Preparing My Homeschooler for Mainstream School.

Last week Sophie (8) and Charis (6) had a tour around their respective new schools, which they’ll be starting in September. I think I was more nervous and apprehensive than they were! I’m a homeschooler at heart, but for various reasons it seemed the right thing to do to put the girls into mainstream school during this year of transition. However, I can’t get rid of this anxious concern of "Will they measure up OK? Have I done a good job or will they be way behind their peers? Have I been a good advert for the homeschooling cause?"

I’m sure I’ll be writing a lot on this general topic over the coming few months,

but in this post I’d like to focus in on the concern I have about their writing skills, and by that I mean their ability to formulate their thoughts into written words and write in sentences, not the way they form their letters.

You see, up to now we’ve been very happily following a homeschooling curriculum, called Ambleside Online, which is based on Charlotte Mason’s methods of education. When I think about my girls going into mainstream school, I can foresee two potential areas of where the school might have a different approach to the one my girls have been used to: 1) writing ‘creatively’ and 2) spelling.

Creative Writing

In the Ambleside Online curriculum, children start with oral narration (telling back verbally what they’ve heard or seen), and it’s not until they’re about ten years old that they begin written narration. The expectation is that this should lead quickly to ‘creative writing’. However, Charlotte Mason didn’t require the children to come up with too much ‘original’ work at an early age. It was mostly dictations or narrations from what had been read or observed. Before the age of ten children practise their writing by doing daily copywork exercises.

“They should narrate in the first place and they will compose, later, readily enough, but they should not be taught 'composition.'” Vol 1 of Home Education, pg 247

Worried that Sophie, in particular, would flounder when asked to write something original in her exercise book during a lesson at school, I decided to encourage her to keep a little diary of her exploits over the summer. We’ve already missed a few days, but I’m hoping that by practising this a few times a week she’ll gain a little more confidence in writing down her thoughts rather than just copying a text in front of her. Diary-keeping, of course, is a form of written narration since she is recounting what she did and saw.

Spelling

I don’t yet know what the school policy is in regard to spelling, but I suspect that a teacher in charge of 30 pupils won’t have time to correct each spelling mistake the moment it occurs. Charlotte Mason didn’t like the child to get used to seeing a word misspelled, and the teacher/parent was supposed to erase the word as soon as possible before bad spelling habits were lodged in the child’s mind:

“The teacher's business to prevent false spelling, and, if an error has been made, to hide it away, as it were, so that the impression may not become fixed...”

Charlotte didn’t advocate writing out a word 10 times from a spelling list. Instead, she wanted the child to focus on the written word in front of them until they thought they could ‘see’ it in their mind’s eye. Then cover up the word and get them to spell it out orally, then perhaps write it out once.

“Once the eye sees a misspelt word, that image remains; and if there is also the image of the word rightly spelt, we are perplexed as to which is which...”

Up to now, in our homeschool, when the girls have needed to write, for example, a thank you letter back to their grandparents, I’ve always dictated or written out clearly what they were going to write and then got them to copy (like doing copywork). I didn’t make my child ‘guess’. The only times I’ve turned a blind eye to misspelled letters is when the girls have written something on their own initiative outside of ‘school’ and presented it to me, for example a card or a comment on a picture. In those situations I’ve felt it more important not to quash their enthusiasm. If they’ve written something longer, for example Charis loves to write emails to people, then I might point out one or two main spelling issues just to make the letter a bit more understandable to the person who would be reading it, but I let the rest go. But generally, their habit is always to check with me first a word they’re not sure about rather than just guessing and trying to write it phonetically, which we all know doesn't work too well in English!

I don’t know if this habit will hold them back in mainstream school, and whether or not it will be a problem. I suspect they will write more slowly and be more unsure about their writing than their peers. I wonder too how the different approach to spelling will work. I hope to continue using the art of 'visualisation' when we receive those spelling lists from their class teacher.



Supporting From Home

Of course, there are many other things I can continue to do with my girls, despite no longer homeschooling ‘full-time’, and one of those is to keep on reading quality books to them that challenge and inspire them. I’ll leave you with an appropriate comment on this from Charlotte Mason herself which I really love:

"Writing, of course, comes from reading, and nobody can write well who does not read much."

