Classical homeschool method

http://www.homeschoolingwithheart.net/classical-conversations-homeschooling/

Classical homeschooling, no they are not using classical music to teach homeschooling although I am a huge fan of classical music and I think it speaks to the soul.

This method of homeschooling uses the teachings from antiquity and middle ages to teach at home. They have 3 sections of learning grammar, logic and rhetoric.

The grammar stage is the building blocks for all future learning. This stage is from grade 1- grade 4. There is lots of memorization, at this stage instead of learning about self expression and about their self. They memorize “the rules of each building block” which are phonics, spelling, grammar, poems, vocabulary of foreign languages, stories of history, literature, descriptions of plants, animals, human body, facts of mathematics. Those who support the classical system are strong believers that children of this age find memorization fun.

We use this stage in everyday life when we are teaching babies to talk, walk, eat, learning what objects and colours are etc. Personally in our homeschool we use this stage but not so much in a stuck behind a desk reading over and over again until he remembers it without flaw. I used flash cards to teach colours, numbers, shapes etc and just brought them out a few times a week. Practicing, but using different methods that are fun and both of us involved. I am sure lots of parents who teach classical method don't have their small children stuffed behind a desk for 8 hours a day memorizing “rules” but at the same time there are parents who find the strictness of the classical system works for them and their child.

The logical stage is the why stage, why things happen and cause and effect. This stage starts at grade 5. They start learning science method, history, the algebraic equation, paragraph construction, support thesis and analyzing text not just memorizing everything they read.

This stage here I kinda of like to an extend. I love the asking why, and following up with either trying something and see how it works to make the reaction happen or researching different peoples perspectives on history and the reason for things that happened or caused wars etc. This stage for me starts from the moment they are curious about something be it a 1 year old learning what happens what they pour water or push a ball etc.

The rhetoric stage is the high school stage at this point they pretty much pick what they are passionate about, want to focus on or do as a career.

This stage to me is different, I feel they should be able to follow and explore whatever passion they have at the time starting from a young age.

As a whole it teaches based on the written and spoken word rather than that one a screen. They feel screen learning creates a passive brain.

What will we take from classical homeschooling? Well the memorization but not solely based on written and spoken. Finding out why, how and cause and effect, however this started when he first started asking why and showing an interest in cause and effect. A lot of children thrive in the classical environment and if that is something later on that works well for Blaine we will follow that path but for now is he very hands on and would rather learn that way.

Were you classical homeschooled? Do you Classical homeschool? What are your thoughts and feelings about this method?

Unschooling

Allowing your children to run wild, no rules, no structure. That is what the outside world tends to see or at least what they think they see. Sigh if only everyone could see the outcome before they judge.

Many home school parents whose children attended school do unschooling for a few months before starting which ever homeschool program they choose to do with their children. Other parents to use only unschooling as their method of homeschooling.

Unschooling is a “program” based on following only the child's interests and what they want to learn. There are no rules, no schedule, no timelines and no lessons. This is child-led learning or called natural learning. For as many different parents there are different methods of unschooling. I am not sure how I feel about this method as one that I would use for my child as I feel it is important that we learn certain skills and I feel some form of structure is important.

This program works for many families but not all just like any program.

I will be using parts of this method such as if there is something he wants to know about, study, take an adventure to do etc I will follow his lead and we will learn that but, at the same time I feel learning things such as geography, history, math, reading, writing, etc. I am sure that unschooled children learn reading and writing in their own time on their own sch, but I feel that these are important skills to have the earlier the better.

Each parent choose what they feel is best for their child right from the start. I have yet to meet a unschooled child or adult who was unschooled but once I have a chance to do this I will post a new post all about them.

Where you unschooled? Are you unschooling? What are you feelings and why? If you are unschooler and wouldn't mind being interviewed I would be very interested in doing so!


I would LOVE to hear from you!

Click Here for more information on unschooling.  

https://ravishly.com/2016/12/28/freedom-school-our-unschooling-story

Perfectionism my arch nemesis

Perfectionism not only is it a mouthful of a word it is also something I struggle with. Its not the ideal thing to struggle with when you have the medical issues that I have as many of them prevent me from going above and beyond like I used to.

My home was spotless, you could eat off my floors, then I had many, many fosters and a few special children graced my home. My house being spotless was so important to me I scrubbed my hardwood floors to ruin.

Fast forward to now I don't even like my friends or family coming into my home because it is no longer perfect in my eyes. I can no longer scrub everything daily, they all tell me that it looks lived, well to me lived in looks horrible. There used to be a place for everything and everything was in that place.
One day when rescues and my son are not my whole world and their needs don't come before all else, my home will be clean once again and everything will be back in that place.

