The First Week of School

The curriculum that I chose to use is called Konos. The lessons are based on themes, so that all four children can be learning the same theme but their assignments are tailored for their age-level. They each have their own math and language arts books, but we spend a relatively small amount of time doing workbooks (which is why Johnathan can do his workbook on the floor under some pillows without getting extremely uncomfortable). This curriculum focuses more on activities and discovery learning. If you've ever seen The Magic School Bus, then you know what I'm talking about.

I chose to start the year learning about Cooperation. If there's any way we will survive this school year, it will have to involve cooperation. There are several subjects in the Cooperation Unit, including the human body (ie. all the body systems work together), the 50 states (working together to make one country), and bumblebees (you get the idea). The last subject is about the family, and that is what I started with. We will come back to the other subjects later in the year.

While learning about families, we discussed our own family tree and attempted to make one for our wall. That led to discussions on the different races of our ancestors. I had checked out quite a few books from the library about races and families around the world. They discovered that children around the world have a lot in common.

We read a fascinating book about America's oldest family farm, and how they worked together to keep it running all these years.

As an example of a family that worked together during hard times, we watched the movie "Little Women" and read some exerpts from the book. Normally, this is not a movie that my kids would have been able to sit still for. But I made a rule at the beginning of the week that there will be no TV on school days, so they were starting to go through withdrawal. I think they would have watched anything I put on the TV.

My plan for Wednesday afternoon was to come up with games for the kids to play that would involve cooperation rather than competition. Surprisingly, while I was still finishing my lunch, the kids started to play pretend. At first, they were making a human sandwich.

And then, someone had the idea to make a fort in the living room. My first inclination was to tell them "no" because it would make a big mess. But.... when I realized that they were inventing their own cooperation games and they weren't begging to watch TV, I decided to let them do it. They played kings and queens in a castle for over two hours before they started to get annoyed with each other!! And they got it all cleaned up before Luis got home. :)

Other activities during the week included working together on a story about "The Perfect Family Vacation", learning some spanish words for family members, acting out situations that cause conflict and finding a peaceful solution, and discussing our roles in the Family of God.

So that's it for our first week. Of course I won't be giving a detailed account every week, but I knew some of you were wondering how our first one went. :)

Homeschooling 4kids... Am I crazy?

Of course, I don't think I'm crazy, but others might. Even my own mom's initial response was, "Why in the world would you want to do that?!" But once I explained my reasons, she became very supportive. I expected to hear responses like that from most people, but I really began to question myself when I started getting feedback from my homeschooling friends. They seemed to get exhausted just considering the idea of homeschooling four kids (especially the friends who only have one or two kids). And, yes, I agree it will be a lot of work. But I haven't changed my mind. Here's why:

I've been teaching Andre (my oldest, who is eleven) at home for a couple of years now. My reason for keeping him home was primarily because he did not do well in a traditional classroom and he was quickly becoming a very angry, unhappy child. After a few months of teaching him at home, I saw a dramatic improvement in his emotional well-being.

Since then, I've debated with myself about whether or not to homeschool all four children. I've wondered what was really, truly the best option for them. My biggest motivation for considering homeschool was their character development. Slowly but surely each child is developing character traits that I really don't like. But, honestly, that's only logical. They spend a few hours at home and church each week learning positive traits, while they spend over 40 hrs a week in a school enviroment which models an unknown amount of negative traits. I feel like all of my time is spent correcting behavior which leaves no time for improving behavior.

At the beginning of the summer, I began to do some research and seek guidance. I prayed that God would make it clear to me what was the best choice for our kids. And I really believe that God answered that prayer.

There were two events over the summer that made a big impact on me. The first one was at a "Getting Started" event with my local homeschool group. They call themselves the Unfailing Homeschoolers, and many of my close friends are members. I attended a couple of their events last year with Andre and I was really impressed with the size of the group, the organization, and the committment of its leaders. So I attended the "Getting Started" event, even though I had already been homeschooling for two years, because I was now about to "jump in with both feet", as they say. One of the leaders gave a very encouraging talk which addressed many of the fears that mom's face when they first make this decision.

• What if I don't teach my kids everything they need to know?
• What if I can't be organized enough and we end up in chaos?
• What if I actually do more harm than good?

It was encouraging to know that all moms have these fears, and yet they become successful homeschoolers anyway. But the one phrase that really stuck with me was something like this: If you don't start out with a strong conviction that homeschooling is best for your family, then you won't last long. That's what I needed: a strong conviction. So far, I really didn't have one. I thought that the idea of homeschooling was great for some families. But lots of kids go through the traditional school system and turn out just fine. So I needed to be convinced that homeschooling my children would be a better option than any other before I could finally make this decision.

The second event that impacted me was the H.E.R.I. Convention here in Jacksonville. The keynote speaker was a man named Andrew Pudewa who is the director for the Institute for Excellence in Writing. I really enjoyed hearing him speak. His lecture on "Freedom Education" opened my eyes to different methods of teaching children. He made me question the history and philosophy behind our American school system, referring often to a book called "The Underground History of American Education" by John Taylor Gatto (which can be read for free online). I was reminded that our public school system has not really been around for very long, and that many of the great founders of our country were taught at home. When the lecture was over.... I was convinced.

Since then, I have purchased the curriculum (more about that later), made our daily schedule, bought school supplies, and officially began school on Monday, the 24th.

I'm planning to blog every now and then about our experiences. I expect to have lots of interesting stories. :)

In my next blog, I will go into the details of what I learned in that lecture and in beginning to read that book for myself.