Qu: Has your homeschooled child spent some time in a mainstream school? I'd love to hear your thoughts about the particular challenges you faced and how you overcame them.

Abide in Him!



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(Apologies that I was not able to find the exact references for several of the above quotes.)

Photo credit: freedigitalphotos.net / stockimages 


Grace to Abide will be taking a few weeks off over the summer, but we'll be back soon!

Giving Up Your Dreams For A Season – Part 2

In my last post I described how our family embarked down the path of homeschooling, all with great expectations and enthusiasm.

Unfortunately, the nature of our chosen way of life meant a return to England for six months in the spring and summer of Sophie’s first year, for ‘home leave’, and I found it a struggle to finish Year 1 with all the disruptions of travel, living out of suitcases and having to leave most of my resources behind in Russia. Still, I consoled myself, Year 2 would be much more settled.

However, that was not to be. Our time here in Russia has sadly and unexpectedly come to an end, and we’re busily preparing to move back to England for the short term while we wait and see what God has in store for our family next. For various reasons it makes sense to put Sophie (8) and Charis (nearly 6) into mainstream schools for the year. I am still coming to terms with the fact that we will never properly finish Year 2, and in all likelihood will be missing out completely on Year 3. Nor will I be able to start Charis off in Year 1 with the greater confidence that comes from starting down a road you have already travelled.

And so, as I pack up the books and the craft materials and the homeschool supplies that it took me five years to build up, I not only feel overwhelmed with sadness, but I realised that I'm also feeling afraid. I’m afraid of many things:

-         I’m afraid that I’m losing my dream, a dream I've held for five years now.

-         I’m afraid that I’m losing my status; the thing that defines me. For at least a year I won’t be ‘a Homeschooler’ anymore.

-         I’m afraid I’m losing my ‘niche’, my ‘passion’.

-         I’m afraid of getting sucked into the 'normal' educational system and of not being able to pull my family out again.

-         I’m afraid my children will be assessed academically and found to be lacking.

-         To be honest, one of my biggest fears is that my children will enjoy mainstream school more than they enjoyed doing school with me and won’t want to return to the dream life that I had envisioned for so long.

As always, I want to ask myself what God is trying to teach me through this experience. What lessons can I learn? How should I use this situation to draw closer to Him and deepen my faith?

But I think it’s too early for answers at the moment. All I know is that God has good plans for us as a family, plans to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us a hope and future. (Jeremiah 29v11) In a previous post I talked about having to go through hardships, and this is just another aspect of the one our family is called to walk through right now.

Qu: Have you faced the situation of having to give up one of your dreams for a season? 

Abide in Him!



 

Giving Up Your Dreams for a Season – Part 1

It was a little unexpected, actually, how fast the tears began to flow once I began to tear down my schoolroom. 

I knew it would be hard to pack everything up and sort through eight years’ worth of children’s books, artwork and craft supplies, most of which would have to be sold, given away or thrown away. However, I didn’t realise that, internally, this was signifying not just a move and a change of scene, but actually the end of a dream.

Let’s back up a little. When Sophie, who’s now eight, was just two years old, I enthusiastically embarked upon a low-key pre-school curriculum. For half an hour a day we would sit at the living room table and start learning letters, numbers, motor skills and all about zoo animals. As a teacher myself, growing up in a family of teachers, a good education was critically important to me. Ensuring that my children had the best possible start in life academically was not just a duty of motherhood but something that I was excited about.

About a year later I discovered the world of Charlotte Mason and Homeschooling, and as I avidly devoured books and trailed through websites on the subject, I eased up on Sophie’s academic pursuits. I began to understand the benefits of allowing ample time for a proper childhood, and instead I redirected my time and energies into planning and preparing myself for that wonderful day when we would start ‘properly’, the September before she turned seven.

