Personalizing Education

We've officially completed  the first half of the year.

Although everyone homeschools on a different schedule, we tend to loosely follow the public school's calendar. (It helps me stay accountable.) 

We finished our state history and elementary health units before Thanksgiving and have been doing mostly reading, writing, and math since. 

J has already finished an entire years' worth of language arts. Last year it was her least favorite subject at school. Here, we have the flexibility for her to choose her own curriculum. (Mia Academy is the one she chose. She also uses Mia Academy for Earth Science and Ancient World History) Language Arts is her favorite subject and enjoys doing 2-3 lessons a day. I believe, when students are able to choose how they learn, it fosters intrinsic motivation. Children naturally want to learn, but they want to learn in their way.

With that being said, I still guide my children. While art and science don't always follow a set curriculum, we do follow one for math that closely aligns with our state core standards. However, because we homeschool, we also can go at our own pace or take a break from certain areas for a time.

For example, K has really been struggling with addition, so we decided to move on to subtraction. He understood that better. Before we go back to addition with numbers that add up to 20, we are skipping ahead to do the unit on shapes and length.

To begin his unit on length, everyone helped by making paper chains. We set the timer for 10 minutes and then compared who had the longest or shortest chain. K was delighted to discover some of them were equal. Afterwards, the kids were able to continue making their chains for long as they wanted.

And while we loosely follow the local school calendar for school days, we do not follow their hours. For the most part, our kids can choose when they want to do their set assignments for reading, writing, and math. (They actually read a lot on their own anyway which is another benefit from giving kids autonomy in their learning.) When they're done for the day, they're done. They often use the extra time to engage in other learning actives, which I will get to later. 

For math, as mentioned in a previous post, J uses Teaching Textbooks, A1 uses Mia Academy, and K uses Singapore Math Primary US Edition. (A1 also uses Mia Academy for Language Arts, General Science, Earth Science, and occasionally art.) My two oldest have their math online and I do book work with K. We don't believe work needs to be done at a desk either. K prefers to do math laying belly down in a hammock swing.

The only subject I request they be at a table for is penmanship to help with correct letter formation. For penmanship we use The Good and the Beautiful.

We also do writing. For a hilarious story starer, we use our Silly Title Jars (details under LA in the link). The kids also do personal journaling, free writing, or their language art assignments. J has written some awesome poems. I ask that, at a minimum, they do penmanship for 10-15 min a day and writing for 10-15 minutes a day depending on age. They of course, are welcome to write more. 

K reads at least a chapter out loud to me and I try to read daily with my preschooler.  J also steps in and reads with her.

We do a couple structured lessons for science or art each week. For example, this week we learned about fossils and how paleontologists make molds and casts of them.

We know real cast are not made with glue,
but were working with what we got.

We combined art with engineering to build graham cracker structures.

nativity

We also had a geography lesson on Mexico. We created a dish and read the pamphlet provided by Eat 2 Explore. 

Pepper, onion, bean salad

We then went to Google to dive deeper into subjects we were interested in, such as the legend of the eagle eating a snake on a cactus which is part of the Mexican flag. The kids particularly loved learning about Chichen Itza and the decent of the serpent during the spring and fall equinox.

All of these things are done in only a couple hours a day. I think a big worry for parents who want to homeschool in the time commitment involved. Yes, you need to watch over the children, but the actual hands-on time spent in instruction does not have to be that much.

While I do have set curriculums for a few subjects, I tend to lean heavily toward Montessori Education. Because kids are naturally curious, you can set up an environment in such a way that promotes natural learning. 

For geography, my two oldest were able to use School AI to chat with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. J was sad to learn neither of them had a cat as a pet. Although they found cat bones buried near the slave quarters at Mount Vernon, so there were cats around. 

They also enjoyed doing Unlock Kids escape rooms. I like that these escape rooms can be set up and played without adult involvement.

J and K have been doing puzzles.

Learning States, too.

K and A1 have been building various contraptions. A1 has also been learning more about 3d printing through trial and error.

K pulled out his programming mouse again and is getting more advanced with it. 

He conducted an observational experiment, too. How long will the sticky hand stay stuck to the ceiling? 

Three days, for the record.

If you haven't noticed, in all of these cases, the kids have been playing. I fully believe children learn best when they are having fun. When they willingly focus on a subject it sinks deeper.

I also believe we need to value play more than we do. As Maria Montessori said, "Play is the work of a child." Take for example, the kids coloring with chalk. (Yes, it's been warm enough, even in December, for them to be playing outside with no coats or shoes.) They experimented with different types of chalk and learned about texture, then color. They used social skills to determine where each person would draw, and showed respect when they didn't interfere with someone else's space. The list goes on. It's been proven, children thrive when they are allowed unstructured time to play. 

As parents, we can also see everyday activities as learning opportunities. For example, we took our kids to the optometrist for the first time. They learned even more about eyes there than they did watching a video about eyes for health.

Homeschooling also gives us an opportunity to look at traditional school subjects in a new light. For example, our PE rarely involves a ball sport. Our kids love swimming and very often we drag them out on hikes. (Which they complain about right before leaving us in the dust.)

J and I love walking, too.

Other things we have been able to do this first half of school is travel to almost every county in our state while studying its history. We've been to national parks, museums, historical sites, and the state's capitol.

We've studied astronomy and had the opportunity to be at a dark sky location to see the comet.

And our kids continue to learn things with our support. Dad and A1 usually have a friendly game of chess going and compete with each other on Duolingo. One is studying Japanese while the other is studying Chinese.

I realize not everyone's homeschooling experience is going to look the same. In sharing my experience, I'm not saying it is the only right way. Every family is going to educate their kids differently. Even our homeschooling experience changes year to year. (If you haven't noticed, we currently have no extracurricular activities as we temporarily prioritize travel.) 

However you choose to educate your child, the most important thing is to foster a love of learning and that alone opens the door to infinite possibilities.