose to the grindstone....keeping ourselves far away from the public dole. I want to give my children high aspirations. College for them is the American Dream. It is their ticket out of the inheritance of poverty. Husband and I worked very hard to pull ourselves out from the burden of poverty, but these children will not have a trust fund to live off of...and they know it. They need to be self made, self taught and self motivated to achieve beyond what we can offer to them. The American Dream at work.
I have a sort of sequence that I like to follow and books I like my kids to have lessons from. I like SOTW, so we read out of there at least once a week. We find places on our wall map, color the pictures, discuss the events, narrate, draw. I try to find read alouds that go with the time period and those become bedtime reading, I like the Apologia series of science the upper levels) so my kids start those at 12ish. BUT, my dd spent 4 months on Module 1 because she wanted to read more about each scientist....so we read, and experimented, and read some more. I really like Christian Light Reading, Math and LA. This helps me to streamline my planning and gives me some goals to attain. We do most of it orally until levels 400 or 500 depending on the child.
I have a set of skills I would like my kids to possess before they go on to college. I want them to be able to diagram complex sentences....if anything, it WOWS! their English 101 teachers and they stop wondering if that homeschooled kid is educated.. I want me kids to be able to communicate well in writing. This includes spelling and grammar. I want my kids to be literate; to be able to discuss the Great books as well as contemporary best sellers. I want my kids to be able to discuss history, and current events....and understand the connections and repetitions. I want them to understand politics, economics, how to balance their checkbook, how to save money, how to invest and how to stay out of debt. I want my kids to love mathematics and see how it relates to them and the universe.
I want my children to be loving and kind, benevolent to each other and to those in need. I want them to love Jesus and follow in His ways, not man's interpretation of His ways.
I pulled my older kids OUT of the rat race, out of the public agenda, not to repeat it, not to remake it in my home, but to offer them more....to offer them a freedom to discover who God made them to be and not to be pushed into some artificial mold that was put there to keep them in line. Providing this has been a challenge throughout the years. I am constantly second guessing my methods and constantly researching educational theory, curriculum development, teaching strategies, etc. but in the meantime, the kids need to be cared for and the lessons taught. I learn and change, the kids learn and change, we evolve, mature, move into new interests, make new friends, develope new interests....life happens.
I want my children to think independently, to act in strength and honor, to do hard things, to work hard, play hard, love hard, live well, continue to study hard. I want them to be fulfilled adults that follow their dreams and make an impact on the world around them....even in small quiet ways.
Homeschooling has become a lifestyle for us. It is not an interim plan to get the kids up to snuff so they can enter the Public Schools (This is for us, if it is your goal to help your child re-enter the PS, then disregard this statement .) It is not my intention to keep my kids home because it is easy....this has been the hardest thing I have done in my life. It is not my intention to fill my kids with head knowledge without wisdom, nor is it my intention to have my kids filled with street smarts without book learning.
Homeschooling, a home based business, home prayer and worship, a home based lifestyle has been our journey so far. Some of my children are now adults and have gone out into the world to seek their own lives. They are really cool adults. They are not afraid of trying new things. They are comfortable in their own skins. They know how to defend themselves and those who may need defense. They are self-teachers. They had their ups and downs like all kids. They are not perfect humans who never felt discouraged or lost, or had their self-esteem crushed by the thoughtless actions of other people (or their own stupid choices.) BUT, they are well educated...despite my many major freak outs that they weren't on course or "where they should be."
Our days vary in the number of lessons or chapters we read, or pages we write. I try to keep us on a reasonable schedule because I find my little ones need a routine, but our routine is flexible. I don't allow outside commitments to get in the way of my commitment to my children, my husband or my home. Right now, I volunteered to raise these children that the Lord so graciously entrusted into my care. That is my priority. I have to work to help support our business, but I can be flexible there as well.
I can look at curricula, teaching methods, lesson plans, etc. and see how they will fit into our lives. if they make sense to US, then we fold them into our day. If not, no matter how good it looks to me, I know it won't work, so I just don't go there.
So all that to say, yes, I guess you could say that we homeschool in a non-traditional way.
Faithe
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