Stratford
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Posts posted by Stratford
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Success with parenting, home educating and relationships in general have a lot to do with intentionality, imho.
Start with the end in mind. What kind of people do you want to be interacting with in 20 years? This will guide your parenting. Look at Tiger Mom. She is an incredibly intentional parent. She wants her kids to perform. Her parenting is performance driven. I don't agree with all of what she does but she is a great case study in intentional parenting.
What are you hoping to accomplish by home schooling? How is this different than what you would hope to accomplish by outsourcing your kids education? Define the difference for yourself so you KNOW why you are doing what you are doing. It will get hard and you will question as you go. If you write the vision and make it plain, it will ease the doubt.
Develop your pedagogy. Why do you do what you do and how?
Anything done with intentionality and diligence will be hard on you. Successful homeschooling, like success at a job or any skill requires diligence and sacrifice. You give up certain things in order to do other things.
Educate yourself. "Are you doing it right" can be answered by first defining what "It" is. Once you've defined "It" learn all that you can about "it."
I'm an educator. I am constantly learning, reading, growing about education. I believe that edcuation is the transmission of culture. I am clear and intentional about the culture that I want to convey to my kids (you can read more about it here). The goverment school system can't do that for me. It can work for others, and that's great. But it is a distraction to where I am heading.
Thank you, this is EXACTLY what I have been thinking as we've researched homeschooling....but I never could have put it that succinctly. I'm looking forward to our official start this summer, and mostly I'm terrified, but I think it is going to work out. :001_smile:
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:bigear:
Sorry to hear you're having a bad time. :grouphug: I honestly don't have any help to offer, just some commiseration. While our school experience hasn't been totally horrible, I did contemplate taking him out halfway through this year but decided I wasn't ready/organized enough to do it, so we're finishing. The PA laws, particularly the year-end eval and portfolios, seemed difficult to implement for a mid-year switch. I wish it wasn't so stinkin' complicated in this state. :glare: I hope you can figure something out.
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Tide.
Hellmanns mayo.
Heinz ketchup.
Cascade dishwasher stuff.
That's really it.
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Ack! Everyday Math is one of the many reasons we are taking DS out of PS for 2nd grade. After reading that, I'm completely confused. If I started talking about elevators, DS would think I'd lost it. A friend of mine has a 2nd grader and had to email the teacher recently to ask how they teach subtraction....parents couldn't figure out how to help their kids with homework. In the 2nd grade. Heaven help us.
That said, I'm really excited about homeschool. I'm looking forward to helping my kids understand the basics (the real basics, not the phony-baloney-elevator-trick-math basics.)
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What an informative and comforting thread for someone like me, who is just starting out. Thank you!
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Not much advice (I'm so new at this I haven't actually started....) I just wanted to say we're in the same boat. DS is coming home for 2nd grade, he's had 2 years of EM (worthless!) in public school. I recently bought Math Mammoth to try for next year. I just got my download and have been looking through it....I'm excited to start! Good luck!
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Sort of. My kids have their own cards, but all of the library cards in our family are linked to one account (including DH and I.) Our library does not have a limit on the number of items you can check out.
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This is a great thread for a gal like me, with a houseful of boys....making lots of mental notes for later. (We love our trampoline, BTW. Best money I've spent in a long time.)
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I started a thread a while ago on this topic. The majority seemed to be for AG or learning it with kids. I have decided to stick with learning alongside the kids for now but if I ever have some extra $$ burning a hole in my pocket, I will probably purchase AG and give it a try.
Thank you! This is perfect!
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Those pictures were helpful to me.....I love seeing and hearing about what everyone has done!
We're lucky to have a separate room that we are transforming into a school room. Having a dedicated space for school stuff was one of DH's prerequisites for agreeing to HS. The room is 12x12, not huge, but thanks to IKEA I think we're making really good use of the space. Hopefully it works out...like everything else that goes with homeschool, it'll probably take some tweaking. I really need to make a spot for a whiteboard.
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I'm fairly embarrassed at how much I am leaning from Grammar Island. I wonder if I was never taught this stuff, or if it just seeped out of my brain over the years. :glare:
I feel the same way, and I have a sneaking suspicion that most adults would say something similar. I do know that we did not diagram sentences when I was in school. We had very little in the way of grammar instruction, come to think of it. Here I am getting excited about language arts curriculum choices for DS....and then realizing I don't know/remember a lot of what we're going to cover.
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Other than learning along with your kids, has anyone here in the hive relearned grammar basics prior to teaching the kiddos? Either my education was lacking in the grammar department, or I've forgotten most of it....either way, I feel like I need to brush up if I'm going to be able to teach my kids. I'm great at Madlibs but have never diagrammed a sentence.
Any advice? I feel like I need my own curriculum!
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Thanks, I'll give it until tomorrow before I worry. I'm just so stinkin' excited...will the curriculum high wear off after a while? Or is it like this every time you order something? :001_smile:
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I haven't received my download yet, checked the spam folder, etc. I ordered a good week before the co-op closed, should I be concerned? This is my first co-op purchase so I'm not entirely sure how this works. Thanks for any advice....
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Gah! My download hasn't come yet and I'm obsessively refreshing my inbox. This is my first "real" piece of homeschool curriculum and I can't wait to print it out and hug it.
Just wait until I really start ordering stuff. :tongue_smilie:
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This has been one of my biggest concerns! We are starting HS this fall, I'll have a 2nd grader, 4 yr old, and 1 yr old at home with me. DS#2 will have preschool 3 days a week which I think will help. It's been very helpful to hear how you plan your days!
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We used them with DS#1 as read-alouds starting at about age 4, and he loved them. I agree - these are not literature and the dialogue can be a bit numbing after a while - but they sparked a lot of interest in my DS and we used them as an introduction to a lot of fascinating times and places in history. Now, at the ripe old age of 7, he has moved on to different things, but we're starting them with DS#2.
Who would throw away a book? Seriously?
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Thank you! (And I'm so glad to hear I'm not the only one who dislikes Everyday Math....)
We are keeping him in school for the remainder of the year. We've thought about afterschooling, perhaps just working on his handwriting would be a good way to ease in and get him up to speed. So much to think about!
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Delurking to introduce myself....
We've decided to homeschool our oldest DS next year for the second grade. As thrilling as this is, and it IS thrilling, I'm completely overwhelmed by the number of options out there. Homeschool curriculum is mind-boggling.
My biggest concern is finding the correct placement for him....he's an advanced learner overall but is behind in some areas (such as handwriting - it wasn't addressed in public school AT ALL in the first grade. Neither was spelling but not sure if this is a big deal or not?) He is reading well above grade level. For math, I think a placement test will be fairly accurate, but I worry that switching styles of math will result in gaps in his understanding. (They are using Everyday Math in school. Not a fan.)
Other than planning on playing catch-up to some degree, does anyone have any insight/advice to offer regarding the transition between public school curriculum and homeschool?
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Well, we haven't officially even started homeschooling yet, and we don't need an official name, but DS7 has already named it Stratford Academy. He even developed a logo. I'm glad he's excited. :001_smile:
All About Reading
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
Yes, I think I bought mine at Target. We love "the frog" here....two of mine have learned their letters/sounds using the video. Couple times a day for a week and they had it down.