Homeschooling in California

What really helped me feel comfortable with the decision to homeschool was seeking out other homeshooling families and groups. Meeting these families and kids in person was wonderfully reassuring.

I started by joining the HSC Yahoo group I mentioned in an earlier post, and then asking around for a homeschool group in my area. Unfortunately, I didn’t find much in my immediate area, but in a nearby community we found a group we love.

It was great to see my daughter playing with the other kids, and seeing how normal they all were. It also gave me a chance to talk (and mostly to listen) to the other moms. Most of them had more experience than I did with homeschooling, many had older children that they’d been working with for many years, and they knew about resources and books, and places to go that it would have taken me forever to learn about all on my own. Homeschool groups are worth joining just for these reasons if nothing else in my opinion.

Some groups have a set purpose, like to study a particular subject, or pursue a certain activity. Others are purely social, and the kids just get together to do whatever they want. The groups can be formal, or casual, and anywhere in between on the continuum. Whatever type of group you’re looking for, the Internet is a great place to start looking. If nothing else, post what you’re looking for on a homeschool forum or chat board – if a group like the one you want doesn’t already exist, you may get one started just by asking.

One of the first things that confused me when I began to research the idea of homeschooling, was how to make sure to do it legally. What paperwork did we need to fill out? What records did we need to keep? What did the state require of us? I had a lot of those kinds of questions.

I learned that there are actually different answers to these questions depending on how your family chooses to homeschool. And I don’t mean teaching methods, or educational philosophy – the powers that be don’t actually seem to care so much about that, or maybe they aren’t allowed to care. No, what I mean is, do you homeschool independently, or through a charter school, or maybe a public or private home study program? I had no idea before I started reading how many options there were availble to homeschool families in California.

Independent Homeschooling.

If you want to go it alone, without using a program guided by another type of school, you are allowed in the state of California to basically file paperwork to become your own private school. You then enroll your children in your very private school, and there you are.

As your own private school you choose your own curriculum, and make your own decisions about what you want to teach, etc. When you go this route, you have a lot of freedom, but you are also on your own as far as paying for your supplies and teaching materials goes.

Private Home Study Programs

There are some private schools that offer home study programs. You pay a tuition, like you would at any private school, and they provide a combination of services and supplies. Different programs provide different things, so it’s hard to generalize much. Some give families a lot of freedom, and other offer more structure to the teaching. Most offer an advisor that you keep in touch with, and use a selected curriculum.

Public Home Study Programs and Charter Schools

Some public school districts offer home study programs for some or all grade levels. These also can provide an advisor and at least a recommended curriculum, and also vary on how much freedom they provide to vary from their plan. Because they are still public schools, they participate in the standardized testing that other public schools do, but legally parents can opt out of this if they are strongly against it.

This is the type of program our family is using. Our advisor is wonderful, and offers me so many ideas that I wouldn’t come up with on my own about how to teach various topics. She finds us wonderful materials to use, and we have very little out of pocket expense. Actually, we could spend nothing if we wanted to, but I still find books, and games on my own that I’d like to have. Our schools also offers workshops and field trips for the kids.

Charter schools are also public schools, but they have a specific educational philosophy that may differ from traditional public schools. You would need to research the ones in your area to see if they have a system that you like. There are charter schools that are homechool charters, and ones that have regular classrooms. Like other public schools, there is no cost or other requirements to attend. However, popular charter schools may have a waiting list or lottery system to get in.

My father is in the hospital this week getting a new knee. We planned on visiting him in the evening after his surgery, so our school day involved a lot of projects revolving around Grandpa.

We worked on measurements for math, and baked some cookies to bring to him. Our art project for the day was a cute, potato stamp painting inside a get well card we made for him. The get well card was also our writing practice for the day. Even though Grandpa was too groggly for us to visit him on that first night, we enjoyed learning while also being productive and making gifts for him. This is how I sometimes imagine unschoolers operate, finding ways to learn through everyday activities that need to be done anyway.

On the flip side of that, my mother is under a lot of stress trying to communicate with the doctors, planning what therapy Grandpa will need when he gets home, and also still watching the girls two days this week. They did very little school work today, and the next Grandma day will probably be even worse because that’s the day Grandpa comes home.

However, even though there wasn’t much for Grandma to write down in out teacher planner book today, I think the girls still learned a lot. Maybe nothing that fit neatly into the categories of ‘writing’ or ‘art’, but many things in life don’t fit into categories. For example, my daughter was fascinated with how the machine that kept Grandpa’s leg moving – bending and stretching, bending and stretching, over and over again – worked. She examined it from all angles, and studied all the cords and joints. They got a little lesson on hospital etiquette, which I was proud to see they took very seriously.