Living overseas presented its challenges in terms of gathering materials, and those were the days before I discovered the wonders of Kindles, and so each trip back to England involved stocking up the suitcase with a few more books and craft materials, manipulatives and wall posters. When our third child, Nathaniel, arrived, we kicked Daddy out of his office in the house into the spare room adjoining the garage, and turned his office into our schoolroom. I need to add that he went fairly willingly (the increased noise and interruptions in the house were affecting his productivity levels) and he did a great job of repainting the walls a colourful orange and putting up shelves ready to hold all those wonderful books and other materials.

Our first term of following Year 1 of the Ambleside Online curriculum was so positive. Of course we had our bad days, our days of interruptions, grumpy children, or, more frequently, grumpy mummies, but finally I was doing what I’d been waiting to do for so long. Finally I had a label: I was a Homeschooler. At social gatherings I could now reply to the question “And what do you do?” with the answer “Oh, I homeschool our children.”, which sounded so much better than “Oh, I’m just at home with the kids.” I was loving it! I don’t know if Sophie was learning much, but I was learning all about the Roman Invasion of Britain, the persecution of the early Church,  and the Vikings.

I was soon to discover that homeschooling is not a smooth, predictable path, because it depends so much on family circumstances. Stay tuned as I continue the story in my next post…

Abide in Him!

Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival

It's my privilege to be hosting the latest Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival. Many thanks to all those who sent in contributions. I enjoyed reading them all and hope you all will too.

The topic for this particular round of the Carnival was Born Persons / Nature of a Child, reading from Chapters 2 and 3 in Volume 6 of Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series, and many of the posts submitted were based around this theme.




First up we have Mama Squirrel at Dewey's Treehouse. Taking a comprehensive look at Charlotte's comments about Intellect, Imagination, Reason, Beauty and our children's natural intellectual desires, Mama Squirrel asks the question: "How do our children's schools, home schools, Sunday Schools, or other learning situations provide for a healthy balance of these mental servants and desires?"




Then we have Brandy at Afterthoughts
Brandy applies Charlotte Mason's emphasis on Atmosphere, Habit and Life to problems she is encountering in their daily Circle Time. This admission made me laugh: "Recently, my seven-year-old daughter kindly taught my four-year-old son how to fake burp. He has decided that Circle Time is the best time to practice his new talent. No matter how funny you do or do not think this is, I'm sure you can understand that it is emphatically not funny the five thousandth time, and during prayer at that!"



Nebby, over at Letters From Nebby, comments on two differing views of children prevalent in Charlotte Mason's day and takes it a step further, asking if our generation is guilty of 'micromanaging' our children's learning. She astutely observes:

It is as if we have said, “Children are naturally programmed to learn so much before age 3! Let’s maximize that by giving them this and that!” And we have forgotten that children are naturally programmed to learn and that they do the work; we need only provide the most basic food for their minds. 

Silvia writes a beautiful post about falling short of your ideal of the perfect homeschool. I love this quote from Silvia in her post: " there can be too much of focusing on the grass less greener in my side of the fence, at the risk of missing the beautiful flowers that are blooming in a shady corner."




Barb has lots of wisdom to offer us over at Harmony Fine Arts.  
She quotes Charlotte Mason:  "It has been proved that the joy of knowledge itself is enough to carry a child successfully and happily through all twelve years of school.”

Barb testifies to the wisdom of this saying of Charlotte's and invites us to look at three of her posts which expand on this theme of feeding children's minds with living books.



Nancy, writing over at Sage Parnassus, has offered us two posts. In the first, she gives eight lovely suggestions of books to read for the Lent and Easter season - which will soon be upon us as Easter is early this year.

In her second post, Nancy reflects on Charlotte Mason's comments that the authority we have as parents should be 'present but not in evidence', like the foundations of a house, and that it is both a gift and a grace





Lanaya over at Delightful Education completes her three-part series on her family's experience with pottery. If you're looking for some inspiration for what to do in handicrafts then head on over here - it's really interesting to read about the whole process from start to finish.

Still on the theme of handicrafts, Patti, writing at School Days Scrapbook, believes that drawing and painting are learnable skills, a bit like learning to ride a bike, and that it's worth persevering, even if you think you're 'artistically challenged'.


