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Also S/O Gil's Post - Opportunities


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I had another topic from that same post that I wanted to dig into. I like the idea of taking advantage of the flexibility of homeschooling so that you can focus on opportunities when they come up, and let things take a back seat temporarily.

What are opportunities you have taken? What are some you would like to take in the future? Do you have things you do and don't see as being worth giving your kid the free time to explore? 

Right now most of our breaks are to accommodate our family's schedule. Sometimes we take a little time to focus on contests or rabbit trails. We did incorporate interests more into our day when my kids were younger, but I have gotten boring as life has gotten busier the last couple years. 

We have natural lulls in January and February as kids are going to finish a few current subjects. I would like to take advantage of that time and give them a chance to go outside of the box. However - first choice for two kids would be learning everything about playing Terraria (but trust me, they already know everything there is to know). Some of the other kids could find pursuits I would see as more worthwhile. So I guess that is scaffolding outside the box? I'd love to hear some examples of what other people have done to jumpstart my brain on the possibilities we can explore.

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I personally know one of the community ed swim teachers, so one time I hired her to give private lessons to my kids at our community pool. Since we school year round, that meant not getting a full day of school three days a week for the two weeks we hired her. It was cheaper than putting the kids in the community ed classes, she got more money per hour and a similar (if not smaller) class size, and it was more convenient to get to. 

We've been able to shift schedules around to make a family wedding that we had to travel to into a vacation. 

I've been able to give my kids lighter school to work on 4-H projects.

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We do educational traveling (not fancy), camping, and every museum in our large city. 

Once their core subjects are done, the rest of the day is interest-led learning. Loads of it. They have so much available time to pursue their worthwhile interests. I believe that is one of the greatest gifts I am giving them as children. Time. And the opportunity to spend that time in a loving, life-giving, soul-nurturing environment.

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We have done a lot of interest-based studies. We used to have time every day scheduled for DD to do “something educational”. In order to limit argument over definition, we made a list of things that would always count as part of this time, and things that would count occasionally. If it wasn’t on the list, it could be put under consideration, but should not be considered part of the mandated time until approved. 

We haven’t used it in a while, but DIY.org was fun to spark a lot of ideas for a while.

I follow local homeschooling groups on Facebook, and we try to jump on various opportunities for gatherings and field trips that come up. Sometimes, these things aren’t anything special, but are a nice way to break up our routine, like going to homeschool hours at a roller rink yesterday.

I pay attention to classes offered through the libraries and parks&rec to see if something grabs my attention.

I’ve tried to keep our homeschooling relatively minimal in order to accommodate schedule fluctuations so that when opportunities do come up, I don’t feel guilty using the time to take advantage of them.

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Travel is a big one: we've done 10 weeks of camping around the desert southwest, 5 weeks on safari in Namibia, and recently tagged along on DH's work trip to Italy (3 weeks) all in the off-season avoiding summer crowds and prices.  Mostly though its just time to explore interests - right now DS takes 2 languages and does 2 hours a day of challenging math. We study other subjects but I don't require huge output on them. Friends in the local middle school are perhaps getting a more well rounded education but they are spread thin with 6 classes and heavy homework loads that they have to give full attention to. Lots of busy work, little depth, and few chances to really develop or dive into a passion. 

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Opportunities like excursions, we're going to an apiary tomorrow because a friend of a friend mentioned it. My oldest is joining an orchestra in 2020 because I listened for an opportunity and a friend mentioned it. Taking time to work with granddad every week, learning to build a house with dad. We learned about chicks when one of our hens was broody and hatched some eggs. Playing music with cousins for Christmas and friends for fun.

We followed a fairly meandering path to algebra and had a lot of fun.

I'll forgive a lot of assigned work if my kids are a) engaged in something productive and b) not arguing 😄 Double points if it's outdoors.

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Probably not one most people consider, but it has enabled us to move when and where we have wanted. We would never have uprooted our kids out of a school to start over at a new school as many times as we have actually moved. Our current house we love but wouldn't have bought it if our kids had to attend the zoned school.

Edited by 8FillTheHeart
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7 hours ago, beaners said:

I had another topic from that same post that I wanted to dig into. I like the idea of taking advantage of the flexibility of homeschooling so that you can focus on opportunities when they come up, and let things take a back seat temporarily.

What are opportunities you have taken? What are some you would like to take in the future? Do you have things you do and don't see as being worth giving your kid the free time to explore? 

Right now most of our breaks are to accommodate our family's schedule. Sometimes we take a little time to focus on contests or rabbit trails. We did incorporate interests more into our day when my kids were younger, but I have gotten boring as life has gotten busier the last couple years. 

We have natural lulls in January and February as kids are going to finish a few current subjects. I would like to take advantage of that time and give them a chance to go outside of the box. However - first choice for two kids would be learning everything about playing Terraria (but trust me, they already know everything there is to know). Some of the other kids could find pursuits I would see as more worthwhile. So I guess that is scaffolding outside the box? I'd love to hear some examples of what other people have done to jumpstart my brain on the possibilities we can explore.

A lady nearby is running a horse riding class for homeschool kids.  It goes for three hours and covers feeding and care not just riding.  Dd wants to do something animal related and the veterinary school here has an equine unit so I think it will be really good for her.  We couldn’t typically afford horse riding lessons.

this runs in the school day which means she mostly misses school once a fortnight (music lessons and cfs cadets are the same day). I still think it’s totally worth it.

dh was asked to travel for six weeks for work.  I asked if we could take the van and come too.  Long story short we all ended up getting to go and stay in accommodation but we drove and saved money on flights.  This place has a tonne of cultural stuff that’s not available locally so we really made the most of it.

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Well, we leave next weekend to go to the World Congress of Herpetology. DD was able to attend prior conferences and gain the knowledge, teach the online classes that form her project, and ultimately is able to go and present because we have been able to take time and run with that interest over the past....erm....about 8 years. Even just taking about 6 weeks for this trip and the stuff around it would have been hard to manage had she been in a regular high school. 

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Travel lots of fun travel. For us most of our travel includes history learning. I count it as field trips. We take a day here or there often. But we also take longer trips several times a year.

Learning a second language. This takes lots of time. And I have cut back other expectations to really get ds up and running with language. He took about 8 months mostly focused on that. Now he has a great foundation and we are bringing back in more school work. 

 

 

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I think that its also worth mentioning that there may be certain times within the academic continuum that make more sense to use as a natural pause to seize some other opportunity than others. I don't pretend to have them all figured out though.
 

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Our #1 is time as a family. DH’s career has him gone quite a lot, with an unusual & unpredictable schedule that does not accommodate the “standard work week” well. This year in particular involved an unanticipated international relocation followed by several consecutive months of him being gone for training. It was so nice to be able to take time to spend time with him without worrying about DS “falling behind” in a new school or being reported for truancy. 

We take advantage of the ability to experience many more museum exhibits, field trip opportunities, & festivals.

We schedule errands, appointments, & individual extra-curricular activities at off-times - which seems like a small thing, but can add so much free time to your days! 

We plan to travel extensively in the future. We’ll need another year or two to settle in Stateside, but after that we hope to have a significant portion of our historical and cultural studies be done “on location.” 

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