Homeschooling and Working

Question:
I am a working mother of three (Ages 10,3, and 6 months). I work full time, but many days am able to work from home. My husband also works from home. I am the primary bread winner, so giving up my income is not an option. We have chosen to homeschool our 10 year old for a variety of reasons. But suffice it to say we think it is best for her educationally for us to do that. I am looking for other parents that might be attempting the same thing. How do you schedule your days around work and school and family? How do you handle assessment of your children's learning? I am concerned about state required testing and how I go about making sure she is prepared for that. Any advice from BTDT working/homeschooling parents appreciated.

Answer:
- I'm not in this situation, but I know other homeschool families who are. Just keep in mind that learning does not need to take place M-F from 9 am to 3pm. The two families I know who were in this situation would assign readings for the kids to do during the day, then do activities and disucssions in the evenings/weekends. Another family was able to bring the kids to work (they owned a hotel) and the kids were with them all day. You also don't need to be "at the chalkboard" so to speak, instructing all day. At 10 yrs old your child is able to do a lot of the work independantly. For example, you give a list of spelling words to practice, or assign pages out of a spelling book, then go and do your own work. When its done your child lets you know. Or you explain a math lesson and then they go and do it while you do your own. You give some pages out of a book to read, or assign a time frame in which the child should read, then do your work while they read. AFterward you discuss what they just read. You discuss a writing concept (eg using specific rather than general adjectives), give a writing assignment, then do your work while the child writes. If there's a local YMCA that haas group classes, or a local homeschool support group that has group classes, and your work is portable, you sign the child up. While they're participating in a group class or activity you do your work.

- Forgive me, Nique, but you have a public school mindset. Those families that attempt homeschooling by doing "school at home" are the population that fail at homeschooling most often. With many children, children being so unique, the problem with school was the delivery system. The child isn't a sit in your seat, stand at the black board, do exercises 34 through 48 in the workbood on pages 15 through 25, type learner. Though some are, and that is why public school works for some kids. You have a unique (Why is it I keep using that word...heheheheh) chance to do something that homeschooling parents have come to love and to do an even better job of "teaching". If you do a search on "unschooling" you will enter the world of this wonderful full time family based learning experience. It takes a shift in mindset from what you and I were taught is "learning" from the public schooling we got. But the world will open up. It changes families in a fundamental way to "unschool". The family becomes the vehicle of learning...for everyone in it, including the child of course. It is the most exciting learning method of all and you can throw out the garbage that is sold as homeschool curriculum and gather the real tools of learning that fit your unique (there I go again) child. Between us my wife and I homeschooled 4 kids, 2 of mine, 2 of hers before we married late in life. We both did a lot of the "unschooling" method long before it was given that name. We thought we were being lazy, but our kids were self directing their learning at a greatly accelerated rate over public school, so we came to think we were just "lucky". But the we met each other and heard the story and we met many families that had discovered the same thing.....kids are avid, hungry, busy learners, in their own way at their own pace. After you research it a bit, look for "unschoolers" in your area. If you find them you are in for a shock. More social life than your kid can absorb (there goes that complaint of the homeschool critics), more resources than you can ever use so your kid will have a vast area to research and draw from, and a discovery that every interest of the child can be turned into a learning experience, and finally, you'll find families that know how to turn learning by "unschooling" into a "transcript" not only welcome at many prestigeous colleges, but make your child in demand at those schools. Check some out. They love homeschooled kids, especially that were child directed learners, because they KNOW how to learn. http://www.home-ed-magazine.com/ http://www.home-ed-magazine.com/HEM/166.99/nd_art_nhen.html And then there is one of my favorite "unschoolers" " I recently learned that Albert Einstein failed mathematics in school. He played imagination games with himself which resulted in many of his greatest scientific insights. He hated to waste time on unnecessary activities, such as choosing what to wear that day, because it wasted his mental energy. He was fortunate to have a mother who recognized his needs, who homeschooled him and gave him a supportive homelife where he could explore and know himself. " Albert did so badly in school, as a boy, they sent him, a small pension, and his bicycle off to Italy to stay friends for a time. One lazy summer day riding his bike on a country lane he stopped at a crossing to let an ox cart cross in front of him. The leaves, the shadows, his perspective, the slow ox cart....and the world changed forever. This was the beginning of his basic theory of relativity. Or so he says.