Category:

Making Changes to... A day in our life.

2/2/2015

I have been wanting to make some changes to how we approach our homeschooling days for a while now. I've tried a few different things, and am now going to do a combination process. The reason for this is two-fold.
1. to appease a child who wants to know what must be done before he can do his own thing.
2. to provide some encouragement and accountability to me.

The use of a small white board to write on big things I want done (science, history etc)

Using the white board works really well for my boy. He likes wiping off what he has done. BUT the white board isn't big enough to hold all that I like to get done. AND I want to help foster some independent work with my boy as well so... I"m making up a check list that he can well.. CHECK off. :)

This way I know we have things we can and will get done in the course of a week and we can monitor how our month is going. That way if we need to pick up the pass on something (that we are falling behind in, we'll be able to see it). It contains things he's to do daily as part of living life, as well as things he's to do as a regular part of homeschooling.

Since reading Motivate Your Child, it was impressed upon me that a child needs to learn to find ways to be helpful. So I added that to a daily thing for my lad to do. But sometimes he would come and say "mom, tell me what to do. I don't know what to do". So I asked him if it would be helpful to have a list to refer to for when he can't think of something. To that end we have this sheet. This way he still needs to think of what has to be done, but on those days when your brain isn't working well, he can still come up with a way to be helpful around the house.

This world we live in

8/20/2013

Two articles this morning saddened me

this one from the huffington post. A horrible letter sent to a autistic boy's mom. I do not understand the hatred. Well.. okay I do understand the hatred, that's just sin in the world expressing itself. I don't understand the need to express it. It's like... if you have a problem, why doesn't the author leave? If you have a problem, why don't you find a polite way to express yourself? WHY be so hateful and negative? Is it just another symptom of how selfish the world is becoming? OH my, but how this world needs to know God more.

The second article comes from the Time.   It's about school being a hostile environment for boys.   I have to admit, this article doesn't surprise me.   With all the alarm about guns and bullying and violence, Schools are hard places for boys to be in. Not that boys are bullies any more than girls are, but the whole guns = violence that seems to be linked together.

Sometimes I think common sense is leaving too many places. Why can't you just let children play?

The thing is....this kind of stuff is part of the homeschooling community as well. I have talked with mom's who have struggled to get their special needs children understood and welcomed.   With parents who struggle with their boys being boys and "why can't they just be like the girls?". Well.. it's because they are BOYS. They aren't girls. Boys think differently.

God has programmed boys to be leaders and defenders of the family.   And they do so in a variety of ways... but that's still what has been put into who we are.   It doesn't mean that women aren't defenders of the family as well, but we do so in a different manner (Most of the time).

Why can't we just accept the differences that are given us?

Whether that be special needs or "normal". Whether that be male or female? Why don't we just celebrate those differences and not degrade them in each other?

Your thoughts?

Five Days Blog Hop

8/5/2013

Welcome to the five day blog hop. 90 bloggers, 450 posts, five days of busyness.   Lots of reading to accomplish and bloggers to know.   Come on, visit us, it will be fun! :)

I have chosen to blog about the homeschooling a singleton.   I have one eight year boy. He is generally a joy to teach, but like everyone he is a work in progress and some days are easier then others.   Some of the things I will talk this week are socialization, curriculum, specialization, aloneness and whatever else I think of. :)

One of the things people mentioned over and over when we mentioned we planned to him school our son was what will we do for friends for him?   Have to admit, the whole friendship thing hadn't even been a blip on the horizon for me before then. (after all I went through k-8 with a bunch of acquaintances NOT friends). Then if that weren't enough, people started querying how would he ever get used to learning with other people, and having to share time with the teacher and all that. This was another thing that I hadn't even remotely considered.

So would I be depriving my son if we chose to homeschool him?
No.   That's plain and simple how I see it.

You see I love to read. Love it, you will rarely find me without at least three or four books on the go at any one time.   I love to read about all sorts of things, but have a fondness for reading about life in the past...to that end I am currently reading the little house on the prairie series with my lad.      In our not that distant past most children were taught at home, and yet those children went on and became inventors, leaders in their communities and more. Successful men and women in their day.   Their parents didn't stress about the need of their children to have fun, or to learn with others, their stress was to teach their children to be productive members of society, able to hold their own.

This is my aim as well. I wish for my son to be a productive member of society, skilled in discernment, which I firmly believe a Caucasian, Christian male is going to need to be in our upcoming years. I need for him to be able to think his way through issues, to form thoughts based in research and thinking, having friends to walk with him through this would be benefit, but NOT as necessity.    He will need to learn how to walk in communion with others (which will mostly be people of a variety of age groups) but his making friends now is not of paramount importance and therefore is not something that I would consider as a reason to NOT to homeschool him.    Peer socialization would not be a make it or break it proposition for me at all.

My boy, learning and growing is more important to me than making friends

That said.... does my lad have friends? Do I make a point of helping him make friends? For sure.

This boy has friends and it so pleases me that they range in age from 4 years old to 12 years old. They are male and female. He's not stuck in one age or gender bracket. There is learning and growing done when one has friends that range in age....sometimes he learns, sometimes he teaches. It's all good....and it's fun, and good times, and memory making opportunities. :)

You can read online about what other folks think about homeschooling and socialization. Tons of things popped up for me when I put it into the search engine.

But here are a few you might find interesting:

The Unschooling life.
Homeschooling and Socialization.
Social Skills and Homeschooling.