Board Games with the Grandparents

You just can't beat them as an educational activity, board games: reading or math many times, principles like good sportsmanship, and socialization, yes socialization.  Being able to get along with people of all ages, including the older adults like their grandparents.  It is a great way to learn.  Since I hadn't played Chutes and Ladders in many years, I forgot how great it is for math with all the spaces marked with a number 1-100.  By advancing through the board, kids get in the habit of seeing what happens to the larger numbers as they add numbers between 1 and 6.

Board games are a great, simple, low cost, low stress winter activity that can reinforce valuable skills and provide for hours of fun.  In our modern times of overscheduled children, it is something that warrants rediscovery.  Homeschooling can give you the time to use them more often and enjoy family time too.  Any way that we can teach our kids with less stress and more fun is a way to reinforce lifelong learning!  How often do you play board games with your kids?

The Joy of Reading

One of the greatest joys about homeschooling is the excitement that comes with watching your child master something, like reading.  Of course, it normally happens in stages, but one day they are reading 3 letter, short vowel words.  Another day it is a new vowel, then long sounds, then double vowels.  It is a wonderful process to watch.  The best part is that you get to see it, not a stranger, but you.

Being Thankful for the Bus

We are finally getting the snow, and I can't tell you how grateful I am for the bus, the NFTA Metro bus.  When we had a car, I remember how nail biting driving in the snow was.  We would avoid unecessary/semi-necessary trips out.  Work, school, and maybe church were it, not much else.  Today, however, I went out walked a few places and took the bus downtown to the central branch library of the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library.  I didn't need to go to the library - I just wanted to - so I did without any stress and without risking my life (which we all should acknowledge we do when driving a car especially in the snow).

Public transportation is critical for homeschoolers even though most people in a smaller city, like Buffalo, don't think of going without a car.  First of all, using public transportation is a good skill for kids to learn including reading schedules and maps.  Second, there is an opportunity to learn about science and climate change.  Third, homeschoolers can more safely go on local field trips.  Fourth, there are all kinds of people on the bus and that builds general community awareness.  Fifth, and maybe the most important, is that the bus is less costly than a car.  This is critical because expense reduction is the best way for a parent to reduce their work hours to be able to homeschool.  Certainly it isn't easy in all cases, but would both parents need to work if the family went carless, got rid of cable, went to prepaid cell phones and Skype, did their own hair cuts, and ate out less (not hard if one parent is home to cook)?  Something to think about.

Our bus dependence is a little more complicated than just homeschooling, because there are other financial factors with which we are dealing.  That being said, strong public transportation may be the way to combat some of the lack of upward mobility going on these days.  Saving money on transportation may be one of the final sources of funds for the middle and working classes if the economy stays in its current state for the longer-term. If you live in Buffalo, please sign the petition to restore NFTA funding.  If you live in another small to middle size city, pay closer attention to public transportation in your area and support it.

Getting Ahead in Math by Taking Your Time

One of the great luxuries in homeschool is being able to take your time on lessons that are difficult and being able to move more quickly through lessons that are easier.  Math is an area where this seems especially important.  Some concepts come more easily than others.  Sometimes kids just need the extra time and freedom to work their own examples for true understanding.  T spent about an hour and a half playing with pennies to figure out odd and even while he was doing a worksheet from Time4Learning.  While it felt like a long time, by the end of this largely self-directed exercise, it was apparent that he really got it.

This happened countless times in math in the past year.  By stopping to get a full understanding, he could move ahead with confidence.  He is working ahead on first grade math, despite just turning 5 recently.  The same has been true for C.  She is way ahead of her peers progressing through kindergarten, slowing down when necessary and speeding back up when possible.  Conventional school just doesn't have this advantage, no matter how good the teacher.  We can all remember times when we were in school when we needed more time to learn something and other times when something was easy and we were bored.

Only time will tell if the pace of T and C will get slower or faster, but either way it will be their choice!

Outdoor Art Class Meets City Surprises

I know that it seems that weather keeps coming up, but this long warm spell we have had in Buffalo has put the focus on the outdoors despite the winter season.  For days, T and C have been begging to try new 3D chalk they received for Christmas.  Today, we finally made it out to give it a whirl.  That is one of the best parts of homeschooling, the ability to take a advantage of good weather days in the winter.

On our way to Delaware Park, we came upon the local balloon artist who made balloons for the kids.  He is often at the Elmwood and Bidwell Farmers' Market but I never expected to see him in January.  Of course, that is one of the great things about city living even in a smaller city, walking out your door and feeling like the world has come to you. 

It seems that the best homeschooling happens when you take advantage of your environment particularly in either very rural or very urban settings.  While I have never lived in the country, I imagine rural dwellers have the benefit of a great connection to the land and the pride in producing things they need.  In the city, it is the exposure to a variety of people and experiences so close to home.  There are also great conservation opportunities in more dense land use, climate control of multiple unit dwellings, and the use of public transportation.  Homeschooling can give you the time and focus to fully benefit from your surroundings!

