Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

I hope all of you are having a great holiday week! I know that not everyone celebrates in the same way, but this time of year is so full of holidays and warm family times. I hope that you are taking advantage of this time.

I also know that school is taking a back seat right now, at least at my house. In the next week we are breaking in my daughter’s new computer that she got for Christmas, it came loaded with a lot of games and things we transferred from the desk top to her new lap top.

One of the things I am going to get her to do in the next week, between Christmas and New Year’s Day is work on some typing games. Part of this is to keep her brain from totally turning into mush, and part of this is to familiarize her with her keyboard. Because come the beginning of January we are jumping back to school in full swing and she will be using her computer for school as well as fun.

I’m thinking about getting her to fun a couple of other education type games as well, maybe some vocabulary games, or maybe put her on a search to find out information about something that interests her, like horses, or dogs. She will practice research skills, and learn a lot of things about her new computer in the process.

I hope that you all have a great and joyous time, Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays!!

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Did you know that homeschooling was a growing trend? I live in an area that has decent schools, relatively speaking, and still I meet a lot of parents who are new to homeschooling or who are considering homeschooling.

I believe that “the establishment” is not reporting correct numbers of homeschooling children. Part of the reason for this is the fact that there is no national rule under which homeschoolers are defined. Each state determines the definition of homeschooling. In fact, some states do not even have a legal designation of homeschooling, even though it is legal to homeschool your children in all fifty states. Some states require that children educated at home be educated under an “umbrella school” and because those home educated children are in a “school” they are not considered homeschooled.

Other states require that homeschooled children be part of a charter school, and so like umbrella schools, or cover schools, these children are not counted as homeschoolers, but under a type of school. See how that could mess up the overall picture of homeschool statistics?

Don’t get me wrong, I do not want a national rule, or any oversight at all by the government, be it local, state, or federal. I currently live in a state that has minimal oversight or control of how I homeschool my child. Next year, (probably, hopefully, keeping my fingers crossed!) I will be moving to a different state. That state has umbrella schools and private tutors as the only two ways to homeschool my child.

I will still be able to homeschool, fortunately, I will just have to learn how to do the administrative, legal stuff with the state differently. And you want to know the beauty of homeschooling? Her homeschool curriculum will remain the same, so she will not have that stress to add to the stress of the move.

All of this is just wild talk at this point because we are currently on Christmas break and will be until after the first of the year. Reason 975 why we homeschool…we are in control of my daughter’s schedule, and our family time.

I hope you are having some down time during this holiday season with your children. Do some fun things, uphold some traditions, and make some great memories!! Children grow up so fast, enjoy them! Happy Holidays!!

I have always been thankful that my daughter is a reader. We have never had any trouble with her ability to read. From a young age she has been willing to pick up a book and never hesitated to read to herself, or to us. We have made reading important at our house. My daughter sees us pick up books, and sees us budget time to read.

All of this means we don’t have to worry about her abilities, or her reading comprehension. What we do have to worry about sometimes is finding things that are age appropriate (she’s 11.5 years old) and reading level appropriate (she reads at a late high school level) and contains things that are relevant for her. Seems like a lot of the stuff on the market now for tween age girls has a lot to do with teen and tween angst. And much of it has to do with the trials and tribulations of school, boyfriends, violence, and drugs.

My daughter knows nothing of those trials. And (knock on wood!) she doesn’t seem to be experiencing much of the angst that a lot of her public school friends are experiencing. I noticed just this week that the girls her age in church choir, who are public school students, seem to be much older in terms of what they talk about, how they dress, and problems they are facing.

I’m happy that my daughter seems to be navigating this time with fairly smooth sailing. I want her to be able to read about other students like her. I want her to read about books by homeschoolers, books about homeschoolers, and books she can relate to. I will happily protect her just a little longer from the world that wants to eat her alive. And I will gladly help her find books that stretch her reading abilities, and knowledge base, without exposing her to things I don’t think 11 year olds should be exposed to.

I hope you find a little room on your gift lists to give a great book or two.    My daughter has requested 3 books on her Christmas list.  I cannot tell you how exciting that is. 

I also hope that you afford yourself a little  time to catch up on some reading. Your kids won’t mind if you share a great book with them!! 

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Why do you homeschool? I know why I homeschool. I am a completely secular homeschooler. It isn’t that I don’t have faith, it is that I don’t homeschool for religious reasons. I never wanted to homeschool, I thought my child would need to go to school to learn to be a “normal” kid. After all, she is an only child and needed the companionship, right? By the time she had been in kindergarten for a week, I knew that my child was not “normal” in the same way that other children were.

She would not sit still, she would not be quiet. If she believed something to be true, she would not tolerate the teacher dumbing it down or simplifying something, and she was very vocal about this. By the end of kindergarten I was convinced her teacher must have been a saint. My child certainly was not.

By the beginning of first grade, I pretty much knew that there was no chance my child was going to make it through the public school system. And the teacher, principal, and counselor had decided by October that my daughter would fail first grade because she was emotionally immature. By November, they had decided that she was Oppositionally Defiant, and by December they were saying the only way she could stay in school and not be suspended was to paddle her. What?!

Like I said, I don’t homeschool for religious reasons. My sister, who is the mother of ten children, does homeschool for religious reasons. She considers herself a Christian homeschooler, and emphasizes her beliefs in every aspect of her homeschool.

I have one child, she has ten. I’m a secular homeschooler, she is a Christian homeschooler. We don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, our life experiences are extremely different as adults. And yet, the one thing we do agree on is that home schooling is the best thing for our children. So, why do you homeschool?