"Back to School"....well, sort of

So it's "back to school" for everyone but us it seems! (Well not really because there are hundreds of families in our area homeschooling) but today I feel ALONE on this matter. We started homeschooling back in May because Jacob wanted "to be in Kindergarten". So we started the day after preschool let out (his idea) and have been schooling all summer.

I am posting this on a day that all I am hearing about is back to school stuff and "how was it?" and the tears and cheers for all the kindergartner parents. Hearing about all this made me a little sad my little guy wasn't joining in on all of that. The first day of school is always fun. Its the days after the first day, I remember as a kid, that weren't so fun, lol! So today I am trying to stay focused on the fact that THIS is what Father has called us to do. Period. And that's all that really matters. I know He has our best interest at heart and there is a reason and purpose He is having us take this route instead of public/private school. SO who are we to argue with the God of all creation?!?! So I decided to post this to pep myself up a little bit about our decision to walk in obedience with this lifestyle.

I attended a Frisco HIS (Frisco Home is School) meeting on Monday night. This particular group is a faith based group that provides monthly support for parents via a meeting as well as TONS of "field trips" for the children. I was so encouraged! THere were hundreds of parents from my area there that homeschool and when they broke us up by zip code....WOW! There were about 50 families within 2 miles of my home! I left there so excited. Of those 50 families, over half of them had kids Jacob's age.

To tell you a little bit about what we are teaching, it goes like this:
I am pulling from several different curriculums instead of doing 1 with all the subjects. "Eclectic" style of homeschooling I guess you could say. There's 5 different styles of hs'ing and this is the style that fits us best I think. I will learn more as the year progresses. We don't do everything in one day but over the course of the week we cover about 8 subjects. It sounds like alot but trust me, we don't overdo it. 10 minutes per thing is the max his attention span will allow for. Which really isn't much different than what public schools do. 10-15 min of actual INSTRUCTION time.

We want him to develop a love for learning in Kindergarten. Kinder is supposed to be FUN! Our relationship has gone to a totally different level which is wonderful for both of us. He tells me all the time "I don't want to go to a big school. Mommy. I like being here with you and I like you being my teacher". SO sweet! It makes my heart melt when he says it. Plus, he's a momma's boy to the very core. He cried one day when he wasn't doing schoolwork and I told him that if he didn't do his work here at home then he'd have to go to a school because every 5 year old is in school SOMEWHERE whether it be at home or at a school. And I mean CRIED! "No, Mommy, NO!!! If you take me there I won't do any schoolwork there either...I will be really mad if you take me there!" LOL! I was laughing so hard inside, it was hilarious to me but so traumatic to him. He is highly disturbed by 2 things about public school. It's 8 hours a day and he canot learn about God there. Otherwise he knows his friends like it and they get to run around and play at lunch time but he still has ZERO interest in going. He just loves being here and learning at home. The main issue he has is that he knows he won't learn about Jesus there and that he can't ask his teachers to pray with him and those 2 thing mean alot to him. ALOT. Who knew a 5 yr old would be so concerned about this?! It's what he loved most about Mother's Day Out.

We have found he learns best with movement (imagine THAT!) and so I've been incorporating movement into everything we do almost. He always has room to move. Its like he needs this movement for the reception process. Simple things like cutting, gluing, "drawing" letters on his back.Other kinetic things we have discovered are making 3x5 cards (I go through these like crazy) and write things on them and placing them on the floor. When I ask a question, he hops on the answer. Or linear things like tossing a ball back and forth while we count by 10's. I even got blank stickers (g-sale stickers) and instead of him writing the answers sometimes, I write the answers on the stickers and he can choose and then put the stickers in the answer spot. The movement is moving the stickers. Its fun because he LOVES stickers. We time things (he loves that 'beat the clock' type challenge) and make songs out of bible verses, etc. Even quiet movement while he's listening to me read has to be done in order for him to process information. silly putty, legos, removing dried corn from a cob with tweezers, sweeping the floor, drawing a picture that relates to our lesson or walking in circles around the couch. I know he wouldn't be getting that kinetic movement he thrives on at a school. So. this is just some of what we've been doing (too much to type) and we are both really loving schooling here at home.

Our homeschool setup:

-Our calendar, weather and days of the week which he changes and adds to daily





--my cabinet with lots of supplies and schoolwork



--His 2 map placemats which he LOOOOOVES. We have marker dots for people we know who live in that state or country. His furthest friend is Samuel Tibshraeny in Capetown, South Africa. Who he still asks when he's coming home to TX.
SOON, I HOPE!!! We miss them so much.





--His number chart. counting by 2's, 5's and 10's by colors on it.




--His "fruit of the spirit" basket. every time he displays a fruit The Holy Spirit has manifested in his daily life he gets to put a piece of fruit in the basket. If he fills up the whole basket, we will go to a puppet show at the Galleria. he has YET to do this... but he's gotten close! It also tells Daddy every evening just what kind of a day he has had.





