What kind of home school approach do you follow?

That seems to be a very popular question! When I started homeschooling Buttercup, I was kind of thrown into it suddenly. I didn't have much time to research the different approaches to homeschooling. To be honest, I didn't know there were so many approaches to homeschooling. In my ignorant bliss, I just assumed people put together their own materials and study programs. Now, a whole school year later, I know that's not the case.

But that is how I did it, as a teacher myself, I already had knowledge and experience enough to come up with a program. But whenever I am asked what is our home school approach, I don't have an answer.

Well, I recently read an article on www.homeschool-curriculum.org that finally clarified all of the different approaches for me. The explanations are clear and concise; it also includes why some parents choose each approach.

Finally, I have an answer to stranger's questions....but why do I care what they think? Actually, I don't. It was more for me. And the answer is I don't really follow any approach. I do what feels right for me and my child. She gets to have a say in most of what she learns. I determine what are "the must haves". Buttercup gets plenty of free time to explore the great outdoors, museums, parks and other activities. We try to do as much hands on stuff as we can. I don't have textbooks, but I like the idea of keeping in line with our state guidelines.

Anyway, if you are starting on your own homeschooling journey, this website will be very helpful. I recommend reading the different approaches and trying them to see what works for your family.

Here's the link:

www.homeschool-curriculum.org


Also here are some other posts that might interest you.

5 Reasons I Home School

How I made the decision to home school p1

How I made the decision to home school p2

What happened to English Grammar and Spelling??

So as an English teacher by trade, I think it's very important to teach kids grammar and spelling. As the mother of a junior in high school, I can tell you that schools no longer teach grammar or spelling. It is appalling and they might tell you otherwise, but I can assure you this is the new reality. I don't know why grammar has been forgotten.

I've noticed that teachers are so focused on having students write, write, write. They have so many writing assignments that it is mind boggling. However, most of these writing assignments have no purpose. My high school age daughter writes so much, but she has no idea why. Then, the teacher collects the writings and you never hear another word about it. My question is: How are the kids supposed to learn from their mistakes? The answer is: They don't. Kids my daughter's age don't have a clue about modifiers, run on sentences or even correct placement of commas, colons, etc. It's astounding.

Spelling is another issue. The idea with spelling is that you should let the child spell the way they think the word is, or how the word sounds. The idea is to encourage young kids to write, even if it's incorrectly spelled. I've heard teachers say that correcting kids too much discourages them. That practice might work fine when kids are in kindergarten or even first grade. Eventually, kids need to learn the correct way to spell. The problem is, by the time teachers start focusing on correct spelling, kids have already created hard to break habits. It is too late!

So my philosophy is teach them while they are young. Kids can take criticism and should learn early on the right way of doing things.

My older daughter is in public school and never learned how to spell, except when I taught her at home. Her spelling is not stellar unfortunately, but I did the best I could given the situation. The school was of no help at all. I would edit her writing and they would not. They would tell her "it's ok". No, it's not ok. It is embarrassing to see grown adults who do not know the difference between "there", "their" and "they're".

Since I homeschool my first grader, I have a golden opportunity to do things differently, better.
We work on writing everyday, and while I encourage her to write creatively, we do go over her writing and work on spelling and grammar.

She's known her long and short vowels since she was 3 years old. I taught her about "word families", words that rhyme also when she was 3. I was encouraged by her first teacher in preschool, who noticed that my daughter was very smart and learned things quickly. The teacher told me to really challenge her at home above and beyond what she learned in school. I immediately started to do that and my daughter loved it. She soaked up all of this knowledge like a sponge. And everything I taught was using games. I can't tell you how many word games we played. I never pushed her. I let her choose the games and we played. As a result, she was reading in kindergarten. By the time she got to 1st grade, she was already reading at a 2nd grade level. That's when we decided to homeschool and she's flourished. She's an excellent speller for her age.

On this journey, I strive to offer my daughter a well rounded education where she can explore her interests while becoming very strong in the basics of reading, writing, and math. I will always put emphasis on proper English. I think it is fundamental.

How do you feel about teaching English grammar?