Drinking Smoothies in Winter

While still not all that winter like today, when you look at the calendar, it says January.  Why the heck are we drinking smoothies?  Ideally, we would be eating local and organic fruits.  Organic gets expensive so we do this for some items, but not all.  By January there aren't many local fruits in Western New York it seems except for well-stored apples.  Since produce must be brought in from further away and the nutrients start to disintegrate, frozen is a great option until the local farmer's market starts back up in the spring.  Most people think of smoothies as a warm weather food, but for us it is a small part of adjusting our food habits to the season.

It feels strange trying to explain this to my 5 and 4 year olds who walk through the local grocery store begging for fresh fruits that have traveled very far.  Of course our frozen fruit travels too, but it may be the most nutritious alternative until great local produce is back!

Homeschooling in a Time of Fewer Opportunities

Today when listening to On Point on NPR, I couldn’t help but think about homeschooling and the future of my kids. The topic was about the decline in upward mobility compared to previous generations and how upward mobility is currently greater in Europe than the U.S.

Education kept coming up even though it wasn’t an in depth discussion on education. I had to think that by the time my kids are completing school and possibly college, that the paradigm will likely be different than that faced by us in generation X and Y. Until recently (and it still continues to a certain extent), kids were sold on the idea that as long as they worked hard and got a college education that everything would be fine.

Unfortunately, this is far from the case. In Buffalo, this is very apparent. While Buffalo is under-rated in certain respects regarding jobs, you can still look around and see a significant number of people with graduate degrees (plus) working in retail outlets and call centers doing collections work, brilliant people. Brilliant people who worked hard, did all the right things, and even took on heavy student loans.

Homeschooling is a good opportunity to try things differently. Many kids will finish high school at home sooner than their peers. Perhaps this will allow time to complete projects to earn scholarships or start an apprenticeship in a technical field or start a business. Homeschooling may just provide the flexibility to work sooner and be more careful about choosing a field that is both interesting and has good job prospects. While upward mobility may continue to be on the decline, homeschoolers will be best able to face it!

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2012/01/09/not-movin-on-up

Homeschooling on a Balmy Day in Buffalo

It’s hard to believe that it is the first week in January. We are smack in the middle of the solstice and the peak of winter (around the 3^rd week in January) and it hit 50 degrees today. While other parts of WNY received more significant snows this winter, the City of Buffalo itself has received very little, several dustings and about two inches at my house. I (Liz) am very much torn between fearing that we are in for a horrible February and believing that it really may be a mild winter courtesy climate change.

Today we skipped the bus and took the stroller on our errands. They are pretty big now so they take turns walking and riding. We got a little over confident about the weather and hit the playground, but didn’t last long due to the mud that is quite prevalent in Buffalo in winter and spring. While I look forward to being able to teach the kids about climate change and good environmental stewardship, it is amazing how much they’ve absorbed already from our conversations and use of public transportation Once when we walked home from the playground and errands, T told me that he knew “why all the cars had angry faces.” When I asked him why, he told me that it was because they were “hurting mother Earth and making God sad.” I know for sure that we never told them that cars had faces, but it is satisfying to hear them express some understanding of our values.

When Nothing Goes Right

Even though most days go smoothly, or at least feel like things were accomplished, today was just one of those days. Despite the milder temperatures, we didn’t make it out anywhere. T has to redo several lessons over the next couple of days. No cleaning got done. A self-created new recipe didn’t work out and we had to revert to the same old one from the cookbook.

We have to remind ourselves to put things into perspective. T is now finding his online lessons tougher because he worked ahead. He also can’t fall behind since he isn’t in a class with like aged peers. Being able to follow existing recipes is a strength and the cleaning, while important, isn’t urgent.

Tomorrow will be another day!

How to homeschool?

While we knew at the beginning that homeschooling is more efficient and that we didn’t need to spend the whole day at the dining room table, we still fell into the trap of trying to design highly structured activities around the alphabet, numbers, and nursery rhymes. At the end of the first week, Liz was ready to call it quits and Tom was not far behind. After all, the whole idea behind homeschooling was giving the kids more of a chance to be kids. It was also too stressful for Liz who felt the increased family time and flexibility of homeschooling was supposed to keep our stress level low and well-being high.

Then we began our quest for a curriculum that the kids could enjoy at their own pace that wouldn’t wear us out. At the same time, we felt a pull towards the freedom of unschooling after reading many homeschooling books from the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library. It just felt like unschooling took real confidence and courage. This was not us as new homeschoolers! So, we decided to look for a curriculum to use as a base so that we could be sure we covered the core material that they should know. The rest of the time would be unschooling. We also had two years to get a handle on what we were doing before compulsory school age became an issue.

We began using Time4Learning, an online curriculum, as our base curriculum. Overall, it fits us, but as the year went on we still tried adding other things and oscillated between the online lessons only and adding so much that we were beginning to get overwhelmed again Each element that we added was valuable: some classic picture books, non-fiction books, handwriting, workbooks, other websites, Spanish DVDs and several field trips. Unfortunately, sometimes we tried doing all the elements in one day and were back in the same predicament. Needless to day the right balance was and continues to be a struggle!