--Our Family rules which have been hanging up for years but we go over them alot more than we used to now.




--Our "obey the 1st time" chart.....surprise at 50 and 100 sticker mark




--His water intake.....1 row is 1 day and if he fills up a row he gets 2 extra books at night. ANyone that knows me knows how "clean" and "whole" I like to keep our diets and this chart helps Jacob do just that.





-some cute fridge displays from Mother's Day Out last yr that we just LOVE!








This is what we are doing.
Bible, Obedience and Manners--we read from a book of manners for Boys and then there's me constantly reminding him throughout the day to " do memory verses, "God's amazing animals" which is a devotion and learning about a certain animal every day and how it relates to us today. Each day is a different animal. and we also sing fun songs for worship and make lists of things and people to pray for and then we pray for that.
Lang Arts--Sing Spell, Read and Write, Handwriting without tears, and Teaching your child to read in 100 easy lessons. He's blowing through this pretty fast. He is just amazing me.
Math --he goes to Mathnasium 2x a week for 1 on 1 fun with a math tutor and we have a big Kinder math workbook from Mardel. We stay a little ahead of what he's doing at "Math Camp" (Mathnasium) so I am his primary teacher in this area and its easier for him there. He LOVES math and he sits (a 5 year old fidgety BOY) for 1 solid hour there! an hour!! ANYWAY, I certainly don't expect 1 solid hour of math from him at home. Not from a 5 yr old boy. He really enjoys it and if they can get him to sit for a solid hour and do math....then he'll go there till he's 18---LOL! I love that it's 1 on 1 the entire hour and he is blowing them away there too. He just loves math.
Science--a fun little book of concoctions for kids
Art--craft, play doh, coloring, magazine ideas, etc
Social Studies/History --Story of the World--we just listen to the cd's in the car from time to time.
Computer--We have some Kinder and 1st grade learning games he likes to do on the computer as well as just fun games in general. He loves the computer.
Health and Safety--learning about hygiene and basic body function with hygiene. As well as going over everything he's learned the past 2 years at preschool. Things like when to call 911, stranger danger, etc. I am constantly giving him hypothetical situations to give me answers to. For example, "What would you do if you came into my bathroom and I was lying on the floor and couldn't talk" and he'll say "Call 911" OR "What would you do if someone came up to you in the backyard or front yard saying "Your mommy said for you to come with me" or "Can you help me find my dog?" and he'll say "RUN inside". Or what to do if someone were to throw him in the trunk of their car even. We'll talk about appropriate touch and inappropriate touch. We talk about this stuff over and over and over. I think I have covered every horrible hypothetical situation with him...LOL. Thankfully it doesnt scare him. I want it written IN STONE in his head! LOL! Usually he will follow up the correct answer with "But Jesus will help me and give me a sword too to destroy them!" LOL! THat's the warrior BOY in him for sure!

THe way things are going He will probably be in 1st grade by the first of the year. But I am not rushing it by any means! But he's blowing through both math and Lang Arts quickly. That's what I love about Homeschool. You can go at the child's pace and not at a class's pace. Most things are pretty easy for him fortunately. If we get stuck, he gets frustrated pretty quick but we just have to take a break for a bit and then come back to it in little spurts till he gets it.

Some parents think you have to be a genius rocket scientist or have a degree in education to homeschool. Nothing could be further from the truth! Parents often tell me, "I'd love to homeschool my kids, but I don't think I'm qualified." Other parents are intrigued by homeschooling, but couldn't possibly imagine themselves as both parent and teacher. Is it possible for average parents to take on the enormous job of educating their children?" The answer is "yes." Because learning at home is very different from learning in a classroom. I look at it like this. We've made it through the sleepless nights of infancy and toddlerhood, taught Jacob to speak, feed himself, dress himself, and behave properly. We're finally dealing with a reasonable little human being and the real fun of being a parent is about to begin. I know we are qualified! So, the assumption that trained professionals are the only ones qualified to teach our children is a relatively new concept, historically speaking. Around 1850, compulsory education was introduced in Massachusetts, and by the turn of the century, parents (often reluctantly) turned over the responsibility for their kids' education to the state. A study later showed that the Massachusetts literacy rate was 98 percent before compulsory education; after compulsory education, the literacy rate never exceeded 91 percent. Children who learn at home have the freedom to choose when, where, and how they learn. The only credentials parents need for this type of teaching are a strong desire to help their children achieve academic excellence and a belief that their kids can and will succeed. So all in all, it is not about a parent becoming a teacher, in the traditional sense, but a parent becoming a guide and a partner in the learning experience. Successful home learning involves observing your child, following his lead, and respecting his choices. This can be done within the framework of core subjects like reading, math, and history -- it's just done creatively.

