- Profiling Home Educators
Describe yourself, your family or one of your children. What is it like to be home educated in your family? What is “normal” for you?
I think my last post told you more about me than you ever cared to know! Let me introduce the student.
Although I’ve never tested her, Claire’s learning style seems to run along spatial, verbal lines. She used to freak me out by putting puzzles together looking only at the shapes instead of using the colors and picture to help her! She LOVES science stuff – all things nature, animals, experiments – and art. She has a perfectionist problem – I have no idea where that comes from – which causes us some problems because she can get so frustrated with herself when she doesnt get a concept right away. She thinks she hates math except she likes puzzles, logic games, tangrams, and “living math”. She thinks she hates “maps,” as she calls geography and map skills, except she loves learning about habitats, watching “Planet Earth”, and learning bits of other languages.
A normal week for us: We do daily Hooked on Phonics, reading time, Handwriting without Tears. I’ve started back with a formal daily math lesson. We do map skills weekly. We usually do a unit study from Five in A Row each week, but sometimes skip a week or take 2 weeks to finish. These incorporate geography, social studies, living math, science, art, language arts. Sometimes we do a longer special project like our African-American History unit in Feb, which we worked on for the month. We go to our Co-op weekly. Each Friday of the month is different at co-op. One is Park Day, one is field trip, then the other Friday’s are academic-type classes. Claire is in Art History, Animal Club, Elementary Geography, Roots and Shoots club, All about Dinosaurs, and Science Experiments. Lastly, she has Tae Kwon Do lessons twice weekly. She also gets plenty of outside time with her neighborhood friends riding bikes, climbing trees, making forts in the bushes. We go to as many Homeschool Open houses as we can at the local museums and history sites. We hit the library weekly or every other week. We watch too much Discovery Channel and Discovery Kids (Prehistoric Planet is one of her favorites!). We also do the activites of running a house and family – grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning, vet visits, doctor visits - most of which she is an active participant in. (For example, our laundry detergent measuring cup is designed to go into the wash to rinse. About a month ago, DH had a fit when he was switching laundry to dryer. “Ahh! Something is in the washer! Is this ok to be washed?!” Claire laughed and explained all the steps to him.)
We also dont always stick to the M-F schedule. Alot of what we do on the weekend counts as educational, but I can also throw in a formal lesson if necessary. And we are late risers, so we don’t often start school until about 10am, after breakfast, getting dressed (sometimes!), and playing while I get set up. 
3 Comments
April 10, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Do you have any recommendations of tools people like us who are augmenting public school education? I’m sure you’ve found things that have been helpful along the way. Any recommendations that you can share? I’m always looking for additional things to enhance the girls’ education.
April 23, 2008 at 5:47 am
Where are you girl? It’s been a while since you posted.
June 23, 2008 at 2:21 pm
The team at Hooked on Phonics came across your blog and wanted to say how thrilled we are to hear that your family is enjoying our Learn to Read program.
We wish you continued success and look forward to hearing more reading success stories from you. If you are interested in sharing your Hooked on Phonics story with others, we would love to feature your story on our website. Please contact us at success@hop.com if you are interested.
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