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...