After a rough year in the real estate market, I had an investment rental building which I own become unexpectedly vacant. The rental income on said building paid my daughters tuition to a private school, which we adored, here in town that was less than 10 minutes from our house. My husband and I were faced with an unexpected $14,000 tuition bill, or we had to look at alternatives. We made the very hard decision to send our 5th grader to a brand new public school. That in and of itself is a blog entry for later. The main issue we had with the public school was that our 1st grader was zoned to attend a school that was 40 minutes in the opposite direction from the school our 5th grader was going to have to attend. We would have to leave home at 6:50 am drive 20 minutes to drop Child 1 off at the first school at 7:00am, drive 40 minutes to the second school to drop Child 2 off at 7:40am (child 2 would be 5 minutes early only if there were no traffic issues.) This is not to mention that typically no one is at the school at 7:00 am to watch the first child until school opened. We would face the same issue at 2:10 when both schools let out at the same time. Someone was going to have to sit out side and wait to be picked up and the teachers do not like it if they have to sit with a child for an extra hour after school has let out. The local school district would not work with us to put the girls in schools closer to one another and we could not logistically make this work. Needless to say, I was not and am still not happy with FSD1 and this has lead to me pursuing some very interesting ideas for Florence County regarding Charter Schools. (subject for another blog post).
The problem caused by Florence District One Zoning, left me with only one option and that was to home school my six year old daughter. It has been quite an experience for both of us. Many have asked, "How in the world are you doing this?" I must admit, this has been harder than I ever thought it would be. It takes serious dedication to a schedule and lots of patience. For those who know me, these are both skills for which I struggle. I love multi-tasking, getting things done fast and being efficient. I am a lot of things but patient is not one of them. This is a skill for which I am learning slowly but surely. Homeschooling has truly been a learning and growing experience for both Ella and me. Over the last 7 weeks, I have gained a tremendous amount of respect for what teachers do and the volumes of work that has to be done outside of the classroom to prepare for what they teach in the classroom. Teachers are way under paid and way over worked!
Time commitment is a big issue with homeschooling. I have heard there are people who home school around their "personal schedule". I could not do this so at this point I have no "personal schedule". Our day starts at 7:30 when I get Ella up and ready for school. We have breakfast together and school starts at 8:15. She begins the day by working on her daily calendar skills and completely dissecting the number of the day. We then have a bible story and pray together. Ella then works on her journal. Journal involves a word of the day. First, I teach her the meaning of the word then she must draw a picture about the word and use the word in 2-3 sentences. On Friday's, instead of journal writing, we work on a poem in our poetry journal. This involves writing a poem on on the dry erase board, reading it, copying it into our journal, illustrating and discuss it. Each day we complete a unit in handwriting. We begin mathmatics with a daily Rocket Math test. She is given 2 minutes to complete 40 math facts. If she gets more than 36 correct in 2 minutes she moves on to the next test. If she doesn't she stays on that same test until she passes it. We do at least one unit in our mathematics book per day. This includes keeping a math journal with vocabulary words for math skills we learn. There are certain units that she breezes through in 5 minutes and if that is the case, I let her go on to the next unit. We never do more than 2 units per day. If she shows any signs of difficulty with a topic, I make her slow down. Often we will review the unit again the next day or in our homework. In Language Arts, we begin with spelling words. The list consist of approximately 25 words per week. My spelling words actually came from my older daughter's work at her previous private school. I loaded her spelling words weekly onto Spelling City website and they stay there forever. This site prepares the list, prepares handwriting practice sheets, provides games with the words and has a smart phone app which allows them to practice on their ipods/ iphones when we are on the go, waiting in line or have nothing better to do. On Monday's we begin the week by practicing writing all of the words 3 times each. Through out the week, I assign various homework assignments with the spelling words (alphabetical order, write 2 asking and 2 telling sentences with 4 words, find pics in magazines and write sentence about each using spelling words. Thursdays, are a practice spelling test and then Friday is the spelling test. The test consist of 25 words, 4 bonus words (which were the words of the day in her journal) and two dictation sentences which are created with the spelling words. We typically do one story in her reading book per week. Day one we read the story and discuss. Day two we go in depth studying the setting, characters and plot. Day three we work on sequencing the story. Day four we work on vocabulary, synonyms, antonyms and a reading comprehension review. Day 5 we take a reading comprehension test. Every other day we work on either a word family or a consonant blend family and keeps a journal of these. We do a Daily Oral Language review at the end of each language arts session. Typically, I give her several 5-8 minute breaks throughout the day. While I prepare lunch, she watches a video about either a language arts story, social studies unit or a science unit. After lunch, we study both Social Studies and Science. In the afternoon while the kids are at tumbling or doing home work, I plan for the following day. There is always a math lesson to be prepared and supplies that must be gathered, a science lesson which typically includes finding a life cycle or parts of work sheet and video. I try to read the weekly reader prior to introduction and prepare additional work to supplement it. The google calendar is updated daily with the things completed and things that still need to be done on the lesson plan. In the evenings, I find bible pictures to use with the following days' bible study. I also prepare test and write up home work assignments either later in the afternoon or evening. There is very little down time in this schedule but I find that in order to be effective this is the only way for me to home school. Typically, our formal schooling day is complete at 2pm.
