1. One hour free reading time every day-be consistent. Sometimes my kids fall asleep-that’s okay with me-they probably need it.
2. Let them choose what they read-magazines are okay too.
3. Everyone to their own rooms (moms too) or in their own space.
4. Some kids will choose fiction and others will tend towards non-fiction. I have one of each kind of child.
5. Make sure you have a lot of choices for reading material-we make weekly trips to the library.
Home schooled by her truck driving mom, Kerry Anderson went on to attend community college and then she was recruited by Harvard University in Boston, MA. She recently graduated from Harvard. You can read the whole interview here. What an inspiring story!
Some parents decide to give home schooling a practice run during the summer months. I think this is a great idea! I know that I just couldn’t picture how this whole “home school” thing was going to work. I pulled my son out for the last 2 months of 2nd grade while my 4th grader finished out the year. I wanted a practice run too.
If you are going to give it a shot, I would try…
1. Home school for no more than 3 hours a day (one hour of this will be #4)
2. Only tell your kids if they will be excited-for older kids just tell them they are going to be doing some math over the summer.
3. Pick up some inexpensive math workooks at Walmart or Costco and work in them daily for at least 30 minutes or use the ALEKs math online-one month free trial
4. Require one hour of free reading (or at least work up to this) This is on their bed, in their room, quiet reading of their choice. Read a book out loud to them too no matter how old they are.
5. Help your kids start a blog. If you are concerned about who might read them, make their settings private. Encourage them to write daily on their blogs.
6. Plan at least 1 educational fieldtrip a week-just don’t tell them its educational.
7. Teach them some life skills; laundry, cooking, car maintenance….
8. Visit the public library once a week and checkout a bunch of good books and videos around your house all the time. For some good book choices, try the Sonlight catalog for suggestions.
9. Plan some kind of event for the last day of the month…. Art show at your home featuring their projects, a carnival for the nighborhood kids, cooking dinner for grandparents.
An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don’t.
Anatole France
7 Tips For Easy Record Keeping
For a period of time, we belonged to a charter school. They are very popular here in California.
Every 20 days I met with our Educational Specialist to report what my children had been studying along with turning in a work sample for each subject area. Even if you home school independently, this is a wonderful way to document your children’s progress.
To do this….
1. Make a word document that lists all the major subject headings. Make lines under each subject.
2.Make one copy for each child for each month of school
3.Make notes every week about the topics you have covered in each subject area. (be sure to include educational dvd’s and fieldtrips.)
4.For high school students or states that require you to keep track of hours-record these on the form too.
5.Record all the books your children have read along with the number of pages.
6.If you are covering some of the same topics as you covered the previous week, still include them in the weekly list.
7. Subject areas we have included-math, science, reading, history, english, writing, technology, foreign language, typing, physical education, field-trips