We homeschool our two kids, 8 and 5.
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Originally Posted by Jenamarie
How much time during each day do you dedicate to "school"?
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The formal sit-down-and-do-something portion is maybe 11-12 hrs/wk total. That amount goes up a little every year.
The prepare-the-kid-to-be-a-mature-contributing-happy-member-of-society portion is a little hard to quantify, but probably about the same amount of time.
(In Colorado, the state requirement is 172 days/yr, 4 hrs/day average)
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Do you have a "classroom" in your house, or is it just your kitchen table?
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Kitchen table. And the car, the McDonald's play place, the park, doctor's offices, and anywhere else we happen to be. We have most of the 'sit-down' stuff in a binder my wife hauls around. We have a dry-erase board in the living room, and the front door hallway is where we hang large-print artwork that we got from a Dept of Education grant for schools.
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Where do you keep your school supplies?
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Anywhere and everywhere. We've got a bookcase of crafts in the kitchen, a bookcase of books in the kid bedroom, a bookcase of curriculum and math stuff in the living room.
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How do you handle teaching kids at different grade levels at the same time?
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We're finding that to be a bit of a struggle at first. 8 and 5 - one can't read or write or spell, the other is still learning to spell. They tell me that as our kids get older, they get more self-directed and capable of following lessons themselves. Right now, it's rather haphazard.
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Do you buy pre-made curriculums, or come up with your own?
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Our overall philosophy is found in the
Well Trained Mind book. We follow bought curriculums for math, language/grammar, and history. Latin, reading/spelling, piano, chemistry, and typing do involve a book or program, but don't involve a formal curriculum.
And of COURSE we expose our children to "drugs, alcohol, sexualized relationships, violence and just plain antisocial behavior". The purpose of educating kids, is to create healthy, capable, smart, strong adults that can handle the realities of life. You can't do that and hide reality from them at the same time. We just expose them in ways that are unlikely to result in their adopting such crap into their own lives. We've visited casinos, and they've had a good look at the rows of unhappy people chained to slot machines. We talk to cops and have sat behind bars and thought about consequenses. We talk with folks who have overcome addictions, about how better life is clean. We talk about pregnancy and kids and shacking up and being ready and not being ready. It's not that hard - so far, they've come up with perfectly comforting answers to "does that sound like a good thing to do?" type questions.
Homeschooling is hard. You need energy, and you need to reeeeeeeealy love to spend a TON of time with your kids, every day. Not everyone should homeschool. Not every kid should be homeschooled. But if it's in the kid's best interests and is happening, it is beautiful.
LM