   Another Patti shares some thoughts on Mary Cassatt, Chopin and William Wordsworth at All Things Bright and Beautiful, as she is thinking about spending more time on Artist, Composer and Poetry study in their homeschool.





Amy, writing at Crossing the Brandywine, makes her debut at the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival with a very thoughtful and insightful post about 'Why "Focusing on the 3 R's" is Not the Best Approach'. She talks about what to do when you have a struggling reader, and I love what she says here:

You can't stay in emergency mode for long: it ignores the beauty of life.

Christine from Zing Day has an amazing opportunity to visit her State Capitol building with her kids and stand up and speak for the rights of homeschoolers. Read about her experience and see her photos here.


Amy, our honourable carnival hostess, puts forward some of her reflections on Chapter 2, asking "How can you test the mind?" You can read her full post here at Fisher Academy International.



Tammy, from Aut-2B-Home in Carolina, addresses a feeling that we all have: being pressed for time! Her solution? Restore your sense of awe. Read more about what she suggests here.


And last but by no means least, Carol from journey-and-destination reviews two of her favourite read-aloud books with her boys that were not only exciting adventure stories but also encouraged the family to delve further into the geography and history depicted in the books.


Well, I hope you all enjoyed this week's carnival! The next Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival will be held on February 19th over at Delightful Education and the theme will be 'Proper Use of Authority', continuing with our reading in Charlotte's Volume 6, this time looking at Chapter 4, which you can read here. For more information in general about the Blog Carnival go here.

Abide in Him!

Curriculum Choices

In my last post I set out the weekly timetable that we are currently aspiring to (with varying degrees of success!) Now I'd like to share with you some of the specific curriculum choices I've made for each subject. Please note that the images are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to click and buy then I get a small percentage towards our homeschooling budget :-)

As you know, we follow the Ambleside Online Curriculum, which I'm really enjoying. The website is super helpful, it's free, there's an online forum for discussing all your questions and connecting with other Amblesiders all over the world, the curriculum is broken down into weekly reading suggestions for you, the book list is wonderful - so many interesting, living books - oh, and did I mention that it was free? As a Brit, I've also found it very easy to tweak the curriculum to our specific cultural needs, and make substitutions where appropriate, although Sophie, my 8 year old, and I are loving the set history book: 'Our Island Story' by H.E. Marshall, which is taking us through the history of England. One of the great things about homeschooling is that I'm learning so much, whether or not my kids are!

Ambleside Online leaves you free to make choices in certain areas, so here's what we do:

Phonics and Reading

I have to admit that I haven't tried many different approaches to teaching reading, so I can only comment on what works for us. Once the child is familiar with the letters of the alphabet and the accompanying sounds, we spend some time blending three letter words (sometimes using the Charlotte Mason approach too). Then, sometime after their 5th birthday, we start with a mixture of Peter and Jane books and Explode the Code. This has worked really well for us. Many of the Peter and Jane books were mine when I was learning to read! The children love the pictures in Explode the Code, and it's helpful having the two side by side. By the time my eldest finished level 12 of Peter and Jane she was off reading her own books happily.

Maths

At the moment I use a mixture of Singapore Maths and MEP. I love the Kindergarten books for Singapore, although it feels like a bit of a waste of money sometimes because the pages are so colourful that the child only needs to write one number on some of them! We used MEP for Year 1, and I love that it's free and all online. I just print off the next 30 or so lessons and download the teacher's guide to my Kindle and away we go. I find it very rigorous, but sometimes there are a lot of sums that the child has to do in one lesson. Just for a change I ordered the Level 2 of Singapore Maths 'My Pals Are Here'. (For the UK I order from Ichthus Resources) Immediately I realised why it's helpful just to stick to one maths curriculum if you can help it, as we weren't ready for adding 3-digit numbers yet, but once I remembered I didn't need to do everything in order, I started a bit later in the book with simple multiplying. We're now using both, as I find that one reinforces what is learned in the other, but I think ultimately I'll go back to MEP.