Two of the things I like best about homeschooling are all the positive social contacts the kids have and that they get to spend so much time learning in the community. But one of our strongest motivations for homeschooling is to avoid the imposition of artificial external constraints on what our child "should" be learning at any given time. It truly is better late than forcing it early. If there is something he's just not ready to learn right now, I don't force it. We pick it up weeks later. And if he's still not ready...we keep waiting till he is. Better late than early and crush his love of learning. There is ample literature out there supporting a wide range of individual differences when it comes to what a child should be able to do at a certain calendar age. Having grade based expectations is only an issue if you are trying to manage a class of 30 different children as if they were all the same.

We have several reasons why we chose to homeschool. The #1 reason is that The Lord told us to do it. Jacob was in preschool for 3 years and loved it but when God starting putting this on our hearts a year and a half ago, we knew He had something amazing in store for Jacob. All we had to do was trust He'd guide us in our endeavors. We have many other reasons to homeschool too. I am going to sound like a walking and talking brochure for homescooling here but after 1.5 years of research we've come up with several reasons why we wanted to do it aside from the Lord's calling. Here's some of them.

1. Spend more time together as a family.
2. Spend more time together being rested and fresh rather than tired and cranky from school.
3. Avoid having to struggle to get him to do the tedious busywork that is so often sent home as homework. yes, FISD has Kindergartners doing homework. Like they dont already have enough limited time with their family now that they're in school. So they go and ,ake it less.
4. Allows Jacob time to learn subjects not usually taught in school as well as more in-depth study than what is allowed in school.
5. Allows him to learn at his own pace, not too slow or too fast. He can also develop the ability to pace himself - which is prevented in a classroom where the schedule is designed to keep every child busy all the time.
6. It provides long, uninterrupted blocks of time for writing, reading, playing, thinking, or working so that the he is able to engage in sophisticated, complex activities and thought processes.
7. It encourages concentration and focus - which are discouraged in crowded classrooms with too many distractions. and he is the king of distraction.
8. He can spend a lot of time out-of-doors. This is more healthy than spending most weekdays indoors in a crowded, and often overheated, classroom. Spending more time outdoors results in feeling more in touch with the changing of the seasons and with the small and often overlooked miracles of nature.
9. Learning can be more efficient since methods can be used that suit a Jacob's particular learning style. Which for him is through movement. He has to be moving all the time. So we incorporate movement in everything we do. Literally.
   
10. Peer pressure will be reduced. There will be less pressure to grow up as quickly in terms of clothing styles, music, language, interest in the opposite sex. Social interactions will be by choice and based on common interests.
11. More time will be spent with people (friends and family) who really love and care about our children. We can bond more with eachother since we will spend more time together playing, working and helping each other.
12. We, the parents, will decide what is important for the children to learn, rather than a government bureaucracy.
13. You don’t have to go to a school to play. School is not about playing. It’s about learning. I"ve had a few people outside of my generation ask about socialization. “Well, I think the kids really need to interact with eachother.” is what I've been told. School isn’t about that. and if it actually was about that, we'd have those most social child on the planet. He's got his friends from church, the neighborhood, soccer, karate, math camp, his old preschool AND homeschool co-ops. Socialization is just a non-issue for us. But I go on to tell them of the many opportunities and "things" that are out there and that we take advantage of. These "things" usually bog down the “traditional” schoolers because of the fact that the kids come home from school, and they have soccer practice, piano lessons, and they still have to somehow manage to finish their homework, and have a nutritious dinner (hopefully) and then hardly ANY family time. I love homeschooling mainly because in the end, we are closer as a family because of it.
14. Children learn best how to get along from their parents and from people of all ages, not from fellow 6 year olds.
15. I have neighbors and friends both that have seen their children come home from school depressed, angry or feeling stupid. In earlier years, these same children used to be curious, energetic, and happy.
16. the socialization I think Jacob would get at school is not the kind we would choose for him myself. I don't mean that there are not any good children at public school. Of course that's not true. However, if my child is home then we can better control the outside influences on him at such a young and vulnerable age, particularly as a very young person-before their values can withstand peer pressure.

He's actually ahead of the game in math (but we hate to "compare" him to other kids his age because kids are ready to learn things at different ages.) So I should say rather that he is ahead of the "public school's standards". Because of that, I havent been stressing about math this summer while I have been looking for his Math-U-See Curriculum at a discounted rate. He'll actually skip the Kindergarten portion in Math-U-See! He's that far ahead. He skipped the "Kindergarten Math" they have at "Math Camp" (Mathnasium) too. They started him on it and when I told them he was ready for more but they didn't listen to me. 3 weeks later they come back and say "You were right...we've taken him to the next grade level for math". We are so proud of him! He's just one of those kids that was ready to take on Math and explode with it.

SO there you have it. Our new adventure has been a wonderful journey the last 3 months and I am very excited to see where God takes this in our family's lives. For now, homeschooling kindergarten is the goal. We don't know what God has called us to do for 1st grade yet. But whatever He says is what we'll do. In the mean time, we'll keep on truckin along with Kindergarten. Here's some pics of my setup I have going for him. I will post pics of him doing his schoolwork soon. =)