Jennifer Kaufeld - Homeschooling For Dummies

Use the people and organizations around you to fill in the gaps that you perceive in your own knowledge. The help may be as simple as a self-teaching textbook that guides your learner into the knowledge he needs, or it may mean locating a personal tutor. Here are a few ideas to get you started. Hopefully they’ll jump-start your thinker and point you in the right direction:

Turn to local athletic groups such as the YMCA or parks department for courses. These organizations teach tennis, swimming, fencing, basketball, aerobics, and a host of other sports and athletic skills.

Engage a volunteer homeschool parent who specializes in what you don’t. Maybe that mom across the city majored in biology, exactly the subject that you need for your ninth grader. Give her a call.

Trade skills and accomplishments. Although your homeschool friend feels confident teaching advanced grammar, you love to teach various needlework techniques. If you need an English tutor and your friend wants someone to teach a home economics class, a trade is in order. Meet at one person’s house and trade children for an hour or so until all the children learn the skills they lack. COPING WITH HELP THAT YOU DON'T THINK YOU NEEDWe all come up against it sometime: that well meaning yet annoying help from those around us. Generally, it comes from family members indoctrinated into the educational scene, such as your sister the public school teacher or your father the assistant superintendent. Once in a while, you hear the horror stories that come from Aunt Mathilde who just loves to pass along anything gory, and bizarre homeschool stories top her favorites list.Helpful family members and neighbors are enough to drive you crazy, especially when they’re helpful in that nonhelpful sort of way. Demeaning your choice to homeschool and privately telling your children that their parents are wrong does not classify as helpful. This only places a wedge between parents and the antagonistic adult.Your best bet is to quietly stand your ground and let time speak for itself. Anytime you walk outside of someone’s frame of reference, you’re bound to hear interesting comments from people. The bottom line is that this is your child and your child’s education, which makes it your prerogative if you want to teach them at home. As your child makes progress, others will see it. It may take several years, but eventually they have to face the truth in front of them: Your child is learning, and she does it outside a traditional classroom setting.Be patient with family members who truly try to be helpful but consistently miss the mark. They want to support you but don’t know exactly how. In this case, sometimes inviting them over to watch a day or two of your school routine helps to show them what you really do — as well as what you don’t do — it may even show them how they can truly be of assistance. Sitting with your child and listening to him read aloud, acting as an extra pair of hands during that trip to the zoo, or showing your child how to work with wood, paint a picture, or shoot a bow all qualify as helpful assistance.Your goal is to redirect the interested adult to projects or tasks that actually add to your learning experience. Many times you mention a specific skill, such as gardening, only to hear “Why in the world would he want to learn that?” At this point, you want to show how gardening fits into your overall school plan. (Gardening can be a science topic, and its pursuit can show a child the skills that are needed to begin and complete a project.) At the same time, you assure this person that they’re the perfect person for it. Because they are! If you find someone who wants to help you and offers skills that you don’t have, it saves you time and effort to incorporate them. It also builds relationships and memories between your children and the adults in your lives.

Hire a tutor. Many former teachers willingly tutor in their special areas, no matter where you live. Ask through the grapevine or check your community Facebook groups to find a local tutor.

Delve into a stack of library books. If you want to learn a new skill, such as photography, take a trip to the library and pore over the books. A good local library usually contains enough resources to give you a good start.

Take a class. Community colleges, studios, and private teachers offer courses in art and music if you want to pursue subjects such as these in your homeschool but feel a definite lack of talent coursing through your veins. Sign up for one and re-teach your student at home, or (especially in the case of music lessons) enroll your child and see how it goes.

Call a family member. Maybe your brother or sister-in-law makes a living in the very subject you need and would be willing to tutor their niece or nephew in exchange for dinner once a week. You work out the arrangements however you like, but I know my brother and sister-in-law would definitely show up for hamburgers or chili, even if I asked them to help with our studies. (They may think twice about Tofu Helper, however.)

Part 2

IN THIS PART …

Balance babies and toddlers as you teach the older children. If your toddler-now-preschooler is ready for some instruction, you can introduce some basics while instructing everyone else.

Educate your elementary students with flair. Locate some of the curricula that works well with younger students, whether you need language arts, math, or science.

Work with your middle schooler or junior-high student. If you’re just starting out with a child who’s not quite reached high school, this might be the perfect time to begin.

Discover the joys of teaching high schoolers, whether you start here as a new homeschooler or grow your way here after 11 or 12 years of home education. Plan your courses, complete the transcript, and add up all those credits.

Learn about life after high school and the choices available to homeschool graduates. Trade and vocational schools, a career in the military, and college or university life are all within the reach of homeschooled students.

Chapter 5

IN THIS CHAPTER

Getting through these precious but tiring years

Using quiet time to everyone’s benefit

Taking turns with your toddler

Navigating through preschool

Congratulations! Your home contains a new bundle of joy, and now you’re trying to figure out how to educate the rest of your happy brood while taking care of the almost endless needs of the new baby. You’ll enter the preschool stage soon.

Look to this chapter for hints, tips, and suggestions for making it through this tiring time of your life. This section gives you ideas for merging baby duties with the need for teaching the older children who grace your life. After you wean your little one from the bottle and diapers, also check here for preschool pointers that help you have a good time with your child and learn too.

Hang in there! Although the view into your living room picture window may look bleak now (actually, it probably looks more exhausting than anything), this stage does end. You will regain your energy. They do grow up to fix their own peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, and they even learn to use table knives safely.