What can you include when you homeschool?

[Joyfullyblessed]

Hello Everyone,

 

I know that may sound like a strange title, but I wasn't really sure how to word what I am asking.

 

I will be a brand, spanking new homeschooler (as of next Monday) to my son who just turned five yesterday. We will be doing kindergarten and are very excited to begin.

 

I have chosen to use LHFHG by Heart of Dakota for his curriculum, so I have lots of areas covered in his learning.

 

However, I was wondering... what else can I consider schooling? For example, I want to teach my son life skills or possibly do some outings to museums, space centers, etc...

 

Would these type things be considered schooling also? Could I include things that he is learning from these experiences and areas into the 180 days I have to school?

 

I don't want to overwhelm my son, but I do want to use several different areas of life as learning opportunities. Does this make sense?

 

Thanks so much and I hope everyone has a great day! : )))

[KristenS]

It probably depends on where you are and how picky they require your records to be, but most folks would count field trips and things for sure. :)

 

What you may want to do is just keep a simple journal of all the learning-type things you do each day. At the end I bet you end up with way more than 180 days, and it won't matter if some don't fit a neat category.

[8filltheheart]

Hello Everyone,

 

I know that may sound like a strange title, but I wasn't really sure how to word what I am asking.

 

I will be a brand, spanking new homeschooler (as of next Monday) to my son who just turned five yesterday. We will be doing kindergarten and are very excited to begin.

 

I have chosen to use LHFHG by Heart of Dakota for his curriculum, so I have lots of areas covered in his learning.

 

However, I was wondering... what else can I consider schooling? For example, I want to teach my son life skills or possibly do some outings to museums, space centers, etc...

 

Would these type things be considered schooling also? Could I include things that he is learning from these experiences and areas into the 180 days I have to school?

 

I don't want to overwhelm my son, but I do want to use several different areas of life as learning opportunities. Does this make sense?

 

Thanks so much and I hope everyone has a great day! : )))

 

Absolutely!!! When all our kids were younger and I didn't have to dedicate the majority of my day to high school, we spent hours on "exploring."

 

We would go hiking and collect things to identify. We would research our family tree and map them and cook foods from various locations, etc.

 

Even now, in K/1 "school" is less than 1 an hr for K and definitely no more than an 1 1/2 for 1 (not much more than that for 2nd either.)

 

They help me cook, do art projects, run around outside, play dress-ups, do puppet shows, build forts out of blankets and furniture, create plays, etc.

 

Field trips are definite school days for my younger kids (though we have too much academics when they are older for me to drop the academic days for them even though I know schools do)

 

Have fun!!!

[AudreyTN]

However, I was wondering... what else can I consider schooling? For example, I want to teach my son life skills or possibly do some outings to museums, space centers, etc...

 

Would these type things be considered schooling also? Could I include things that he is learning from these experiences and areas into the 180 days I have to school?

 

 

YES! Most definitely!

[Ellie]

Everything counts. Any day that most of us get out of bed counts as an Official School Day.

[SheWillFly]

Everything counts! :)

I continue to learn new things everyday so do my kids whether it is from an actual curricula or not.

 

Examples: Just from our day today!

- cooking dinner together (math, science and reading)

- scooter races with the neighbor kids (gym)

- Library (self-explanatory)

- playing house ( character development and social skills)

- doing laundry ( following directions and counting - my son counts everything he flings into the washer)

-gardening (science)

 

Of course we had our formal lessons as well but they were short today because my husband was home so we focused on family time more than school time.

[Joyfullyblessed]

Thank you for the responses I have received. : )

 

I am in GA. and no, I don't have to report anything this particular upcoming year. I won't have to do that until after his 6th birthday.

 

However, I want to basically go ahead and do a true school year with my son. I feel it will be good preparation for me in the future years when I do have to report and keep records of everything.

