Why Home Schooling is Every Parents’ Job
Parents are the child’s first and best teacher. Home schooling is something that must take place whether you have opted to go the traditional private or public school route, or have decided to home school your children completely. Most traditional school years are 180 days. You must therefore ask yourself - What is your mission for your children’s learning the remaining 185 days of the year?
As a teacher who has taught in all forums, I believe it is a parent’s responsibility to establish solid foundations, provide pillars of support for those who are teaching our children when we are not with them, and take the bull by the horns by taking care of business in the event that optimum learning is not occurring during the school day.
Summer is right around the corner. In our little corner of the world we have exactly 18 days before the dog days of summer are on our door step and life asks us the inevitable question: What do we do now that they are home all day?
Home school = Home learning.
Learning must not stop simply because summer is in the sky. Children are ravenous for knowledge, routine, and enrichment. Not to mention maintaining basic literacy and math skills. Designing a learning schedule that affords children with needed routine, high expectations and a well established work ethic is a critical life skill that cannot be started to early. For our wee ones their play is their work, but our play can have purpose as well. Primary and intermediate grades might require a bit more creativity, but we all should all know by now – if you don’t use it you will surely lose it.
You do not need a teaching credential to enrich your child’s life with all the basic content that typically occurs during a given school day. Some of us are more adaptable and naturally patient, some of us aren’t. However, it is our responsibility as parents to take the baton from this year’s teacher and continue running the relay through summer, lighting the torch for a brighter tomorrow.
What are you summer learning plans for the family? Sign up for our writer’s workshop and let us help.
Cindy
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Summer learning plans – not so much book work, although all 3 big boys need to work on their fine motor skills for a bit each day.
They will also be provided with books and a weekly trip to the library. Older boys will have to do some reading to the younger ones, both for practice and because I think children learn best from each other. Also, will teach older boys responsibility and how to be loving and kind to little ones (I hope)
Otherwise in summer I take advantage of the warm weather to do messy art projects and experiments outdoors. Lots of just doing stuff with mom that I don’t have time for during the school year when I need to do it myself to get it done fast.
So true! I remember when mine were wee, the school holidays were a joy because our days were full and creative and they learned so much more with an adult’s complete attention. Even doing a jigsaw straight through was a delight. School has its own merits, but like you say, parents should never underestimate how much they have to offer their kids. I found it helped that I gathered resources and ideas throughout the year. Even sticker books or activity books on a rainy day used to seem like fun, even though the work they covered in them was often more challenging than what they did at school. They loved the parent child interaction most of all.
Now that they’re older, it’s joy to see that they don’t just lie around doing nothing or playing computer games. They instinctively know when to rest, when to socialise and when to create. They’re never bored because they both love reading as well as creative activities and music. I don’t regret for one moment giving up outside work to become a full time stay at home mum.
Excellent! — “For our wee ones their play is their work, but our play can have purpose as well.”
My mom was good at creating lessons from life, but then living on a farm was an education in itself! If you can get children involved with agriculture in some way over the summer, it’s a great eye-opener and lesson starter.
We use school vacations and summers to expose our children to things they otherwise wouldn’t see or do. Growing up in Orlando, our kids are theme park experts, but they know little about things like mountains, rivers and snow.
On our vacations we’ve travelled to places where they could experience natural wonders and wildlife. We’ve camped in many national parks like Yellowstone and the Great Smoky Mountains. We’ve also done activities like white water rafting, cliff rappelling, sledding and cave hiking. The kids get more out of those adventures than they do from riding roller coasters and merry-go-rounds.
Last summer we spent time at the Panama Canal, hiked through a rain forest and then two days living with a primitive Indian tribe in their village. It was a fascinating week.
We usually manage to weave in relevant lessons around our activities. It’s a nice way to combine vacations with education.
So true about setting and maintaining expectations over the summer. exposing them to the world around with a joy for learning in mind has it’s payoffs as they grow to be sure.
One of my favourite activities we did between the kindy and gr 1 year was a playground survey. We picked a different playground each week around our city, and they recorded details, and ratings about the playground afterwords. We used it to maintain writing skills, vocabulary, recording the weather, and of course how purely awesome the new playground was. My kids at 12 and 14 still talk about that summer.
