An Insanely Long Post for Those Who Have Asked.

This post will not interest many of you and that's OK. Please don't feel obligated to make a nice comment, I release you from that obligation. :) I've been asked by a few people how we educate our kiddos and after phone calls and long personal emails I've decided it may be easier to write one post on how/why we home educate as a reference for those who are interested. Also as a disclaimer. The following is in no way a reflection on those who choose to educate their children differently. We all obviously choose what we do because we think it best and it would be silly to be offended because someone lands in a different place than we do. I know home education is not for everyone and this is just my account of why we are where we are.

Matt and I decided we would home educate our children before they were even born. We observed children being home educated and were impressed with the contrast between their education and the ones we had experienced growing up. I was publicly educated for most of my years and then privately educated for a few years. While I learned the 3 R's I didn't learn to love learning, in fact most of the time I felt dumb. Compulsory education works well for children who tend to be visual learners. If memorization is easy for you chances are you were on the honor roll and graduated with gold chords. Matt was one of those visual kids. He was in the "challege classes and can still recall facts from 6th grade science class. However, he still didn't learn to love learning or to self-educate. We wanted our children to love learning, to self-educate and to be proficient statesment like Thomas Jefferson. We were also concerned with the influence teachers and fellow students would have on our children. While I know there are some wonderful godly teachers out there, we wanted to be the main influence in shaping how our children think, learn and what they value. Time equals influence and while our children's character is still being molded the thought of 6 hours a day away from our influence and under someone else's influence made us very uncomfortable. I came to believe that "socialization" is not really an issue. We are raising our children to be healthy adults and putting a bunch of 5 year olds together isn't exactly the means of achieving that goal. We do however teach them the value of people according to God and therefore expect them to speak to people and show kindness no matter what the persons age, race, or religion. In other words socialization is taught by parents not schools. I've met many "backward" & shy children and they are found both in compulsory schools and home schools. Now concerning friendships with peers, that 'issue" we address by developing friendships at church and in other outside the home activities. However these friendships are monitored by Daddy and Mommy and we are able to train healthy relationship skills in the moments that provide opportunities.

And so I started reading. I felt very inadequate to teach. After all I was "dumb", how could I ever dream of teaching a child? I figured the best place to start was to pick a philosophy of education then I could pick a packaged curriculum based on that philosophy. So I read about Charlotte Mason, Classical education, Traditional education, Un-schooling etc... After reading "A Thomas Jefferson Education", "For the Children's Sake", and "A Different Kind of Teacher" I was seriously leaning toward a literature based and example based education. But I was intimidated to step away from a packaged curriculum. When I picked up Jesse Wise's book "The Well Trained Mind" I was sold. She made Classical Education do-able. I was drawn to this form of education because it made sense to me. You study history chronologically, you cover a wide range of subjects, and you follow the Trivium(cram facts while in the grammar stage, learn the why of the facts in the logic stage,and then you learn to communicate those facts and apply them in the rhetoric stage). Reading is a must for all of life. I found myself thinking, "I wish I had been educated this way." While I knew it would be a lot of work, I wanted what I thought best for our children so by the time Josiah was 3 I was pretty committed to classically educating him. Of course we had been "educating" him from day one. We talked a lot to him, read aloud to him, not just children's books but whatever I was reading at the time, and once he started talking we answered his many questions with real answers not just, "because God made it that way" etc... We knew that he wasn't catching everything we said, but it was good practise for us and, if nothing more, it would increase his vocabulary. We obviously did the same with Micah. And so that brings me to the present.

"School" is not intense for us. Josiah just turned 5 and Micah just turned 3. So most of their day is spent playing. We work according to what I feel they are able to handle. There are many great choices out there for curriculum, but at some point you have to stop looking and just settle somewhere. Here is a list of curriculum we have used thus far for those who have asked.

Josiah
Reading/Phonics - Hooked on Phonics (I'm not sure I would have picked it from all the options out there, but my Aunt gave it to us and it works.)
We also use various readers to encourage the love of reading and not the work of it only.

