Almost Unschooling Grama

Do you live in an older home or is there a building in your town that you find intriguing? Hunting down the history of buildings is a great way to learn about the history of your town with lots of fascinating rabbit trails to go down. To start with, you will need to make a list of questions you would like to know about the building. As you investigate, you will think of more, but try to start off with at least 3-5.  You might want to know: When was the building was constructed? Who built the building? What is the style of architecture? Has it been remodeled or added on to? Who was the original owner and how many owners has it had? Are there any interesting events that happened there? What was around the building when it was built and how has that changed through the years? Has the building had different functions over the years? What was the original cost of the building and how much is it worth now? There are a variety of resources to help you answer these ques...

My poor kids! They were guinea pigs and my oldest got the worst of it! Back in the 80s when we started homeschooling, none of us knew what we were doing. All we knew was there had to be a better way than sending our kids off to be taught by strangers in an increasingly questionable environment. Unfortunately, the only model of education we had available to us was the 12 or more years of traditional schooling that we had endured. If I were to do it all over again, here are some of the things I wish I had known. My kids don’t have to finish a textbook. There’s nothing wrong with choosing not to finish a textbook, or to pick out parts of it and ignore other parts. Teachers in traditional schools do this all the time. Using textbooks does not prevent gaps in learning. One of my greatest fears about homeschooling was that somehow my kids would get to adulthood not knowing all they needed to know to function in society. Following the textbooks was supposed to alleviate that. It d...

We’ve all been there. You know, that day when you and your child have worked so hard learning something new, like their ABCs or how to do long division. They’ve got it and you are so proud of them. Then … all of a sudden, out of the blue … they can’t remember how to do it! No matter how you hint, cajole, or even threaten, they keep insisting they don’t remember. You know they know this stuff! What’s up? Makes you want to tear your hair out! But, before you engage in a battle of wills, assuming your child is rebelling and lying to get out of work, I want you to consider another possible explanation. I call it “Jello Brain”. You see, the brain is made up of about a billion neurons. These little neurons communicate with each other by sending electronic impulses from one neuron to another. When we learn something new, these neurons fire electronic impulses along a new path through the brain cells. When this path is well established, the thing that has been learned is...

I really want to talk to you about teaching and timing. I am a farmer’s wife. In farming, timing is everything when it comes to the harvest. If you harvest too soon, the grain won’t be mature or dry enough. The crop will be short or non-existent and what you do manage to harvest will not store well without a great deal of extra effort. A farmer can do things to ensure that the harvest will be the best it can be: He can plant the seed at the right depth and at the right intervals, He can water, fertilize, and implement pest and disease management procedures, He can cultivate or spray to control weeds, but, he has to  look at the crop itself  to know when it is time to harvest. The seed packaging has information about approximately how long it will take for the seed to mature and there are books and charts that can give him a clue as to what to expect, but real-life growing depends on the variables of genetics, temperature, sunshine, and rainfall. Teac...

Homeschooling is hard, but then, so is parenting. If you are even close to being a decent parent, you are already doing most of the things a homeschooler does. If you are brave enough to take the plunge, it’s likely you will find that homeschooling fine-tunes your parenting skills, helps you understand how your children think and strengthens your relationship with them. Most homeschoolers who stick it out for a year or two find themselves on the other side of the fence: Sending their children to a traditional school seems like the harder education option.  If you have a child in a traditional school, the likelihood is that you are already spending as much time or more than the typical homeschool parent spends on educating a child. How can that be? A child in a typical school has to be readied for school every morning, then there’s transport, homework after-school, extra-curricular activities, etc., not to mention all the stress caused by doing these things when the child...

At one point in our lives, we ended up on food stamps. Even though we didn’t have money for soap, we ate like kings! We could eat steak a couple of times a week if we wanted to. From then on I wondered why people go hungry when they are on food stamps. Fast forward 25 years – We were doing farmer’s markets and had signed up to accept WIC checks as payment for our eggs and produce. It was incredible. We live in a fairly rural area, but most of the younger people we accepted WIC checks from did not know how to cook fresh vegetables. Many didn’t even recognize what we were selling. We also accepted senior WIC checks. Those folks had no questions about what we were selling or how to cook it. The difference? The older folks grew up with mom at home and learned to cook from her. The young people we saw had no idea because mom wasn’t around and they were shuffled from school to activity and babysitters.  They grew up on frozen meals and ready made stuff from a box. In many schools, h...

One of the very first things anyone who wants to homeschool ought to learn is how to speak “Educationese”. Educationese is an industry language created by education professionals to categorize, organize and describe learning. It is one of the reasons those who have been through 13 or more years of traditional school feel intimidated when entertaining the idea of teaching their own children, but it’s really just the difference between “interdigitation” and “holding hands”. It’s not hard. Educationese just takes a little creativity and practice. When you incorporate Educationese into your description of your children’s learning, you gain credibility and you will impress your friends and family. Here’s how: For two weeks, don’t “do” any school. Just keep a list of the things your kids are doing. Then at the end of each day, see if you can fit those things into educational categories. Example: Make bed, straighten room: Home-Ec At breakfast talked about vitamin C in o...

