I have thought about this topic on more than one occasion.  Around me I see homeschooling in growth because of ongoing issues in public schools.  Flexibility in teaching, the horrible “build up” to testing, not meeting the needs of individual students (whether gifted with issues or learning disabilities), and the “lumping” of every student to try to fit them into the “average” mold.  All these factors I believe have lead to the growth in homeschooling.

Certainly,  the availability of faster internet, cheaper computers and unlimited resources have all factored into making homeschooling easier.  Every household can get to a computer or has at least one computer in their home.  Libraries are being equipped with computer “labs” for those that do not have the means to have a computer at home.

Although I am firm on why we started homeschooling, my thoughts about why we continue it change and grow.   I have come to realize that I enjoy my children being home with me.  I enjoy knowing that they are safe and that for now we can keep an eye on who they come in contact with.  Our issues as a home school family come up in little bursts rather then having them exposed to so many negative things at school. 

School is so much different than it was when I was a child and even though I really wanted them to  have the same experiences that I did, that is no longer possible.  Public school is so far behind in so many areas and the needs of individual children are being by-passed to accommodate different laws and quotas.

I have come to realize that my influence on them is important and that I had children for many reasons and the joy they bring me when we learn together is great.

I don’t understand a lot of why there is such a growth in homeschooling but know that with more families, comes larger support groups and a more acceptance of the choice to do so. 

 

My boys have started blogging… Yup, thats right…   They are now part of the blogging community.  Each boy approached me and asked if he too could have a blog.  I have had one for several months and it has become a sort of family “joke” .  “Tracy did not tell you what was going on?  Didn’t you read the blog?”  The boys have heard and seen the blog for a while and have decided that they wanted one.   I could not hold them off any longer.  I wanted to wait until t4l got a blog for kids but this is going to work fine now.

I told them it was their responsibility and that they would have to keep it up and they would have to  post often if they wanted comments and they wanted people to keep going back to it.

Quentin surprised me first when I went to put photos on that he asked me to put on.  I saw that he wrote something about T4L on his site.  Zachary followed with putting a poem that he said is now his “favorite” on the site.  I encourage originality but am happy that Zachary is at least posting something and keeping up with it!  Zachary is all about the poems on the T4L site and he has to read me each one that he comes across.  He has a few printed off and they are hanging on the wall next to his computer.

I hope that their blogging helps with their grammar, punctuation, spelling, and writing.  In Zach’s case I hope that it helps with his self confidence.  It will be interesting to see where they go with it and how much T4L is mentioned and how many references is made to T4L.

And a side note…. Quentin informed me today that he wants to go to S. America.  Why you ask?  from him: “It sounds like a neat place and I was learning about it on T4L.”

I just never imagined getting so much from a curriculum!  Thanks again guys!

Something really cute happened this weekend.  My Natalie wanted to play school with me but I was busy so I suggested that she play school with her stuffed animals until her friend was available to play.  She hesitated for a while and tried whining in an effort to convince me that I should play instead.  Her older sister, Emily said “why don’t you teach your “babies” what you learned on Time4Learning yesterday (Friday)?”

Natalie’s eyes opened wide (she’s very dramatic) and said OK.  Next thing I heard her setting the dolls and animals up in the play room, in classroom order and telling them that it was time to learn “the short sound of ‘a’ and she proceeded to tell them that Cat, Hat, Bat had a short sound but that Cape and Tape did not.  I thought that was too cute.  She also used rhyming a lot, she loves to rhyme words like Dr. Seuss - words that have not particular meaning but they rhyme nontheless.

I know that most of us wonder if our kids really take in everything they hear or if they will remember it later.  After having 4 kids I know they do but it is so nice to have that reinforced.

Thanks T4L.

Terie

Two weeks ago the boys had their first boys scout camp out.  Kat’s family and our family joined to get some projects done and to camp.  My dad helped the boys with all their flag requirements and with their tool assignments. (my father is a master craftsman)  I had printed out the tools that they boys had to learn and given it to my father in advance.  I thought that he would pull out all the tools and have them lined up but I was wrong.  He made a game out of it and had them each read a tool and then the boys had to “find” the tool in his shop. (he has multiple tools, in multiple sizes in his very disorganized shop).  It was kind of neat to watch them “hunt” for the tool and each time they found the one on the list they would cross it off and then learn how to use it properly.

It was then time for them to build their bookends and my dad pulled tools down one by one and asked “Do you know what this is?”  You know, for the most part it was pretty easy, screw gun, screw driver, nails, hammer. etc.  Then he pulled down a shiny silver clamp and asked “Do you know what this is?”  Kat’s son shouted out “It’s a Caliper!”  My dad laughed and said “No, it is a clamp and this is how it works”.

I don’t know if Kat knew what a caliper was but she gave her son the funniest look.  I knew what a caliper was because I was (pre-children) an Inventory Control Specialist and occasionally I would have to measure parts in the field.  Everything went fine and we never re-visited the caliper thing and I don’t even know if Kat remembers the conversation.

It was not until earlier this week that the whole thing came back to me.  Zach was having some issues on T4L so I told him to skip the lesson and I would help him with it when I was done doing what I was in the middle of.  Later that morning when I went through the lesson with him I was surprised to see that part of the lesson was dealing with measurement and a Caliper is not only explained but it is one of the questions they ask in the lesson.  To my surprise the photo on the lesson looked JUST like the clamp that my father had pulled down. I now knew where Kat’s son had heard the word and he really thought that the clamp was the caliper that he had learned about in his T4L lesson!

Here are the 3 boys in their tool lesson.. the little head you see is  Kat’s youngest who joined right in “learning about tools”

I did not think this would happen with Natalie because she is a pretty independent little girl.  We have the Kindergarten version of T4L which also includes the 1st grade Science and LA extension.  I’ve told her that those she needs to do with my supervision because there are many areas that need to be read to her, unlike the Kindergarten Language Arts and Math curriculum.  However, she wanted to venture into the world of science by herself while I was busy helping my older daughter with homework.

She completed a couple of sections and was fine until she had to do the quiz.  She pretty much guessed at every question because she could not read the question and answers.  Her score was 30%.  She became very upset about that score.  That’s good and bad.  She realizes the importance of getting a high score.  The next day she said she did not want to do any assignments because she got “too many red Xs” and she was “afraid it would happen again.”  I convinced her to log on and told her I would help her through that section and the quiz.  Funny thing is that we went right to the quiz just to see how much she knew.  I read the questions and let her figure out the answer–she got everyone right!  She was so excited…her words were “Mom, I guess I knew it all along.  I am such a smart little girl”  I was laughing at her modesty.

She did 4 lessons after that, 2 in math and 2 in language arts and her confidence was flying really high.  She aced all her quizzes yesterday and had no reservations about logging in today before school and tomorrow she is already planning to go back into science with my help.

It’s amazing how good kids feel when they get good grades.