The Homeschooling Handbook_ From Preschool to High School - Mary Griffith [50]
The Eclectics: Finding What Works
Karin and Frank live with their three children (nine, seven, and six) in a North Carolina suburb. Both adults are college graduates; Frank works outside the home, and Karin handles the bulk of the homeschooling. They started homeschooling their oldest child, Duncan, this year; the two younger children will join him at home next year.
I do a combination of school-at-home and structured unschooling, if that makes any sense.
I am using the Hirsch book—What Your 3rd Grader Needs to Know—right now. I use it as it is, but I skip around in the book depending on interest level and connections between subjects. For instance, we read the poem about Paul Revere’s ride, and then we worked on American history dealing with the Battle of Concord, the Boston Tea Party, Bunker Hill, and so on.
I like it a lot. It covers a lot of things that I know my children were not covering in school. Also, I am learning (or re-learning) things that I don’t remember now either. I am a little panicked, though, because the Hirsch books only go through the sixth grade!
Our schedule is flexible, but usually we do structured stuff (book reading, worksheets, and so on) from 10 A.M. to 2 P.M., and then he has two hours or so in the afternoon to do artwork, watch educational videos, play computer games or educational stuff.
We both decide what he learns. I want to cover everything in the book, and we try to build on something that we have learned before, but if he prefers to do science one day or not do math another, I tend to let him have his say. It all gets done eventually. I do a lot of suggesting, though.
We have three children, but two are in public school until June. Then I will be homeschooling all of them. Our plan is to have one hour of one-on-one time with each child, and one hour each of computer time and unstructured time for each child. (They will rotate “stations” every hour.) Then we’ll have one hour of time all together when we’ll either work on something that everyone is interested in or read aloud or something. Of course, this sounds good in theory—I’m not sure yet, but I think it will work out for us all right.
My child has become a much happier young man since he’s been homeschooled, and that’s why we have decided to homeschool everyone.
Shari and her husband Tim have three children: TJ, ten; Bekah, seven; and Phoebe, three. They currently live in Alabama, although because of Tim’s work they have moved fairly frequently and have lived in several states. Aside from some preschool for TJ, none of the kids have attended school.
Our homeschooling has become a bit more formal as our kids have grown; that is, we become more formal with each child as they seem ready.
We don’t do much of what the world would call school before the age of nine or ten. Bekah, for example, gets read to a lot, we cook together, play some math games. She plays on the computer a ton, and we do have a phonics program and Miquon math workbooks, which get some use. She loves science and is forever looking through science books. We purchased a number of Peterson’s Field Guides coloring books for her as well.
Phoebe demands school, so we give her the Cuisenaire Alphabet Book when we’re doing math. We don’t think of her as formally homeschooled, either.
Tim and I talk openly and freely with the kids about our ideas about education and what we believe makes a well-educated person. Their lives, for the most part, are filled with educated people, not all of whom have fancy degrees. Anyway, we decide together, based on discussions, which materials we’ll use. TJ gets input; we get the final say. That is, until he throws a fit over a stupid choice I’ve made. Then we back up and start again.
We’re believers in classical education, I suppose. Not classical methods, just the content: solid historical foundation, awareness of important figures in Western culture, lots of good music and art, and why we think it’s good. We introduce a wide variety of