The other day I was listening to Iowa Public Radio and heard a horrifying account about a school called Normandy High School. Apparently, it is one of the most violent schools in the nation. Normandy High is in  the bottom 10% of Missouri high schools  based on how the student body performed on the state reading and math exams. The drop out rate is around 40%. The school actually lost its accreditation for a few years and wound up being shut down. Its students were transferred to other schools, but due to political maneuvering, it wound up being reopened with what sounds to me like a bogus accreditation and all those students were once again imprisoned in this failing segregated school. I just want to scream  at the parents, “YOU DON’T HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THIS! YOU HAVE A CHOICE! PULL YOUR KIDS OUT OF THERE AND HOMESCHOOL!” Fortunately, from what I understand many African American parents are getting this message. The black homeschooling community ...

Several months ago, I was singing in church and I got to wondering why we sing in church. Years before that, I had a vision during praise and worship in which the music being played made up the walls of the temple and we were moving inside these walls. I know the power of music, but why exactly do we incorporate it into a worship service? Until recently, music was something you only experienced if you made it yourself or participated in a group such as church. Is the music portion of the service something left over from the long centuries of no radio or audio equipment? Do we really need it now that we have worship music available 24/7? Yeah, my worship leader friends are probably thinking I’m nuts or some kind of a traitor right now. This intrigued me, so I started dogging God about it. Soon, I was seeing all kinds of stuff about how music affects the brain. Researchers have found that music has profound effects on the human brain. Memory, speech, creativity, motor control a...

When I started homeschooling, everyone thought I would fail, including me. It was rare to be able to walk thru my house. It was such a mess! And my kids tended to look like this little girl most of the time. I couldn’t discipline myself, much less my children. 5 years into this adventure, we had some teachers come and paint our windows. I was working nights at the time and the kids were pretty much on their own. These teachers were absolutely amazed at how well behaved my kids were while I slept. They would work on their assignments and chores and play quietly as I slept. Turned out that homeschooling (with a hefty dose of prayer) taught me about self-discipline and delegation. It didn’t happen right away, but it was key to lifting me and my kids out of the mess I was in. In the beginning, I couldn’t add 2 + 2 without a calculator. By taking on the responsibility of homeschooling, I grew and learned right along with my children. My older 2 children went to the local high sch...

Do you homeschool? If so you have the perfect opportunity to mix up those boring categories that traditional schools use to compartmentalize learning. Here are just a few ways to get some hands-on learning that mixes up the subjects. Feel free to count the time spent doing these activities as History, Language Arts or both! Stage a debate between George Washington and King George! (Or any two opposing historical figures.) Choose a historical event. Pretend you are a director who is casting the actors for a movie about it. Then choose people to play the characters. These can be anyone! – Friends, historical figures, actual actors, even fictional! Explain who you would choose and why. Make a comic book depicting an event you are studying. When studying historical conflicts such as the Civil War or the Civil Rights Movement, have your kids write letters to the editor written from the perspective of someone on each side. Create a classified ad to promote a historical event....

It was pretty easy to homeschool in Illinois even way back in the age of the dinosaurs when I began homeschooling. The law just required me to teach several basic subjects and that the students should receive an education in these subjects at least equivalent to public schooling. I wasn’t too nervous about teaching the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic, but PE? That kinda freaked me out. How was I supposed to teach my kids about square dancing and dodge ball when there were only two of them and a baby? The YMCA was out of our one car family’s ability and the local school district wasn’t very homeschool friendly. I did manage to hook up with a homeschool group that occasionally offered group PE classes, but for the most part, there wasn’t a whole lot available. Then it occurred to me that the whole reason for PE in schools was because educators recognized that the structure of sitting still all day was actually harmful to the student’s health. The purpose for PE was to...

Many people want to own a second home where they can get away from it all. Me? I just want to live in one house. I want to sleep in my house, cook in my house, eat in my house, and work in my house (or in the land surrounding it). I want my husband working there too and my kids living close enough that my grandkids can come see Grama Sue anytime they want. That’s my dream. We were very close to living this dream at one time. It was challenging in every way, but if I could go back to it, I would in a heartbeat. Many years ago, when I first started teaching kids other than my own, my husband thought I needed to build a little building to house my “school” so I could “go to work”. I steadfastly resisted. I liked being able to help a child with their math,  put in a load of laundry, read a book aloud and then work on lunch while the kids helped each other with their spelling drills. I love having an integrated life. Years later, when we decided it was time for Grampa Tom to come...

They really make me jealous! You know, those awesome radical unschooling types that never make a plan. They just wake up in the morning and follow any little (or big) rabbit trail that perks their or their children’s interests! I personally know a couple of ladies like this in real life. They pursue life one day at a time, their houses always look nice and their attitude is “If God wants us there, He’ll lead us to it.” One of them loves to take college courses. She doesn’t really care if the college courses lead to employment, she just loves to learn … and her kids … they are always following such marvelous pursuits … just for the love of learning! The other is older and her kids have left home, but she still has that same attitude. UGH! You know what happens to me if I don’t have some structure? I wind up with 17 different projects demanding to be done right now, you can’t walk through my house and I’m stressed to the max from my lack of direction! Can you relate? Then keep rea...