First Week of Homeschooling
I have decided that I am also going to use our blog to journal our homeschooling journey. About a year or so ago, Daddy and I started discussing homeschooling our children. For those of you who don't know, homeschooling has become much more popular these days and there are so many different options of how to do it. There are tons of websites that offer full curriculum for every age/grade. You can completely build and customize your own curriculum. There are curriculum for different subjects, so that you can mix and match according to your preference.
At first, it was really overwhelming to consider taking on this extra role as teacher for my children. Then I realized that it isn't an "extra" role, it is one of my God-given roles as a mother--I am given charge of teaching my children. It can still be overwhelming sometimes, but right now, we feel like this is the right path for our family.
I know many of you may be wondering why. Why did we consider homeschooling? Why did we choose homeschooling? When Daddy and I first started talking about homeschooling, the subject came up because we have a few friends at church who have decided to homeschool their children. I remember telling Daddy about it, and then we started discussing it and discovering our own feelings and opinions about it. Everyone has their own reasons for choosing or not choosing to homeschool their children, but I am going to share with you our reasons for homeschooling.
We want to know and be in control of what our children learn, how they learn it, and when they learn it. Many times in public school situations, parents do not have that much input or control in what their children learn whether it is from the teacher or other students. Now I understand that this may sound like I'm a total control freak or that I want to shelter my children from anything bad in the world. And, I guess, in way, you'd be right. However, it's not so much that I think I can keep my children from ever experiencing anything bad or negative, but children are beautiful, pure spirit children of God, and I would like them to stay that way as long as possible. When they see or hear things that aren't in line with the teachings of Jesus Christ, I want to be there to help them understand those things from that perspective. I believe that is exponentially more difficult when they are away from me for the vast majority of their day.
I also believe that because we are our children's parents and we love them more than anyone else can, we have the opportunity to be their best teachers. We know our children. We know how they work and what ways they learn best. Tink, Skinja and Teetee are all three very different little children. They learn differently and at different rates. They have different interests. We feel that the best way to teach our children is the way that they learn best. Public schools tend to be geared to one type of learning and teaching children how to learn in that specific way, which isn't successful for all children. We want our children to be able to learn at their own rates. If they excel in one subject, then we'll let them continue learning at that rate. If they have a more difficult time in a certain subject, then we'll take that one a little slower. We want them to have the option of really delving into a subject that interests them. We want their education to be more individualized to fit them.
We believe that homeschooling gives us the ability to more fully help our children learn and understand the Gospel and how it relates to every part of our lives and every subject that we learn. We feel that it will be a way to help them really internalize those values and characteristics that we hold most important.
This is not an all encompassing list of reasons, but I think this will help you better understand our reasoning in choosing this option. I also want you to know, that we don't believe that homeschooling is the only option or that those who do choose public school are wrong. We don't believe that just because children attend public school, they will learn bad things or that parents can't be involved. As I said before, we simply believe that this is the course we need to pursue for our family at this time.
Our first week of homeschooling was in August. For now, I have decided to go with a theme-based, self-designed curriculum. So, for that first we, our theme was Dinosaurs. I didn't take any pictures, but we did learn about a few different dinosaurs. We dug for toy dinosaurs in rice, built paper dinosaur skeletons, played a dinosaur matching game, and made and colored dino books. I try to incorporate math/numbers, letters/reading into our themes. We also try to have an outing every week. For dinosaurs, we went to the Fort Worth Science and History Museum. They have a dinosaur exhibit and dinosaur dig. They were able to see a full sized dinosaur fossil skeleton that was found near where we live. They got to sit in a dinosaur footprint cast. They played on computers that had dinosaur skeleton puzzles, see different fossils and paleontological tools. When we went out to the dig "site," they got to use brushes and magnifying glasses to search for and uncover dinosaur fossils. They had a blast!
So, that was the beginnings of our homeschooling adventures. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments about homeschooling and our reasoning for choosing it.
At first, it was really overwhelming to consider taking on this extra role as teacher for my children. Then I realized that it isn't an "extra" role, it is one of my God-given roles as a mother--I am given charge of teaching my children. It can still be overwhelming sometimes, but right now, we feel like this is the right path for our family.
I know many of you may be wondering why. Why did we consider homeschooling? Why did we choose homeschooling? When Daddy and I first started talking about homeschooling, the subject came up because we have a few friends at church who have decided to homeschool their children. I remember telling Daddy about it, and then we started discussing it and discovering our own feelings and opinions about it. Everyone has their own reasons for choosing or not choosing to homeschool their children, but I am going to share with you our reasons for homeschooling.
We want to know and be in control of what our children learn, how they learn it, and when they learn it. Many times in public school situations, parents do not have that much input or control in what their children learn whether it is from the teacher or other students. Now I understand that this may sound like I'm a total control freak or that I want to shelter my children from anything bad in the world. And, I guess, in way, you'd be right. However, it's not so much that I think I can keep my children from ever experiencing anything bad or negative, but children are beautiful, pure spirit children of God, and I would like them to stay that way as long as possible. When they see or hear things that aren't in line with the teachings of Jesus Christ, I want to be there to help them understand those things from that perspective. I believe that is exponentially more difficult when they are away from me for the vast majority of their day.
I also believe that because we are our children's parents and we love them more than anyone else can, we have the opportunity to be their best teachers. We know our children. We know how they work and what ways they learn best. Tink, Skinja and Teetee are all three very different little children. They learn differently and at different rates. They have different interests. We feel that the best way to teach our children is the way that they learn best. Public schools tend to be geared to one type of learning and teaching children how to learn in that specific way, which isn't successful for all children. We want our children to be able to learn at their own rates. If they excel in one subject, then we'll let them continue learning at that rate. If they have a more difficult time in a certain subject, then we'll take that one a little slower. We want them to have the option of really delving into a subject that interests them. We want their education to be more individualized to fit them.
We believe that homeschooling gives us the ability to more fully help our children learn and understand the Gospel and how it relates to every part of our lives and every subject that we learn. We feel that it will be a way to help them really internalize those values and characteristics that we hold most important.
This is not an all encompassing list of reasons, but I think this will help you better understand our reasoning in choosing this option. I also want you to know, that we don't believe that homeschooling is the only option or that those who do choose public school are wrong. We don't believe that just because children attend public school, they will learn bad things or that parents can't be involved. As I said before, we simply believe that this is the course we need to pursue for our family at this time.
Our first week of homeschooling was in August. For now, I have decided to go with a theme-based, self-designed curriculum. So, for that first we, our theme was Dinosaurs. I didn't take any pictures, but we did learn about a few different dinosaurs. We dug for toy dinosaurs in rice, built paper dinosaur skeletons, played a dinosaur matching game, and made and colored dino books. I try to incorporate math/numbers, letters/reading into our themes. We also try to have an outing every week. For dinosaurs, we went to the Fort Worth Science and History Museum. They have a dinosaur exhibit and dinosaur dig. They were able to see a full sized dinosaur fossil skeleton that was found near where we live. They got to sit in a dinosaur footprint cast. They played on computers that had dinosaur skeleton puzzles, see different fossils and paleontological tools. When we went out to the dig "site," they got to use brushes and magnifying glasses to search for and uncover dinosaur fossils. They had a blast!
So, that was the beginnings of our homeschooling adventures. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments about homeschooling and our reasoning for choosing it.
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