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Tuesday, March 13, 2018

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? 



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