Foreign Language

See this post here which explains what we do with Foreign Language. Since I wrote the post, though, a friend helped us to get set up with Rosetta Stone, so I currently have Charis (5) doing Rosetta Stone Russian and Sophie (8) doing Rosetta Stone French. So far I like it, although it's frustrating when the microphone doesn't always recognise what they're saying. Sophie also has a 30-minute Russian lesson once a week with our nanny.

Extras

You may have noticed some subjects in our timetable that are not on the Ambleside curriculum. They're weekly optional extras that reflect some of our own family values. 



Mapwork - Being a globe-trotting family we want our kids to have a firm grasp of Geography right from the word 'go'. This term we're looking at Europe. We have the Geo-puzzle of Europe, and once a week we look at a different country in our Children's Atlas and try to remember the capital city. Later we'll also learn the flags.



Mission - This is close to our hearts also. Once a week we read about one of the people groups in Window on the World and pray for them. Since our focus is on Europe this term, I'm currently choosing people groups in Europe.





Astronomy - I know this is covered later in Ambleside Online, but I already bought the book and it looked so much fun. The plan is just to very slowly get started with it, so that we have a head start when the time comes.




 
Character - This book was recommended over at Simply Charlotte Mason. I choose three character qualities we'd like to work on each term, and we read one of the stories each week. If they want to, I'll photocopy the accompanying picture and they can colour it while we talk about it.



Scripture Memory - I love this approach over at Simply Charlotte Mason! It's very quick and simple, and we enjoy doing it as a family each morning. It's amazing how quickly it sinks in without too much effort. Even my 3 year old is quoting along with some of them.


Bible - In the afternoons I read the Year 2 selection from the 'actual' Bible, but in the mornings, in our family Bible time, we read from a Children's Bible, to keep all ages interested. I cannot recommend highly enough The Jesus Storybook Bible, but we also rotate a few others.

Extra-Curricular Activities

Piano - We'd love for each child to grow up knowing how to play at least one instrument, and the piano seemed a good place to start since we have one at home. We tried paying for a professional teacher to come to our home once a week, but Sophie didn't take to that very well, so for now I know just enough to help her through the John Thompson books that were mine when I was her age. She's loving it, and I don't need to nag her to practise. These books have a 'living book' feel to them because she gets to play actual tunes rather than go through lots of drills.

Dance - Other than having them run around the back yard or join in with my morning DVD workouts, I wasn't doing any proper 'physical education' with them, so we chose to send the girls to a local dance class. It's called 'sporty ballroom dancing', and it gets them moving with a bit of 'cha cha cha' thrown in! They go twice a week and enjoy it. When Nathaniel (3) is a bit older I plan to send him to gymnastics.

Art - The girls also attend an art class in town twice a week. Sophie showed a real flair for art at a young age and I wanted to find a way to encourage her and develop her talent without her having to rely soley on her creatively-challenged mother. Charis is in the same class and has also developed a love of art. Ordinarily, driving into town four times a week for extra classes would be a bit much, but we decided they were important a) for developing these special skills b) for interacting with other children in the local culture and the local language and c) for learning to be under the authority of another grown-up other than their parents in a classroom setting.

So, there you have it! I hope that was useful for some of you. 

Qu: Do you use any of these materials? 
Qu: Do you have any particular suggestions that I haven't mentioned that you love? 
Qu: How do you do extra-curricular activities in your homeschool?

Abide in Him!

Blog Carnival Giveaway

Amy over at Fisher Academy International is hosting the last of this year's Charlotte Mason Blog Carnivals on December 11th, and the theme is .......of course the Christmas Holiday Season!

She'll be giving away this 2013 Art Calendar to some lucky reader.

So head over there and either enjoy reading the various blog posts that are submitted and leave some comments, or submit your own holiday related blog post in order to enter the draw to win.

Abide in Him!

Creating a Spiritual Atmosphere in your Home School

 Over at the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival this week, we’re discussing Principle # 20 of the introductory synopsis of Charlotte's educational philosophy:

"We allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and 'spiritual' life of children, but teach them that the Divine Spirit has constant access to their spirits, and is their Continual Helper in all the interests, duties and joys of life."

