What does a home-school language artscurriculum need to have to make it useful, interesting and comprehensive? My answer is fun and self paced. If I haven’t mentioned it before I will mention it again…teaching reading to my girls scared me!  Yes, we made it through those years but I was always afraid I wasn’t going to teach my girls to read or write correctly.  Decode words and identify sounds that letters were suppose to make on some exceptional rule.  I would buy all kinds of phonic books to help me through this.  Instead of buying books now I realized all the games and activities there are online to help you out.  Like when it came to teaching contractions and compound words I was OK so I have to tell them to leave a letter out on contractions and compound words combine them together.  For my youngest she was, huh?  LOL! 

The teaching of Language Arts way has gone wild! 

We seem to be on the threshold of a new era.  Ok…perhaps that was a bit dramatic.  In the past good penmanship was greatly valued, and taught in school.  In the time since I was in elementary school, handwriting practice seems to have become a thing from bygone era.  Excuses for excluding penmanship range form lack of time to obsolescence.  I would argue that handwriting practice is still useful provided that the information being practiced has value beyond the shaping of letters.  This is why online handwriting worksheets are so great, you can choose the topic, from spelling words, to famous quotes.

Some people would argue that learning keyboarding skills is more useful to today’s students than handwriting.  In an age when everything seems to move more quickly, online keyboarding games certainly train a student in a useful skill.

I would hope that both handwriting and keyboarding skills are worthy courses of study.  We are using both in our home school this year, handwriting is a way for us to learn the Preamble of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.  See if you can find time for both in your day to day schooling.  You might be pleasantly surprised.

There are a few different approaches to summer when you’re a homeschooler.  You can take the summer off from schoolwork, or power on through as usual.   There are plenty of shades of gray in between too, like maybe keeping the schoolwork going but at a reduced level.

One popular option is online summer courses, so when the kids are hiding inside from the heat, they can at least be on the computer doing one learning activity or another.  There are some great classes at local museums, zoos, and historical sites in the summer too, if you know where to look.  The kids get out of the house and the whole family can beat summer boredom, while learning a bit at the same time.  Even a dull drive across the state to grandma’s house can be educational with a little advance planning for what’s along the way.  Summer educational games can also include unit studies, field trips, and lessons about summertime holidays, for example.

Some families save the heavy lifting for during the school year, like math, reading, and writing, and do the lighter stuff in the summer, such as health & nutrition and public speaking, or exposure to foreign languages, geography and computer literacy.  There’s also the approach of just doing enough “real” schoolwork to stay current and avoid backsliding in the fall.   If it works for your family, it’s probably fine.  It’s summer, so anything goes!

One of my concerns when I started homeschooling was getting in my children’s fitness.  Public School have just about taken PE out of all schools now.  But really after putting more thought to it my girls are so active I really didn’t have to work anything special into our schedule.  My girls are on a swim team that swims mostly year around and practices  4-5 days a week.  I bet they get more than most kids do.  I know I sure get the driving in…driving back in forth to practice and all.

 Along with that I thought ok I need to also teach health to them.  I know, I know….as parents we do that already!  Just sometimes when they hear it from some other source it sticks with them.  Like when I took my girls to the dentist they were so scared that it was going to hurt.  My oldest actually still kinda has anxiety going to dentist.  Maybe because the last time she went she had 4 teeth pulled.  Her baby teeth were not coming out in time for the others to take over.  She made it through that ordeal just fine.  I found that these dental games have helped them understand some of the dental hygeine issues they have. 

 Where was this stuff when I was growin up?

Have you ever had one of those days when you couldn’t get your child to do vocabulary or spelling words?  At our house we have had to come up with some pretty interesting ways to get those vocabulary words learned.  Some children enjoy the structure of writing the words, and looking up the definitions.  I only wish it was so easy at my house!  Here, learning vocabulary words is like taking an awful flavored medicine.  You know it has to be done, but could we find a way to make it go down easier?  We figured out that games make every thing easier. Vocabulary and spelling words both got easier after we tried word ladders.  My daughter actually asks to do word ladders each day now.  If your child doesn’t like word ladders there are many other choices of word games that increase knowledge and are fun to play.  You could try some fun riddle games.  Hig Pig is a game that uses rhyming words to answer simple riddles.  For some families, games are not the answer.  We also found out that anything related to animals was something my daughter enjoys.  It is not unusual to hear her explain some fact or other she learned from Animal Planet, or a book.  Next time we have a problem learning something we are going to put it in the form of educational animal games. 

Every child is different and nothing says that the old ways of learning things will work on our more savvy children.  Learning is not one size fits all,  and it is up to us as parent to come up with the solutions that will work for our children.  Next time you hit a stumbling block try having a little fun!