Stay at Home Moms - a Great Article

Good morning!! I just read a really wonderful article on MSN about the "new" stay at home moms and I just had to share it. It profiles today's moms who choose to stay home with their children. It also gives great advice and tips. Here's the link:

The New Stay-at-Home Mom

As a stay at home mom who homeschools, I am very familiar with the challenges as well as the advantages of staying home.
For me, one of the biggest challenges is the stigma. Believe it or not, there are still people out there who turn a nose at women like me. They have no idea what a hard job I have. I have heard comments like "do you sit around watching Oprah?". It's insulting and ignorant to say the least. I'm glad the article The New Stay-at-Home Mom, shows that today's stay at home mom is not a slave to the stove or laundry machine. We are a growing group of women who think it is important to be close to your children especially when they are young. We are also a group of women who work hard whether it's starting a business, blogging, or homeschooling.

The advantage of course is the privilege to be there for every important moment of my child's life. Taking charge of raising our kids instead of pawning them off to strangers. My children love the fact that I homeschool, attend every game or school event and take an active role in their lives.

What are the challenges you face as a stay at home mom? Please share your thoughts.

Homeschool and your local library

I guess I never realized the importance of our library until we started to homeschool.

Sure, we would go there once in a while to pick books to bring home. Sometimes, we would even spend time there reading books. But I don't think I really appreciated how much a library has to offer.

Now, my daughter and I go to our local library once a week and we take our time browsing the shelves and choosing just the right books for the coming week.

For my daughter, it is just fun. It is part of school and we try to go on the same day every week (library day). It's something we both look forward to.

In reality, it is a carefully planned outing. I do a lot of research on books I will need to support the lessons I am teaching. I like to have different resources at my disposal to make lessons as interesting as possible.

For instance, I was planning a lesson on healthy habits, so I found books about personal hygiene and health specifically for young children. I also use books to help reinforce math lessons. I always find good material at the library.

We've become quite comfortable with the library and it's massive amounts of books. My daughter is very familiar with the layout of the children's floor of the library and she is clear on what reading level she should be choosing.

During our first visit, I showed her where level appropriate books were and I helped her choose. I gave her guidelines and since then, she has become a pro at choosing her own books. It is important for her development to learn to make choices. She also likes to be in control of the books she chooses.


If you homeschool, use your local library. It is a very valuable resource and it's free.

1st Grade Art Project - Edward Hopper

As I posted last week, our lesson on Georgia O'Keeffe was a success. So now, it's on to our next project. I also mentioned that we would be doing paper snowflakes, which I think is perfect to decorate our "school" (actually my office turned homeschool). But that will have to wait.

The beauty of homeschool is the flexibility it allows me as the teacher and my daughter as the student. For instance, the two of us were at our local library last week and as we browsed the titles, my daughter recognized a book and pulled it from the shelf.

It happened to be a biography on Edward Hopper. The interesting thing about that is we had just seen his work at the Whitney Museum in New York a few days earlier. We were both intrigued by his style and when she picked his biography, I thought it was a perfect segue to our next art project.


A note about Edward Hopper: He was an American artist known for portraying everyday American life and the average American. His work is realistic and colorful, and well balanced.

I haven't fully planned out our lesson, but we will start by reading his biography. Then, we will discuss Hopper's paintings that are shown in the book. We will continue to explore his work online. And I'm sure we will do some activity, not sure what yet.

UPDATE: Our discussion of Hopper's work included talking about the shadows he uses in most of his paintings to show depth, time of day, distance, height, etc. Once we talked about it, my daughter was able to look at other Hopper works and see those things for herself. She really liked the colors he used and the realism of his work.

So on a sunny, but cold day, we took our paper and pencils and took a walk in our neighborhood. We found a place to sit and my daughter made a drawing of what she saw. The drawing portrayed life in our small town by showing the street lamp and building under construction.

Overall, it was a very good learning experience!

Art Projects and Homeschool

Art is definitely not my forte, but it is part of a well balanced curriculum in any school. So it should also be part of a homeschool curriculum. I've been doing a lot of research on the topic. How do I teach art to a 6 year old? How do I make it part of homeschool? What is the best way to integrate art with other things we are doing? These were a few of the questions I had. I came across some good ideas, but nothing really made sense to me. It seemed that some of the ideas were either too childish or too advanced. I don't want my daughter to just sit in front of a white sheet of paper and draw randomly. That's ok for afterschool but for an art class I was looking for something more structured. I wanted structure for me, as the teacher. Some guidelines that I could follow to make teaching art fun, productive, and educational.