A Great Privilege for the Homeschooling Mother

For me, this is one of the great privileges of homeschooling, that as mothers who are teachers we’re ‘allowed’ to address spiritual topics and answer thoughtfully and fully questions of a spiritual nature that arise during the day with our children. Having been a teacher myself in a public/state school, I don’t take that for granted.

Indeed, I’ve been blessed with so many opportunites to discuss my faith with my kids, and it’s been amazing how things have come up just through seemingly ‘ordinary’ school work. We don’t have to leave our faith at the doorstep just because we’re ‘in school’ and then take it up again when school is finished.

My Own Insufficiencies in this Area….

Personally, I’m aware that I still struggle in my own walk with the Lord not to ‘compartmentalise’ my faith. My natural tendencies are to believe that I can be ‘spiritual’ while I’m having my quiet time, or during family devotions, but the rest of the day I just have things to do that I get on and do without giving God much thought. I’d love to think I was practising the presence of God like Brother Lawrence while I was doing the dishes, but that’s just not how it happens for me. I’m a sinner, and I don’t love God with all of my heart, mind and soul all of the time like I should do.

Part of my struggle in this area, I’m sure, comes from the fact that I was raised the only Christian in a non-Christian home, and so my faith was compartmentalised. We just didn’t talk about spiritual things throughout the day. However, although I love my parents, I’m so thankful that my children have the opportunity to be raised in a Christian home, and my husband and I are trying to be intentional about how that works out in practice and what difference it makes in our daily lives.

Scheduled opportunities

Here are some of the more scheduled ways in which we try to work out Charlotte’s 20^th Principle in our family:

-         Sophie (7) now has her own Bible reading and notebook time as part of her morning routine.

-         Every weekday morning we have Family Bible time together, involving reading (at the moment from a Children’s Bible) and praying for one another for the day ahead.

-         At lunchtimes we do Scripture memory together (this is the system we use) and sing a hymn.

-         During school time we read from the Russian children’s Bible as part of our Russian language time.

-         We try to play Christian music around the house and in the car.

-         At bedtime we pray with each child.

-         We make the most of  special times,  such as Christmas, Easter, to do meaningful crafts and have discussions together.

-         The children get spiritual input each week at Sunday school

Of course there are spontaneous opportunities to turn our children’s thoughts to spiritual things:

-         conversations arising from the school books we’re reading

-         general questions throughout the day

-         special prayers when the children are feeling ill or can’t sleep
-  directing praise to the creator God when we're out in nature

And then there are things I’d really like to do more of:

-         spontaneous prayers about our own needs and the needs of others as soon as they arise

-         exchanging and writing down prayer needs or items of thanksgiving

-         a weekly 'family church' time

-         praying more regularly for worldwide needs

Qu: How do you try to implement the idea expressed in principle no. 20 in your family?

Qu: What tips or advice do you have - what has worked well for you?

Abide in Him!

Photo credit: girl raising hands: freedigitalphotos.net/pat138241

Homeschooling Overseas Part 4

In my previous post in this series on Homeschooling Overseas, I talked about the kind of answers I would give to local people asking me why I homeschool. Those answers are often quite different, for various reasons, to the answers I might give to friends and family back home.

Again, I'd like to stress that I'm not suggesting that homeschooling is in any way superior to other ways of educating your children. I believe it's a decision each family needs to make, and this is just the decision we felt was best for our family given our current situation.

However, as I reflect upon all that I've read and experienced, I've come up with, perhaps, my top ten reasons why we think that homeschooing is such a great thing to do:

1)      Homeschooling means I can instill in my children the beliefs and values which are important to our family, rather than placing them in the hands of someone else whose beliefs, values and teaching styles may well differ significantly from mine.

2)      I have freedom to decide what we should study, and make time for subjects such as Bible and Scripture Memorisation. I can talk about my faith in God as we discuss History, Geography, Literature and so on.

