We're trying something new...
This website just had another birthday!! Going into year three, I’m excited to say that I’ll be focusing more on personal stories, particularly our experiences as a single parent family. That being said…welcome to Cash and I’s adventures in…Homeschooling!! Just writing that kind of gave me a thrill. It’s something that I’ve wanted to do for a very long time, but I never thought it was an option for me, since, you know, I am the sole breadwinner and all that. I love to learn, I love to teach, and I especially love sharing adventures with Cash. After some struggles with the public school’s methods of teaching, we realized that the group/public style of teaching just wasn’t working for him. I kept waiting, praying something would “click.” Then, after a particularly hard few weeks, preceded by a hard year and a half, I built up the courage to ask my job if I could work from home so I could homeschool him. Spoiler alert: they said yes. :) I plan to chronicle our adventures here, and share anything I learn along the way. I’ll still be working my real job 40+ hours a week, so it’s going to be hard work, but we are really excited to take this on.
Things I’m looking forward to:
No longer wasting a dozen hours a week on packing lunches, laying out school clothes, forcing him out the door, school drop off and a long frustrating commute. Then doing it all again in reverse a the end of the day, exhausted.
Discovering Cash’s learning style and interests and helping him learn based on what motivates him.
Watching him build his confidence back up.
Turning our home into an environment of learning, from lessons in how to do laundry and balance a checkbook, to making things with clay and conducting science experiments. Reading time while snuggled on the couch, and PE playing basketball in the driveway.
Field trips to the science center, camping, museums, the zoo, the space center, the beach…so many wonderful places to explore!
Having the energy to do things in the evenings like explore our local parks, going for walks on the nature trail, playing soccer in our yard, and riding bikes.
First off, we will be taking time to deschool; this is a period of time to let your child (and you!) recover and deprogram from public school methods. One of the great things about homeschooling is that there are very few rules. You can do what is best for your child, and it does not have to look like a “normal” school day. Jumping right into curriculum and lessons often causes problems, because without that cooling off period, you tend to hop right back into the habits that you were trying to escape from. I plan to use this time for discovery. I’ll find out what time of day Cash is most active and interested in learning, pay attention to what kinds of things he is interested in, and how he learns best. I plan to keep a journal and also jot notes down as I go, so I can piece it all together. Only after taking some time to process and understand what he really needs, then we will choose our curriculum. And speaking of curriculum, I’ll be using this time to gather information about all of our options there as well.
So to start, my to do list is:
Notify the school with our withdrawal letter, and give him time to say see ya later to school friends and get their info for play dates.
Gather materials for art projects and science experiments, any kind of project that we can do for fun.
Search out games that he can play on his own, to keep his mind active and busy during the day.
Work reading time into our schedule. Whether that means an audible book, or me reading to him, or him reading to me, or a combo. Exposure, not pressure, is the primary goal for right now.
Encourage a posture of curiosity. When he asks a question about how something works, stop and look up the answer. Then find out the answer to all of his follow up questions. Maybe there’s a book or movie we could watch about it. Follow all of the learning rabbit trails.
Record what works and what doesn’t. Keep the things that make him excited about learning, and toss the rest.
That’s it for now! Thanks to all of you who have been praying and supporting us while we worked to figure this all out, you are so appreciated!