 

I want to go ahead and create a good, working routine. It is really necessary that I do this also because I also run an in-home childcare (which includes three other younger children, soon to be four), so I am going to have to successfully figure out how to balance the two.

 

It is really good to know that I can incorporate other things into my son's learning and it will count towards his schooling. This particular year is going to be full of new experiences on both of our parts.

 

Thanks again for all the responses. I really appreciate it. Have a wonderful evening! : )))

[2_girls_mommy]

I am doing K, which is mandatory here. I check off her lesson completed in my planner daily. So her page today says, math lesson #4, K workbooks 2 pages, oral reading 1 Bob book. (Each checked off.)

 

Her K workbooks cover social studies and science, early phonics, handwriting, etc, so I don't bother to write what was covered. I will have the completed books. You could do the same, since you are using a curric. You wouldn't need to record what was covered each day in the journal, just that you did that lesson.

 

Then I jot down any "other" type stuff from life or that we cover w/her older sis.. like art projects, library days, storytimes, scouts. Cooking I would record, especially if she was reading it, doubling it, practicing her measuring and counting. When my ODD was her age, she was learning multiplication, and I would have her double recipes for a challenge. She got really good at, way before we even got to fractions formally in math.

 

My records are for me, and for "just in case." But I have them to show we did school the 180 days.

[EmeraldGirl]

Yes, everything counts. Just list it all in your planner during the day. If you don't, you will probably forget, like me, b/c so much of our day is spontaneous learning.

 

This week:

What needs electricity? (science, thinking skills)

Name animals from A-Z (Phonics, categorizing)

Build & Paint a 3D wooden model (math - smallest to largest, art, following directions)

We use our globe just about everyday (not just for geography but also for astronomy)

We use our Melissa & Doug calendar just about everyday (days of week, months of year, seasons, weather, holidays, counting by 1's, 2's, 5's, 10's, number identification, ordinal numbers)

A foam play clock for telling time

Groundhog control (we have 2 who have made a home in our backyard so we have been on the internet)

Bird & Butterfly Identification and observation

Cooking, Preparation and clean up

Practical Skills (whatever chores they do)

Games/hands-on activities that they can choose from during the day off "their" shelf one at a time that are math, science, reading related

Puzzles

Creative play

Nature walks & journaling what they observe

[kokotg]

I am in GA. and no, I don't have to report anything this particular upcoming year. I won't have to do that until after his 6th birthday.

 

However, I want to basically go ahead and do a true school year with my son. I feel it will be good preparation for me in the future years when I do have to report and keep records of everything.

 

 

 

In Georgia, you never really have to keep records of everything. The only thing you send to anybody is your letter of intent and attendance forms. So there's no one but you telling you what counts and what doesn't :)

[PeterPan]

Joyful, some of this will resolve for you as you get into it. You're not usually going to have days where you do everything PERFECTLY, haha. For us, any day we do math is a school day, and everything else we do with some sort of intent to explore or learn falls into that. If we fail to do math, it probably wasn't a school day. Schools do all sorts of junk (Christmas parties, etc.) and get to call it school. Most homeschoolers do WAY more days than the state requires. When I started, I kept a teacher's plan book and recorded everything we did as we did it. We always maxed out the book, filling in every single week. I took off from that a couple years and now am back to it.

 

I don't know how it is to juggle daycare with schoolwork. I know numerous women on the board work, so you might want to start a thread about that on the general board. Just takes more planning and creativity on your part.

[stripe]

Most school-based K programs include a lot of "extras" (like playing with puzzles and legos, playing sound bingo or memory, cooking soup after reading "Growing Vegetable Soup" by Ehlert, pouring things, counting and grouping things, singing songs like "Hands, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes," growing a plant from a seed, playing catch, storytime, talking in circle time, imaginative play, and making crafts). There is a lot of skill-building in K, rather than just fact-learning. As long as you are coming at it from an angle of doing an activity for a reason other than to fill time, I definitely believe it all counts.