Homeschooling - SUPPORT GROUP

[splum]

Hi, I want to bookmark this to read all the wonderful ideas later.
I'm a homeschool and chicken momma.

 

[DMRippy]

Hi, I want to bookmark this to read all the wonderful ideas later.
I'm a homeschool and chicken momma.

Welcome on board!

 

[DMRippy]

Those of you that are members of the HomeschoolBuyersCoop site.... they have some GREAT free offers for the summer.

http://www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org/featured-group-buys/?c=1

I signed up for most of them as I have 5 kids to keep entertained over the summer. Might as well be educational entertainment. RIGHT?

 

[Sonnybunny098]

I think that is GREAT! Part of me says go for it and another part is still stuck in the SCHOOL mindset. I think we will do a combo thing. Not sure how that is going to work but really we want them to learn what they want to learn. So many things we learn in school we NEVER use. I have NEVER needed to know the square root of a number (good thing too I didn't get it). The things they will NEED the basics will be class like, but the extra stuff I will let them lead the way..... but I might have to rethink that when and if this turns into a 5 student thing (3rd grade down to pre-k) .... we will be going all over the place. I like self teaching too so once they get the skills they can maybe take over.

On of my kids is real big into this whole poultry thing. She breeds and shows bantam Langshans and Wyandottes all over the place, Came third in the state in poultry judging and knows 300x more about poultry than i do. (Btw we share this account) But we have still been able to incorporate math science LA etc. etc. through her passion for poultry. And she loves ALL of it! That is what i am loving so much about the whole unschooling thing. The love of learning! My sister unschools her children and one of them hated reading. Never wanted to do it and thought it was horrible. Now he is reading for fun and because he WANTS to. Sorry i just can't stress enough how much i am loving it...

 

[Arielle]

Love seeing all the new faces join in on the thread!!

I would love to unschool my kids but I see them goofing off as it is. I am still brainstorming how to handle this summer break as they have about 9 weeks off from public school, and only have about 2 weeks left til that starts.

Because they are used to a regimented system of learning, I will probably leave them a "to-do" list and let them pick when they do the work. Haaahaa, that would mean never. So I need a plan of action and a reward system.

Picked up a number of books at yardsales including a literature study book at the high school level, and a few cooking magazines. Teaching cooking teaches fractions and measuring, AND how to eat good food.

Plan to take the boys to the big library in WOrcester as they only got a glimps of the inside one day and asked to come back. WHoot!!

Plan to make several produce boxes to store winter crops. FIgure the boys can hone their measuring skills, hammering skills and work-together skills on that project.

The basement walls need p ainting. WIll have them work out the supplies needed and calculate the amount of paint it require, the number of labor hours and see if reality matches their estimates. IT is really funny to see them realize the reality of a situation.

Hoping to get to a number of free museums on Fridays. WIll see about this though as best Friend must work on Fridays now and we used to tote our boys to these events as they enjoyed the outing much more with a friend to share it with.

Gardens are coming along and the boys are in the thick of it. A good skill to recognize different plants, know how to grow it and how to prepare it for eating.

Boys went hog wild grilling the night before last. Learned how to skewer small fish; learned skewers not soaked long enough burn thru, lol; and actually ate grilled yams !! I have been trying for years to get them to try yam again. Loved as little ones but detested in the later years. Looks like grilled yams are on the current menu.

WIll try to get them to p lot the electric usage. Read the meter and chart the numbers over the summer and thru the fall. Creates awareness of electrical use but also a great math exercise.

Keep the ideas coming and keep sharing the links-- that is much appreciated.

 

[collie1470]

I just found this thread and am excited about it. My fiance and I have talked about homeschooling when we have children. We both excel in different areas, which will make it easier (it's easier to teach when you yourself understand, after all). We are both huge science buffs (biology, earth sciences, and physics being my favorites, and biology, earth sciences, and chemistry being his). Language arts (both English and foreign) and the fine arts are very strong points for me, and he is brilliant with mathematics and history (history always has been my weakest subject). We both experienced more negative results than positive while going through public school, and don't want that for our kids. I saw far too many kids and teenagers struggling with public school for many reasons. It was boring, they were too far ahead and weren't learning anything new in school, the teaching methods didn't work for them, there wasn't enough one on one explanation, even teachers discouraging outside the box thinking!! The last was the worst for me. I had so much trouble in math classes in school because the teachers would refuse to recognize that there are multiple paths to the same outcome in a problem. And I would get in trouble for solving problems differently than they wanted.

We want to encourage out of the box thinking. After all, thinking outside the box is one of the greatest means to success as an adult. Being able to look at one problem from different angles is an important skill, in my opinion, and one that is thoroughly ignored in many public schools. But, I'm also a technician working toward becoming an engineer, so I may be biased

 

[DMRippy]

Welcome aboard! I hope we can help and vise versa! I think most people had similar experiences in school......kind of crushes your desire to learn too.

 

[collie1470]

It really does. Which is a terrible thing.

 

[herfrds]

I pulled my DD out of the public school here. Between the bullies and a certain teacher enough was enough! I used Time 4 Learning to finish up her 7th grade year; she left the school with mostly F's but ended the year with a C average.

Looking at the Christian litature courses. They offer German as a language and that is what she really wants to learn.

Still so much for ME to learn to help her.

 

[AliciaWA]

Just saying hi. New to chickens, but been homeschooling for 4 years now. The chickens started out as an incubation project through 4-H. We are learning as we go. We are eclectic in our homeschooling. Lots of room for interests, and building the curriculum around that (that's how this whole chicken thing got started). But we aren't quite unschoolers either.

Nice to see chicken/homeschooling families here.