3)      I love the Charlotte Mason approach of using Living Books. I know that my children are not wasting their time on meaningless activities just to keep them quiet for 40 minutes (yes, I’ve been there and done that as a mainstream schoolteacher I’m ashamed to say!) but every day they’re being fed with interesting and challenging ideas. Even though I loved school myself as a child, I wished I’d had a chance to learn some of the things my children are learning through the Ambleside Online curriculum. I’m learning so much myself from having to teach it!

4)      Homeschooling is wonderfully flexible. You can work around important family events or crises or illnesses without your child having to miss out or fall behind. You can adapt the schedule to the weather and have spontaneous field trips if that’s your kind of personality. You can turn seemingly ordinary events, like shopping at the supermarket, into learning opportunites.

5)      Homeschooling helps you to work alongside your child in a way that a teacher with a class of 36 children simply is not able to. You can review material or push ahead as needed. You can follow your child’s interests. If they have a question, they know they’re going to be heard and have the chance to have a long discussion about it if necessary (usually culminating with a quick look for a suitable video on youtube!) The length and sequence of the lessons can be designed to fit your child’s mood, learning style and attention span.

6)      Homeschooling avoids the hassle of the school run, worrying about uniforms, needing to do homework in the evenings, and the time that is wasted at school by having to walk between classrooms, take registers and wait for the teacher to deal with disruptive pupils. There’s no need for parents evenings or school board meetings.

7)      Socialisation? Yes, we get to avoid many of the negative effects of that. We don’t have to worry too much about bullying or peer pressure. Our children have less exposure to the latest fads and trends and ‘must have’ expensive items. They have less exposure to unhelpful influences, coarse language, unsuitable images on cell phones or the pressure to start showing an interest in the opposite sex before they’re ready.

8)      Socialisation? Yes, what great opportunities exist in that area for the homeschooled child! They spend their days with people who are not all exactly the same age as them. They learn from older siblings and teach younger ones, and yes they learn skills of diplomacy, teamwork, delegation, leadership, forgiveness and consideration for others by being around them all the time! There’s more time in the day to get out and enjoy different interests, either joining in extra-curricular activities with other children, or following Mum about on daily errands or on her visits to friends and neighbours.

9)      It’s a cliché that people always say: ‘Enjoy them while they’re young because they grow up so fast!’ but we all know it’s true. I don’t want to just have my child for the first 4 or 5 or 6 years of their life. I want to spend as much time with them as I can before they leave the nest. I love to be a part of their growing and learning. I love that they’re so close to their siblings because they spend so much time together.

10)  Being a homeschooling mother is never boring. Yes it’s hard work, and some days can be really difficult. It requires self-discipline, consistency and great patience. But it is so rewarding. What a great feeling when your child starts reading on their own for pleasure and you know that it’s mostly thanks to you and your patience over their stumblings in the early days of ‘cat, sat, mat’! How wonderful to witness your child’s creative works of art take shape, to see the smile on their face when they’ve finally understood something or mastered some skill they used to find difficult!

"The noblest calling in the world is that of mother. True motherhood is the most beautiful of all arts, the greatest of all professions. She who can paint a masterpiece or who can write a book that will influence millions deserves the plaudits and admiration of mankind; but she who rears successfully a family of healthy, beautiful sons and daughters whose immortal souls will be exerting an influence throughout the ages long after paintings shall have faded, and books and statues shall have been destroyed,deserves the highest honor that man can give."                                     David O.McKay

Qu: What would you add to the list of 'top ten reasons for homeschooling'?

Abide in Him!

My Homeschooling Pilgrimage

I apologise for my absence, but we were away in the Lake District at a family conference. It was a great time of meeting up with other families who also live and work cross-culturally, and several of the mums were also homeschooling. It was so refreshing to be in a group of people who really 'get' you - do you know what that's like? Suddenly you don't feel so weird after all :-)

Anyway, some of you hard-core Charlotte Mason followers out there may have felt your heart flutter slightly at the mention of 'the Lake District'. For those of you who are going "Charlotte who?", let me explain..