We’ll be traveling some this summer, maybe head to a museum or something along those lines, especially on those rainy or too hot days. As far as keeping up with math and reading skills, Monkey is an avid reader and reads to Little Man a lot. She loves trips to the library, so we’ll do that a few times, too.
I’m also planning on picking up one of those general grade 2 activity books just for something to do. More importantly, though, since we will be homeschooling in the fall, we plan on starting one or two classes early on, maybe as early as July. I really believe in the year-round school schedule, so we’ll start to follow that this year.
I really like Trina’s idea of exploring and rating the playgrounds. I think we might work that into our summer, too.
Teach on the playground, in the kitchen, while getting read for bed, and every moment of the day. I’m not talking about drilling your child, but your line “play can have purpose as well” really works.
When I was pregnant with my first daughter, I remember reading to her, talking to her, just as if she were sitting right in front of me. And funny enough, she was………………….:)
Tracy: I love taking at least 20 minutes to enjoy reading with the children every day. I feel it is good for them to see us reading also. When we go to the library I make sure we all have a non negotiable number of minutes to read silently. So peaceful. Empowering the older ones to read to the wee ones promotes compassion and modeling that can easily be maintained during the summer.
Janice: School holidays are the best for connecting and reflecting. Your experience and investment in the children has paid off. You are an inspiration to us all.
Lori: Lessons from life are the most memorable. Agriculture captures life at it’s most basic element. My beginning years were spent on a dairy and tobacco farm and the children love hearing stories about my adventures. Unforgetable.
Susan: Wow! Your children are fortunate to be well traveled and with a balance of back to nature and the basics with camping as well as the exotic rainforest of Panama. A passport of travels and writing down the adventures is food for the soul.
Trina: Love the park/playground survey. That’s innovative and a keeper for the idea file. We are going to implement this one during our Staycation this summer. Memorable and purposeful. Love it!
KoolAid: All of your ideas sound like the formula to a well rounded summer of learning. I agree. The playground survey is top drawer.
Lisa: Absolutely. Drill and kill is not fun learning. The natural approach of thinking out loud and making big and small moments teachable and intimate is what our children remember the most.
My kids both have learning disabilities, and are both attending summer school (they don’t mind, they’re only 3 and 6). My youngest got an autism waver for in-home music therapy, so that’s starting soon. They also have therapeautic support, however, your post has given me pause.
There are in fact, some things I’d like them to learn this summer:
1. As she heads into the 1st grade, my older daughter who has Down syndrome has great difficulty counting. So I need to focus on math skills.
2. My little one still doesn’t have speech figured out yet, although she is slowly improving, so I need to get focused on some speech therapy.
3. Both need potty training.
4. Swim lessons! Thanks for the reminder, I’ll be looking at the local Y today. They LOVE the water and swimming will empower them.
And then before I know it, it’ll be September…
I did a combination of home schooling and public schooling – but we were always learning.
Now this summer I am going to Scotland to learn about my Father’s homeland and my oldest daughter will be helping me learn more IT skills for my blog. Always the love of learning.
Nice post
Patricia’s last blog post..Summer Reading: Thin is the New Happy ~By Valerie Frankel
ginabad: I feel we have a lot of resources that would be helpful for you and your children. Your “to do” list is manageable and we have several resources like early language help and potty training power. Sean and I would like to send you a complimentary Potty Training Power Training Kit to help you make your summer goals. The Early Learning Language Kit will be ready soon and we will keep you posted on how to obtain this valuable, systematic approach to help all children acquire and extend language opportunities. Nameste.
Patricia: Scotland. Yummy with a spoon. How fortunate to travel and learn with your daughter. I love the learning exchange between parent and child. It is so humbling when they are faster and know more about a subject matter like Spanish or technology. Sometimes they run circles around me, but I receive and accept their lessons as patiently as they accept mine. I feel this kind of reciprocity is the good stuff making a family is about.
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My kiddo does run circles around me – actually all three do! Now it is nice to just sit back and enjoy the show or the lessons! Scotland – yes Yummy with a spoon! I am in the too excited phase today…can hardly focus
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