Retrospect - Week 3

Week 3 can best be described as a complete meltdown. It wasn't a meltdown for Kylie. It was more of a meltdown for me. The activities for week 3 focused on "life on a farm" and "the definition of family". These topics seem simple enough, but the fact that once again I couldn't find any of the recommended books available anywhere finally took its toll on me. Additionally, the limited number of stores that I searched for toy farm animals either had very high priced toys ($3 each) or none at all. I think between my wife and myself, we checked WalMart, Target, Walgreens and Toys 'R' Us. Not a huge list of places, but we have limited time to shop. We couldn’t even find the alternate choice of farm animal stickers. The toy part is my fault, I just wasn't prepared, but the rigidity of the curriculum is becoming a huge problem.

So basically, we did a whole lot of nothing. The meltdown got progressively worse as my own school work piled up and I began my daily exercise routine again. In a nutshell, I really need to focus on time and resource management. I was going to give week 3 another go this week, but our weekend proved to be far too busy for me to prepare properly…again. I need a new plan of attack. I'm glad that this whole thing is a "dry run" to prepare for the real thing. I know that there aren't any perfect rules for when homeschooling should begin. I've just been gauging it on when Kylie would normally begin public school which would be this Fall. My hope is that she would actually be classified as first-grade level when she would normally be starting kindergarten. It's not really a homeschool way to look at it, but it's a big paradigm shift that I am still adjusting to and learning about.

Part of my developing a revised plan has been reviewing homeschooling methods. Since I seem to have fallen into the "school at home" approach more than I wanted to, I have been reading about the other end of the spectrum, "unschooling". What I've read so far seems extreme to me. I don't think it's all bad, but some of it just feels risky. I understand that there are various degrees of unschooling, but some of the more extreme approaches border on neglect in my opinion. Letting your kids choose to play video games and watch TV all day simply because that's what they are into at the moment doesn't seem like education at all. But before any of the great unschoolers out there rip my head of for being ignorant or close-minded, I will admit that some of what I read is very insightful. Allowing a child to choose subjects that they want to learn and sometimes even how they want to learn it makes a lot of sense to me. Kids (all humans actually) are more likely to retain what they learn when they learn it on their own terms. I just think that because we live in a society that primarily consists of products of the public school system, developing some of those same skills along a similar timeline is important in order for the child to relate to his/her peers. Perhaps I will change my mind if we make some friends in the homeschool/unschool community so that we don't feel so isolated. People really do treat you like you are crazy when you tell them that your kid won't be attending a formal school.

Anyway, the primary purpose of this post is to remind you and myself that there will be setbacks and that we can overcome them. I'm not giving up. I'm just finding my way. Kylie is having a blast, so that keeps me going. For the rest of this week we will focus on trips to the library, the park and planning our geocaching…which reminds me. I ordered a handheld GPS unit so that we can start geocaching. If you aren't familiar with it, I think of it as mini-treasure hunting. There is an entire site dedicated to it. Basically, geocachers hide various sized containers in locations all over the world. The GPS coordinates are then provided, and other geocachers use the coordinates to hunt for the containers. Each container has some kind of "treasure" inside. Once you find it, you can take the treasure, sign the visitor log (if there is one) and then leave a new treasure for the next person. The cool part is that these caches are everywhere. I did a search using my zip code and nearly 2500 results popped up. At first I thought we would only do this while on the road with mom, but with that many results, we can go geocaching any time we want. You can learn more at dadlabs.com or geocaching.com.

I will also work on the new lesson plans for next week. It will most likely be a more eclectic approach.

Where to Begin?

The Internet is a tremendous resource for gathering information on any subject. Actually, "tremendous" may be an understatement. The Internet is a gargantuan resource, and sometimes it can be overwhelming to the point of paralysis. I have always learned in a linear fashion. I can learn how to do just about anything from a textbook, video or hands-on exercise. However, if you put me in a workgroup or send me to a website, I get lost very quickly. Most websites are designed to fit as much information as possible on each page. To me, all of the text and links are just a bunch of white noise that I must filter out before I can make any sense of it. I literally feel like every line of text is screaming at me to "look over here" or "click me, click me". I drive my wife crazy when I am running the keyboard while we navigate websites "together". She can instantly focus on the places she needs to go, while I tend to read everything before I proceed. Finding what I need can be frustrating and time consuming. If you find yourself in the same boat, I'm hoping that I can help you skip some of that frustration by sharing my favorite pages of some of the best websites.

Today's sample comes from Homeschool.com. They have a seemingly endless amount of information on their site. I will most likely be sifting through it for many weeks. For now, here are my three favorite pages from their site:

1. Free Podcasts - That's right! Free! They have hours and hours of MP3's that you can listen to directly from the website, or you can download them to listen to offline. So far I have only listened to the first one, featuring Rhonda Barfield. From this one podcast, I have already learned new terms like "unschooling" and "school-at-home". Learning this new vocabulary will help me focus my searches on the methods of homeschooling that interest me the most.

2. Homeschooling Approaches - This page lists some of the most popular "styles" of homeschooling. Each link provides a brief description of that style. These descriptions should help you decide the method (or combinations of methods) that you can use as a starting point. You may be surprised to find that homeschooling is very flexible and can be customized to meet the needs of your daily routine.

3. Local Support Groups - This is the first place that I have found that has a list of support groups by state. I have yet to contact any of the support groups, but I will be doing so next week. It may take some time to separate the good from the not so good, but it's always great to have a place to start. If you are wondering what a support group does exactly, you are not alone. As I find out I will post what I learn. I am hoping that they can help with things like, for lack of a better term, "play dates", as well as a place to collaborate on group field trips.

It may seem odd that I would direct you away from my blog to another site. The sites that I recommend could easily become your favorite resource, leaving me in the shadows. That's fine by me, as long as you are finding what you need. If you ever lose your way, please return here to see if I have covered the subject you are looking for. If I haven't, send me an email and I will see what I can dig up.

- Ryan

Dispelling Myths

I would like to begin this journey by directing you to a site that helped me to remove my biggest obstacle to homeschooling…my own doubts. It never fails. Time after time, I find myself among a group of parents and the conversation always turns to our kids. They ask how old Kylie is (she's 4) and the next question is always, "Will she be starting kindergarten next year?" I know it's a reasonable question, but I got tired of answering it because 9 times out of 10 the response was negative or politely condescending. Such a negative response can wear on a person and make them wonder if they are making the right decision. I had finally decided to just answer "yes, she will be starting kindergarten next year" while telling myself that technically this was true because I would begin with kindergarten level "curriculum". This still seemed like a half-truth at best.

Relentlessly, I continued to ask myself if I could really do this. Perhaps I was being too idealistic, or worse, maybe the public school system isn't really that bad after all. Maybe it's all in my head. Then I found this site during a Google search, and all of that negativity just faded away. It's amazing how much support you can get from people that you have never even met, just because they were kind enough to take the time to put into words a pep talk designed to rally disheartened souls. Thank you At Home in America, for helping me break through the negativity.