Helping others, how does that fall under perfectionism? Giving my all to make sure that anyone who needs anything no mater what is already on plate. Making sure that I am the reliable one, the perfect one who is always there. This creates an inability to say no to anything that is asked of me.

Relationships? Being the one who is everything my partner could possibly want or need. Being better then their last partner, making sure I am “perfect” This results in consent insecurities which creates its own issues within the relationship including doubt the other person wants to be with you.

Friendships!!! Yes it even has its ugly tentacles in this part of the my life as well. Here is causes my poor friends who I am closest to get the shaft, I am too busy trying to be perfect in all the other aspects of my life to have time to spend with them. I try very hard but by the end of the day I am so done with life that I just want to sleep.

Being a mom, oh the big wide world of mom wars, who is better, who lost all the baby weight, who has the best kids and OMG did she really just let her kid eat sand? Yes, yes I did because I learned caring for my niece and nephew and of course the many other children who came though my doors that there are far worse things they could put in their mouths. I was not your typical first time mom because of my experiences with the other children. It seems I fight my perfection with my son because I don't want him to ever have to think he is never good enough like the way I do.

Being a women, well now this is hard one with women always beating on one another. How they look, what they do, their weight, even right down to their eye brows. I have never been one to worry about make up or my clothing, not even my hair, my family can atest to that one. Always making comments when I haven't brushed it that day or even when I do. As a women what I do is I worry that my home isn't perfect, my meals are not perfect, that I do not work outside the home. We are judged for doing, we are judged for not doing as women we can not win.

Body Image this is a topic all on its own. I have spoken before of my struggles with my body since a very young age. The fight to have the prefect body is something I struggle with everyday. I battle with anorexia. Its a consent inner struggle when I do eat, if I miss a work out, how my clothes fit and and how I feel in my eyes that I look in my clothes. This is something I battle with daily and something that it seems no matter how much mental changes I make and changes in my thinking it isn't changing, for now anyway, maybe one day!!

https://www.slideshare.net/ddertili/perfection-based-on-possibilities

Homeschooling is going to be tough for me, no tougher than him going to school as parents everywhere are competitive about how their child can do this already etc etc. I need to remind myself daily that it is not about me, it is not about others it is about Blaine and what he needs at that time. If he can't do it today that is okay, its all about encouraging him to do his possible best, not what I feel his best should be.

Being perfect is something that a lot of people struggle with. Being a women makes it double hard it seems. I am reading the book Fucked right now which I will talk about in another post, but it touches greatly on how other women and society have pretty much molded us into self hating and attacking others to make us feel better about our own flaws.

Are you a perfectionist? How does it impact your life?

Living without?

First world problems is a term you hear quite often. Its meaning to minimize how bad you think you have it when people in third world country struggle to even find food.

My first world list of 10 things I couldn't live with out!

Yes I know millions starve daily, war torn countries can't even get a break long enough for aid workers to come through with help from places like the Canadian Red Cross and I donate and help those in need as much as I possibly can but we are still allowed to have our likes/wants without feeling guilty because we as a country and as individuals do so much for those in need and we help support everyone we can. Unfortunately many of those countries are run by dictators or terrorist groups and aside from assassination there isn't much reasoning with them.

So here is my first world list of things I couldn't live without

1) Dogs, they are my comfort, my companion
2) My son, my world wouldn't be the same without him
3) Food, this is a well duh moment
5) Water, not to just drink but also it is my peace.
6) Music, it speaks when I can not find the words.
7) My cell phone as I conduct all of my business online pretty much right from my phone, other than blogging I do that from my laptop.
8) Electricity, something anyone who never lived through the big blackout Ontario 2003 takes for granted.
9) My meds, they keep my pain semi bearable and me on an even keel.
10) Sewing machine, I rely on my machine daily not just for client orders, but for personal and household items.

This list was really hard for me because really we can live without everything on my list and we have in the past. Yes all these things make life easier and faster but at the same time have we lost our sense of community with the creation of these things. Some say yes others say our community has grown well for me I think yes the community has grown to encompass the world but at the same time conversations have lost meaning, most are now about who is right/wrong, better, bigger, etc. Nothing is truly meaningful anymore because we hide behind our screens, many not achieving much of anything great, or difference making within our actual communities or the world community.

Yes the creation of many of things we take for granted in the first world made life easier/better and even gave us a bigger community and access to more information than one person can process but at the same time it has made us further apart and our compassion and care for one another within our own small community limited to those of us who grew up without these things!!!

What couldn't you live without?