There are several things I recommend to anyone even considering home schooling. First, dedicate a room to schooling and leave it set up for class. If you have to gather your things every morning and set up class everyday you will not do it very long nor will you take it seriously. We use our sun porch because it is bright, sunny and quiet. Second, furniture is very important. Teachers need a very good comfortable chair. A separate table for the person teaching and the student is preferred. ( I do not have this yet but wish I did.) Height on the furniture is very important. The child's feet need to be able to touch the ground. You will also need a 3x5 dry erase board to use in the class area. Third, Technology is important. A laptop computer with speakers, internet access and a color printer/ copier is highly recommended. Fourth, lighting is important. You need good natural and artificial light in the room. Fifth, set up a google calendar and hook it to your smart phone. Put an alarm on every event. Your phone should notify you 5 minutes before the event should take place. Plan each day on this calendar by creating a schedule for your child or children and stick to it. Sixth, Notebooks are the key to organization. Keep a small 2 inch note book for each subject you teach. We started the year with the paper folders for each subject and quickly outgrew them. I recommend going ahead and buying 2 inch binders for each subject. Seventh, homework is important. Just because you are home schooling does not mean there should not be homework. Teach your child to do homework everyday and this will make transition into college, public school, private school or life much easier at some point. What you assign does not have to be much just something they are responsible for each day. A typical home work assignment from me includes: complete 1 math sheet, read 1 AR book, practice rocket math and do something with spelling words each night. It works really great if the parent that is not teaching the child can work with the child on homework assignments. This not only gives the teaching parent and child a break from each other but it also helps the teaching parent get feed back on what the child is absorbing.
Supplies You Need to Home School:
Notebook paper
Construction or Colored Copy paper
Timer
Note book for each subject
Handwriting paper for 1st grade
2 small dry erase boards set up for 1st grade hand writing
2 small dry erase boards blank white
case of copy paper
paper clips
rubber bands
Ziploc bags
3 hole punch
Stapler
tape
tape dispensers
Cards
dry erase markers
colored pencils
crayons
Colored markers
highlighters
pencils
pencil sharpener
3-4 bins for storing books
Current Subjects and Resources:
Reading- Open Court- SRA/ McGraw Hill
Math- Progress in Mathmatics - Sadlier Oxford
Spelling- www.spellingcity.com
Grammar-Daily Oral Language-
http://msjordan.cmswiki.wikispaces.net/file/view/DOL+Grade+1.pdf
Social Studies- Weekly Reader & Units which are applicable to current events or holidays.
Science- www.scholastic.com- Science Spin & Units I pick up online that go with the reading units
Handwriting- Zaner- Bloser Handwriting
Library- We go to our local public library every other Friday to check out books
Bible- Start at the beginning and read through the Bible 1 chapter per day. Read the chapter, talk about it, color a picture (google images) and put it in our bible journal.
Art- there are units online (Color wheels and artistic mediums), We do a lot of drawing in other subjects.
Health- there are units online (Teeth, senses, bones of the body)
Physical Education- Tumbling this semester/ next semester swimming-
(I signed them up for classes)
Rocket Math- http://www.wrsdsau59.org/sc/rocketmath.html
Accelerated Reader- I require my child to read one book per night.
Subjects we plan to start after the first of the year:
Music
Foreign Languages
Please note, I am not an expert on home schooling. I am simply a Mom who is learning to do this day by day. These are the things that have worked for me but what worked for me may not work for you. I hope you will accept this information in the spirit for which it is being shared. I have found some great ideas on Pinterest and I will try to do better sharing these in pictures on the blog in the weeks ahead.