I still haven't really found anything I can use. It's a shame because there is so much information out there for homeschool parents in general, but for this particular topic, there's not much. So, as with almost everything I do, I decided to come up with my own plan.

I am homeschooling a 1st grader who is naturally interested in art. That is a huge plus. I picked a couple of artists and/or artistic styles. I made a list. I am going down the list and trying different things.

My first artist was Georgia O'Keeffe. I picked this one on a recommendation. Looking back I would not have started with O'Keeffe in first grade. I think her style is too complex for first graders. I've also never been a big fan. But since homeschooling is not about me, I decided to give it a go.

First, I talked to my daughter about the artist in very general terms. Then we went to the library and got a biography about Georgia O'Keeffe (a children's biography). We looked through the book at first, then I began to read my daughter the story. Even this children's book was way too long and complex for a 6 year old. I read the story sometimes changing the words, making it simpler to understand. We did not read the whole book in one sitting.

On a different day, we read some more. At that point, we just talked about O'Keeffe and her art. I asked questions and my daughter answered in her own words. I encouraged her to talk about the art and how it made her feel. This part of the lesson was great.

Then, we went on the internet and looked at some more of Georgia O'Keeffe's art. I told my daughter to pick one that she really liked. When she found a purple flower, she was set. I then gave my daughter some paper and pencils and told her to make her own O'Keeffe flower.

I am very pleased with the outcome of this set of art lessons. I believe that in 1st grade, children do not need to know art in detail or know the names of artistic styles, etc. I believe at this age, children need to be introduced to a variety of styles in a supportive, creative environment, so they can explore their own tastes and abilities.

Next we are going to make paper snowflakes!! I can't wait.

If you read this blog and would like to contribute ideas, please do so! I welcome them. That is the purpose of this blog. I want to exchange information with other parents that are out there homeschooling and having their own experiences.

Gingerbread Men cookies!

My daughter and I decided to make gingerbread men cookies to celebrate the Christmas holiday. I had never made these before, so I took the easy route and bought a packaged mix. It couldn't have been easier! We had so much fun making these. And because the recipe was simple, she was able to help every step of the way.

I used Betty Crocker's gingerbread mix. All I had to add was butter, water, and an egg. Then mix, mix, mix until it becomes a soft dough. I actually had to knead the dough with my hands because with just the spoon (or even the mixer), the dough wouldn't come together. Once I worked the dough with my hands, it worked out perfectly.







I would also recommend watching these cookies closely when they're in the oven. There are two options for bake time on the package depending on the type of cookie sheet you use. I went with the shorter bake time and my first batch came out a little burned. So for the next batches I decreased the bake time by a minute or two. They bake very quickly.

Then we let them cool and decorated them. I'm no professional baker so the decoration is not the most perfect.
Do you include baking as part of homeschooling? What kinds of things have you and your homeschooled children been preparing this holiday season? Share!!

"Merry Christmas" in different languages

If you're interested in teaching your kids some culture this holiday season and making it part of homeschool, here's an idea that my daughter loved.

We were doing a lesson on Christmas around the world and how people celebrate the holidays. We found some traditions that are completely different than ours, but we also found some traditions in common. It was a very fun lesson and it teaches kids that our way is not the only way. It also teaches kids to respect other cultures and other people's traditions.

To make the lesson even more fun, we looked up how people say "Merry Christmas" in other languages. Here are our favorites:

Spanish - Feliz Navidad
Portuguese - Feliz Natal
French - Joyeux Noel
Italian - Buon Natale
German - Frohe Weihnachten

We wanted to learn some other ones, but couldn't find phonetic spellings for them. If anyone wants to add to this list, please do in the comments section and I will add them to the list.

We hope you enjoy your holidays and we look forward to a New Year full of great homeschool opportunities as well as lots of health, happiness, hope and joy!

So from our family to yours,
Merry Christmas!
Feliz Natal!
Joyeux Noel!
Feliz Navidad!
Buon Natale!
Frohe Weihnachten!