The school at home approach

As we slowly step into this exciting journey of homeschooling I worry what level he is at, where he is going to be, is he on track? I think every parent worries about this even when they haven't made the decision to home school. We had an appointment today because I was concerned with Blaines speech and the way he pronounces his B's, F's and S's. To my relief after listening to him speak and asking Blaine lots of questions his pediatric specialist said he has the speech and sentence structure of a 6 year. Well didn't that just give me a giant mom pat on the back, look at us go, we got this! Yes I am telling that to myself to convince myself more than anything else.

Homeschoolers consider everything before 6 years old as preschool other than a few select lines of homeschooling that you can choose to follow, those are in my opinion very rigorous and lack in allowing the social aspect of life and making learning fun. Picture children sitting at a desk or kitchen table leaned over books, silent and focused on their lessons.

Oh man the ideas on pinterest for teaching junior kindergarten are to me exciting, amazing and so many that there isn't enough time to do them all, to others this would be very overwhelming which I understand. When I first looked up home school there were so many different types it made my head spin and I went “nope can't do this”. What if I pick the wrong type? Was the question I asked myself most often while reading through the types. I read some, not all, about each one and decided it was best we take parts and pieces from each one. Which is referred to as relaxed home schooling.

Blaines official home school doesn't start until September but, since this past summer we have been doing a few pages each day in the Pre-K workbook by Complete Canadian Curriculum. I buy his books from Costco but you can get them at Walmart and online. He loves his work book. We will continue with this of course come September. This is never forced, it is asked in the morning with breakfast would you like to do your work book? If he says yes then we do our three pages right then and there if he says no I ask again later in the day. Some days we get the three pages done,(one from each section) some days we get one and other days we do none (insert shock and aw!).

One type of homeschooling is the school at home approach, you order the programs (which tends to be very expensive) you get work books, text books, a schedule that they are to follow and study guides. To me this program is very rigid and focused on children who can learn strictly by book work. Some children work well in this structure and for others it would be hell. For us this isn't the route I wanted to start with as I want Blaine to find excitement and fun in learning, later on if this is the path he needs to follow then I will of course follow his needs and move towards this route!

As I said I will be taking a little bit from each type of home school style and put it into our learning from the school at home approach we will be doing a couple of pages from the Canadian Curriculum book each day.

When I was in school I learned well from both seat work and hands on learning. As an adult it depends on what I am trying to learn. I am the type of person who can look at most things and figure out how to fix the problem, I am also the type of person who likes to read to learn something new for fun.

When in school did you struggle with being forced seat learning? Did you learn well from books and reading? 

Journey into home schooling

As I watch a million excited/sad posts on the mom groups on Facebook and from my friends who have children Blaine's age about them being registered for school, its a mix of emotions for them from excited to “have a break” to sad “their babies are growing up”. I decided when Blaine was born that I would home school him for a number of reasons including our school system is very messed up and has been for years, even since the beginning according to some. The amount of high school suicides due to bullying in schools is extremely high in our city, it seems the school and support systems has broken down.

Everyone is quick to blame just the teachers but it doesn't rest solely upon their shoulders, it is in the hand of everyone as a whole. The parents who believe their children can do no wrong, the teachers who have given up because the kids just wont listen, the changes in curriculum which makes no sense to anyone, even collage and university teachers wont teach it. It seems somewhere along the line that communication has broken down or maybe it was never there to begin with.

I was going to say we have taken the power from the schools, teachers and parents but we haven't. What has gone away is the support system. We have become so obsessed with how we appear on the outside, how strong we are to be able to do everything ourselves. We have lost our village, well not lost it so much as we have shut our village out because it has become how much better each of us is instead of being what the children need.

As school age approaches those who have opinions that I shouldn't home school have gotten louder. Those opinions usually start and end with they are concerned for the social aspect. I think the social thing is really funny for a couple of reasons. With sports, activities, field trips, co-ops and so many other things that the home schooling group does socialization should be the least of most peoples worries maybe focus on the social skills of the children who are bullies.

I had many doubts and after listening to those who criticized me and my decision to home school the doubts got worse. I started to question if I could really do it, if I was capable of teaching my son everything he needs to know for life and learning. Thankfully the home school group was hosting an information night pretty much in the same week that “everyone” was coming down very hard on my choices. That night with women and men who have been home schooling for years, some have teenagers and some have ones who have already entered collage and university, I listened to what they are teaching in schools (I already knew but hearing it from others helps reassure you), after being asked if I taught my son his colours, numbers, how to count, his ABC's, how to potty, walk, eat, talk, etc when I responded with “of course” she responded with then you already are his teacher.

There are some moment where I still doubt myself and my abilities but I know deep down we can do this and it is what is best for him. If I ever get stuck there are many services to help and always someone in the homeschooling world who has already been there and done that.

So here we go!!!

Do you home-school? Where you home-schooled?