spring has sprung

What a great day!! Spring is springing, and i am loving it. We have crocuses blooming, iris' and stella d'oro's popping up all over the gardens, it is great. Even better i have the whole house to myself, everyone is sleeping and the computer is all mine!!!!!Spring always gives us a shot in the arm and gets us moving in our house, we are always active and on the go but spring gives us more time and more interest in things that seem so far off in the middle of winter. The last few days have given us a chance to try some fun homeschool science experiments with Julianna, and it has been fun to just goof off outside without tons of layers on. I love spring and have been rejuvenated by the growth and the smell of fresh warm dirt, and can just feel the ideas bubbling in my brain, it's great!

Well, now that that is out of the way, many of our extended family know that Jon and I intend to homeschool Julianna, probably through all of her school age years. Jon and I never do anything by halves, so this past year we decided to adopt internationally, and to homeschool all of our children, and we actually look forward to the challenge, crazy I know! Since this is our family blog and homeschool is a huge part of our family life i thought i would shed a bit of light on it for those left scratching their heads.
Jon and i have decided that we want more for our family and our children than to have them stuck in a cinder block square for 6 hours every day, getting 20 minutes to eat, becoming bored with the material long before the lesson is over, never learning to search beyond the given parameters of a problem, and in the end despising the entire process of learning. This terrifies me, I love to learn, as does Jon. We are the constant who, what, where, and how, folks, who just learn and read to absorb. Most anything interest us, and we never grow tired of exploring the same materials from a different point of view. The idea of having our children being given only "snapshots" of history and world events, sciences, books, etc and not being allowed to explore them in many varied ways is abhorrent to us, and let us not even get into the "new Math", what was wrong with the old math. I know many think that they will suffer from homeschooling, and in many school systems i feel that they would do well, but not in ours. Julianna is very smart, and i am biased, but not about this. She will be above grade level before she ever enters grade school, we do not want her bored and idle before she even gets to the middle school, this can cause trouble. We also do not want to be separated from our kids for so long every day, we have schedules that accommodate staying home, but not the school vacation schedule. All around we feel that our children will be better served by being homeschooled and become more rounded and better adjusted adults.I am sure many have concerns so below i have tried to address the most common.
Homeschooling in the state of MA does not require you to have a teaching degree, or any type of certification, not even a diploma. We will be required to periodically submit a schedule and teaching plan to the school board, that's about it. Jon and I feel that since we can both read, write, spell(Jon is adequate but not proficient in this;) )add, subtract, and multiply, we are equipped to teach our children the basics.
Homeschooling is no longer a solitary, strange, hippie thing that it once was(thanks though to all of those solitary hippie's who paved the way for us main stream folks:)). There are huge numbers of families who now homeschool, thousands of children every year, with the number projected to triple in the next 2-3 years. There are state groups, religious groups, and even different methods of homeschooling groups. These parents all meet regularly to socialize and reconnect, get fresh ideas, let their kids network while they sit back and compare notes and strategies. Homeschool groups even have a huge fair, every year that attracts a thousand or more vendors, many colleges, who look specifically to homeschool students to bring something fresh, motivated and broadly educated to the college campus. We socialize on a smaller scale now, but that will change as time passes, Julianna belongs to a church group, and goes to ballet, plays at our gym in the daycare, and socializes with most any person, adult or child, that she comes across. Soon we will begin attending homeschool fairs, every state has them and we intend to network a bit ourselves.
As stated above, getting in to a college is no longer a problem for homeschool students, they are welcomed with open arms, many never even have to take a standardized test, thanks to a few pioneering universities that have eliminated them from the requirements. Whether our children go on to college is their decision, but they will be given the opportunity if they want to go.
How will we know what to teach our kids, and how do we know what grade they are in, these re tougher questions, and there are many websites that explain what the basic guidelines are for every grade. Google homeschool curriculum and be prepared for pages of hits, there are hundreds of companies that produce texts and workbooks. Satellite schools that your child can attend without attending, they just send you the work and you send or email the completed pages back. The list of possibilities is endless, as are the list of publications selling you each type of homeschool education. There are the afore mentioned satellite schools, curriculum based learning methods, like K12, Abeka and Bob Jones, virtual or cyber schools, and the eclectic learning method. This is by no means comprehensive, but covers the most common types of learning. Thanks in huge part to my mom Jon and i have chosen to try the eclectic learning method, and so far have had great success.
Eclectic learning basically proposes the idea that children are sponges, and they will learn most anything you teach them. They learn by living, doing, playing, etc. The method does allow from some formal textbook work, and some curriculum packages along the way, but feels that kids learn their alphabet better when drawing it in chalk on the sidewalk for mom to see when she gets home, as opposed to writing it in a workbook 3-4 times over, boooorrrriiiinnnnggg!;) So far these things are all working for us, and we enjoy the process of learning, exploring, and learning how to learn and teach, and we find out new things with Julianna every day, so this enriches all of our lives together, and when our babies come home from Ethiopia we will just carry them right along with us on the wild ride of learning that we have envisioned.
Whew, the whole spring cleaning thing just completely decluttered my mind, and I have now added another chapter to the novella of our lives, hope this shed a bit of light on a different facet of our lives, sorry if it didn't! gotta go, the dogs have spring fever and need to go out. NOW!!!J:)