I want to start out by saying that I, by no means, am a guru. I've just been doing this for a while.
I was home/unschooled growing up, as was my husband and about 98% of our friends. So it was natural for us to decided to do the same for our kids. When my oldest was still very young I had great faith in complete child-led learning (allowing her to lead me in her education thinking this was unschooling) and swore to myself I would never push education on her. But then she started getting older and as she approached school age I started to panic.
"What Was I Thinking!?!? How on earth can anyone learn anything by themselves!? And what if she doesn't want to learn something important!? Like what 9 x 4 is or how to read!?"
Of course, she had already taught herself basic addition and subtraction and had been read more of the classics then I ever was exposed to at that point and would practice writing by copying bits out of her story books. I knew she was no dummy. But what if I was and I was going to screw her up by not teaching her the important things?
We did complete child led learning until she was 6. Minnesota's mandatory age for schooling starts at 7 and I was terrified that if I didn't start teaching her at least the letters of the alphabet, then it would be the end of the world. I bought Oak Meadows entire kindergarten curriculum. It was the curriculum my husband used when they first started homeschooling and is sorta Waldorf-y/Montessori-y (or maybe it is actually one of the two I can't remember). I was going to be a teacher, with curriculum and be cool. Like Mrs. Jeffers, only not so scary. The curriculum was good, and would have been fun, if she had been 4 instead of an advanced 6. She hated doing the baby work and after about 3 weeks of desperately trying to teach her something, I gave up with the curriculum. I wasn't to worried since we still had the whole year before we actually started reporting. We talked a lot, sang songs, read stories and I printed lots of workpages for her. We just went back to the child led learning and it was a lot better then trying to force the "baby stuff."
Last year my daughter turned 7 and we started school like we had before. Only this time I gave up on the curriculum idea and just went to workbooks. I got Brain Quest Workbooks (grades pre-k through 1st) and the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (which we both love!). I got a new math workbook and just let her have at it. I got the teachers guide to and tried (in vain) to teach her again. That was pretty much a waste of time and money. She devoured the mathbook mostly on her own and we worked together when she was learning something new and she started to read and write more. She listened to stories about nature, we printed more work/coloring pages, watched documentaries and she was fascinated by the Ancient Egyptians. In Minnesota there is mandatory testing and I was nervous about it. But her scores were advanced in everything but reading and writing (we knew those would be lower) and we were all thrilled. Apparently neither of us were dummys! Hurray!
We have just started our second year. We're working with a new mathbook that is entirely to easy so she's been bored a lot lately and I'm trying to skip ahead as much as I can without leaving something important behind. We're working on learning reading still, but it's going fast and every time we do another lesson I feel so proud that my little girl is reading and I helped her learn that! I found fabulous social studies and science curriculums that she is loving and it's been easy to tailor information so my 4 year old can learn with her.
Like I said, I'm no guru. I've had experience being the home learner, and now as the "teacher". We do fight, but it's mostly over the fact that her brother gets to watch Diego while she has to read or that the math is to easy or that I wont let her look at one of the world history books. Such big problems, I know.
I just want all of you out there to know, that even having been home/unschooled, married an unschooler and known hundreds of amazing home/unschooled people, I still get insecure. I'm the one that usually makes it hard for us. I still push for somethings and I feel like I want to have some structure to her days. I feel like we are working together a lot more and she is teaching me how she needs to be taught. I remember my mom telling me once that she learned so much more when she homeschooled us then she ever did from her own school education, and now I see why.
It's kinda cool actually.
I was home/unschooled growing up, as was my husband and about 98% of our friends. So it was natural for us to decided to do the same for our kids. When my oldest was still very young I had great faith in complete child-led learning (allowing her to lead me in her education thinking this was unschooling) and swore to myself I would never push education on her. But then she started getting older and as she approached school age I started to panic.
"What Was I Thinking!?!? How on earth can anyone learn anything by themselves!? And what if she doesn't want to learn something important!? Like what 9 x 4 is or how to read!?"
Of course, she had already taught herself basic addition and subtraction and had been read more of the classics then I ever was exposed to at that point and would practice writing by copying bits out of her story books. I knew she was no dummy. But what if I was and I was going to screw her up by not teaching her the important things?
We did complete child led learning until she was 6. Minnesota's mandatory age for schooling starts at 7 and I was terrified that if I didn't start teaching her at least the letters of the alphabet, then it would be the end of the world. I bought Oak Meadows entire kindergarten curriculum. It was the curriculum my husband used when they first started homeschooling and is sorta Waldorf-y/Montessori-y (or maybe it is actually one of the two I can't remember). I was going to be a teacher, with curriculum and be cool. Like Mrs. Jeffers, only not so scary. The curriculum was good, and would have been fun, if she had been 4 instead of an advanced 6. She hated doing the baby work and after about 3 weeks of desperately trying to teach her something, I gave up with the curriculum. I wasn't to worried since we still had the whole year before we actually started reporting. We talked a lot, sang songs, read stories and I printed lots of workpages for her. We just went back to the child led learning and it was a lot better then trying to force the "baby stuff."
Last year my daughter turned 7 and we started school like we had before. Only this time I gave up on the curriculum idea and just went to workbooks. I got Brain Quest Workbooks (grades pre-k through 1st) and the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (which we both love!). I got a new math workbook and just let her have at it. I got the teachers guide to and tried (in vain) to teach her again. That was pretty much a waste of time and money. She devoured the mathbook mostly on her own and we worked together when she was learning something new and she started to read and write more. She listened to stories about nature, we printed more work/coloring pages, watched documentaries and she was fascinated by the Ancient Egyptians. In Minnesota there is mandatory testing and I was nervous about it. But her scores were advanced in everything but reading and writing (we knew those would be lower) and we were all thrilled. Apparently neither of us were dummys! Hurray!
We have just started our second year. We're working with a new mathbook that is entirely to easy so she's been bored a lot lately and I'm trying to skip ahead as much as I can without leaving something important behind. We're working on learning reading still, but it's going fast and every time we do another lesson I feel so proud that my little girl is reading and I helped her learn that! I found fabulous social studies and science curriculums that she is loving and it's been easy to tailor information so my 4 year old can learn with her.
Like I said, I'm no guru. I've had experience being the home learner, and now as the "teacher". We do fight, but it's mostly over the fact that her brother gets to watch Diego while she has to read or that the math is to easy or that I wont let her look at one of the world history books. Such big problems, I know.
I just want all of you out there to know, that even having been home/unschooled, married an unschooler and known hundreds of amazing home/unschooled people, I still get insecure. I'm the one that usually makes it hard for us. I still push for somethings and I feel like I want to have some structure to her days. I feel like we are working together a lot more and she is teaching me how she needs to be taught. I remember my mom telling me once that she learned so much more when she homeschooled us then she ever did from her own school education, and now I see why.
It's kinda cool actually.
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