History - Tapestry of Grace. As opposed to a textbook this is more of a chronological unit study of history, basically a guide to resources for parents. We love it. (www.tapestryofgrace.com)
We supplement with Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer as well.

Writing - Zaner-Bloser Handwriting (got it on Amazon)

Math - Math U See Primer (Good program for engaging eyes, ears and hands)
We supplement with Saxon's Scope and Sequence to make sure all topics are covered.


Science - Christian Liberty Nature Readers. (I read while they keep a "notebook" of drawings. It blew my mind how accurate their "reports" of the creatures were to Daddy at the end of the day.)

Language - This year we worked through Language Lessons for Little Ones by Sandy Queen. We really enjoyed that, but we had already covered some of the material in that book so skipped a lot of it. We are planning on using Language Lessons by Jesse Wise next year. (also purchased at Amazon)

Latin - I just purchased a Latin program at the Homeschool Convention I attended. I went to a really great seminar explaining all the reasons to teach Latin. I was pumped and so bought Song School Latin. It is specifically geared to K thru 3rd grade. However, Micah is totally into it too. We haven't touched the workbook yet, but listen to the CD. The boys actually request that CD often.

Micah
Reading/Phonics - Micah learned a ton from the Leap Frog Videos on reading. He knows most of his letter sounds thanks to Tad and his siblings. :) Currently we are working through "An Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading" by Jesse Wise. It only takes us about 10 mins each day and Micah LOVES getting his own time with Mommy "doing school".

He also sits in on History and Science with us as well.

Bible - Matt and I read a catechism(thanks Jenny) on a tape and sometimes the boys listen to that or we listen to the Bible on CD. A new wonderful NKJV audio version (with sound effects etc.) is available at WalMart. It is so captivating the boys listen very intently. Right now History includes a lot of Bible for us, so we get quite a bit of Bible during History as well.

I was inspired at the Homeschool Convention to incorporate more poetry memorization into our lives. I am planning to buy a poetry memorization CD set from Andrew Pudewa's Institute for Excellence in Writing. (www.excellenceinwriting.com) I was also very convicted at the convention by Mr. Pudewa to read aloud more to the boys. Since we started "doing" school officially I haven't been reading to them nearly as much as before. Now we start our day with at least 45 mins of me reading a book aloud to them. We just finished Hank the Cowdog this morning and Freddy the Detective Pig last week. They love it and always ask for more. I will say the first week or so of this much reading left me with a sore throat.

Because the boys are so young we do a lot of hands on projects. The pictures in this blog are of our projects from our month long study of Classical Greece. We made Archimedes Screw, a Trojan Horse, and Grecian war helmets. We did these projects during our Tuesday night family nights. So Daddy got in on them too. I have found we better remember the things we study when we incorporate hand-on projects. As I look and see all this written out, it looks like so much. But really we start reading time right after breakfast and getting dressed(around 9am) and we are always done by noon. This includes the hour or so of my reading while they play quietly on the floor, violin, and all the other subjects. Most of what we do except Phonics, Math and Penmanship is me reading while they draw, play with playdough or play quietly on the floor. So obviously it's not terribly intense. As they grow older that will change, but for now it's plenty and they seem to be learning a lot.

So that's about it. For those of you who have questions feel free to ask about anything I may not have been clear on. I will close with a short list of books that have helped me on my journey of home education.

The Well Trained Mind by Jesse Wise and Susan Wise Bauer
For the Children's Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay (Francis Schaeffer's daughter)
The Homeschool Journey by Susan Card (Michael Card's wife)
A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver Van DeMille
A Different Kind of Teacher by John Taylor Gatto (NY state teacher of the year)
The Basic Steps to Successful Homeschooling by Vicki A. Brady
100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum: Choosing the Right Curriculum and Approach for Your Child's Learning Style by Cathy Duffy