CM (as I shall affectionately call her from now on) was a British educator who was born in 1841 and died in 1923. She developed a particular philosophy of education which centred around the premise that all children are born persons in their own right, and not blank slates upon which the adult is free to write as they choose. She also taught that 'Education is an Atmosphere, a Discipline, a Life', and many modern day homeschooling curricula and homeschooling parents base their approaches on her methods. You can find out more about her here, or download her six volume Home Education series to your kindle here.

The town of Ambleside

It was in Ambleside, in the Lake District in England, that CM set up a training school for governesses, and you can understand her desire that children should spend as much time as possible outdoors when you see how beautiful the Lake District is! 

So, of course, I couldn't miss the opportunity to go and pay a visit to Ambleside while I was there. I found my way to the Armitt Museum, which houses all of CM's books as well as a little 'plaque' dedicated to her (see above). There was also a lovely display about Beatrix Potter, another famous resident of the Lake District. Unfortunately, CM's school, which later became part of the University of Cumbria, was closed a couple of years ago, much to the sadness of the librarian I talked to at the museum.

The Beatrix Potter display at the museum

A collection of Charlotte Mason's books

Well, I now feel suitably re-inspired to continue working my way through CM's Home Education series. It can be a bit hard going, but it's well worth it!

How many of you have heard of Charlotte Mason, or perhaps are even using her methods in your homeschool?

Abide in Him!

Learning a Foreign Language - Part 2

Hi, welcome back to Part 2. I'm linking up with the Charlotte Mason blog carnival, and the current theme is Foreign Language. If you missed Part 1 you can find it here.

Teaching a Foreign Language in Homeschool

I mentioned in Part 1 that, alongside Russian, we are also learning French. Now, I'd like to stress at the outset that we don't do this as regularly as we should in our homeschool, and I'm still investigating materials, but I'd like to share with you what we do and what I've learned so far.

Now, I possibly have a slight advantage over the average homeschooling mother in this area in that, before going overseas, my husband and I attended an SIL course on Language and Culture Acquisition, which involved learning how to go about learning a local language with limited resources. We used the method we had learned reasonably successfully to learn the local language where we live (not Russian) and I believe the method can translate (forgive the pun!) very well to the homeschool classroom.

Having read a little of Charlotte Mason's views on Foreign Language learning, I can see that her preferred method (the Gouin method) has a lot in common with our method: Total Physical Response (or TPR for short). Namely:

• It is most important to hear, listen and understand the language at first (by not requiring speaking you reduce stress).
• Then you gradually learn to speak it, using certain phrases over and over again and adding vocabulary.
• Finally, reading and writing should come last.

In fact, TPR is based very much on the way that children learn languages. So much so that they encourage you not to speak a word in the first month that you're learning, rather like a child spends up to 2 years just soaking in the language before it attempts to form the words itself.

Why is it called Total Physical Response, I hear you ask? Well, the idea is that the best way to learn new words and phrases is to do so in a context which involves physical movement, for example acting out verbs, or choosing between objects and pointing to them.

Here's how a typical lesson in our homeschool might go:

• I decide we're going to learn, for example, 6 different colours.
• I find 6 different objects, each coloured one of the colours in question.
• Using puppets (which just makes it more fun, and the kids love it!) I point to each colour and clearly say the name in French several times.
• I then call out a colour and Sophie and Charis have to point to it, or remove the object.
• They are not required to say the words themselves, just to understand them and react accordingly.
• We do learn certain greetings, such as 'Hello', 'How are you?', and role play those. 
• We also learn 'power phrases' such as 'What's that?' and 'Repeat that please', which the children can use if necessary.
• In addition, we listen to and learn some French children's songs, and read through some books in French, and occasionally watch a DVD.

Here are some resources I use for French:

Another resource I use is this website.  I'm currently working through the vocabulary suggested in the teachers guide, and then when we're ready we'll watch the corresponding film on the computer. The girls love the theme tune!

This is also a great site for finding and learning French songs.  

Finally, if you're interested to learn more about TPR, go here.

In conclusion, please bear in mind that my eldest is only 7 years old. This is what works for us now, but I'd be interested to read about other people's suggestions for resources for older students.

Abide in Him!