And I think it’s wonderful that they also got to learn that sometimes our regular schedule gets put on hold because family is more important.

My sister bought me an ipod nano for my birthday earlier in the year, and ever since I’ve become a podcast junkie. I can’t get enough of them. They make podcasts on any subject you could imagine. It’s wonderful. So wonderful.

First, I want to dispel some possible misconceptions about itunes. Things I didn’t understand before I got my ipod. First, itunes is free to download, and all of the podcasts I’ve seen so far are also free to download. More importantly, you don’t need an ipod to get or listen to podcasts from itunes. You can just listen right on your computer. It’s great. Now, I love my ipod, and it’s nice to be able to listen without being tied to a computer, but if I’d known how many cool radio programs and podcasts were available to me for free, I would have been listening far before I ever had my ipod.

Most of what I listen to is very educational stuff. Nothing that would be useful to my kindergartener, but much of it could be useful to older students; certainly high schoolers could really get into this stuff. I don’t know how to link to a podcast on itunes, so I’m just going to throw out a few names and if you’re interested, just use the search bar on itunes to find the podcast. I have to say, I’m not a fan of the navigation inside the podcast area of itunes, and so I’ve mostly stumbled on a lot of these as I was looking for something else.

One of my favorites is “Grammar Girl”. These are short little podcasts, usually about 5 min or less that are entertaining and clearly explain some confusing points about grammar.

For kids who are into space, NASA puts out news podcasts about what they’re up to, and video podcasts about the space shuttle, and there’s one called Hubblecast that is a video podcast about what the Hubble telescope is up to. Really, there is just so much there.

For that matter, any science interest your child may have, there is probably a podcast about it. I listen to pet health podcasts, natural history podcasts, and Scientific American has several very interesting podcasts they produce. My favorite of the S.A. Ones are the “60 second science” and “60 second psych.” These are quick and interesting podcasts about recent studies or discoveries in science or psychology.

For the younger set, I do have two podcasts I’ve subscribed to for my daughter. Both are video podcasts, and I really only keep them in order to have something for those emergency situation when we’re stuck someplace dull and I need a few moments of entertainment. One is Sesame Street’s “Word on the Street” that introduces some larger vocabulary words to kids. The other is “They Might Be Giants” because I was a fan of that band back before they started making music for kids.

My post about Usborne books got me thinking about other books that we, and particularly my daughter, love. She loves maps, and globes, and all related things. We have a few books that she particularily loves. I think these books are wonderful for children that love maps, but also may be a good way to introduce geography and maps to kids who don’t love them yet. After all, if you want to spark an intrest, you want the best books, right?

I wrote this entry in my other blog, so instead of rewriting the whole thing, I’m just going to link:
Our Favorite Books for Learning About Maps

But I had another thought since I wrote that entry that I also wanted to mention. Another thing we’ve done for our map loving daughter is to use Google maps. It’s an easy way to look something up, and let her see a route we’re going to drive, or where Grandma lives in comaprison to where we live, etc.

Once, we even printed out a Google map (at her insistance) of our neighborhood one evening before we went for a walk around the block. She was thrilled to carry that map along, and ask where we were on the map every few minutes. It was very cute, and she learned a lot.

These books are a great weakness of our family. They had a booth at the homeschool conference we attended in August, and we bought two books despite our plan not to spend money. Our home study program is having a Usborne book fair coming up and will earn free books form any sales. This could be dangerous for me, because I will feel like I’m supporting a good cause if I spend even more.

I was going to write an individual book review tonight, but because my daughter loves, and I mean LOVES all of her Usborne books, I figured I’d give them a general shout out.

Her favorites right now are:

See Inside Your Body – A ‘lift the flap’ book about anatomy and the human body.

See Inside Science – Another ‘lift the flap’ book that covers the bare basics of many science topics.

The History of Flight – this is an early chapter book, yet my 4 year old daughter picks this as her bedtime story often. I’m fairly bored with it, yet she continues to be absorbed in it.

A Child’s Atlas of the World – Some information about different climates around the planet, and very cool (and cute) maps of each continent as well as where each is on the globe.

The Big Book of Playtime Activities – Mostly art projects. But I like it because these projects have gotten even my anti-art daughter interested in making something.

I know they have some neat books for learning foreign languages, and those may be what I look at buying at the book fair.  But I have a feeling we’ll come away with another science book too, since that’s what our girl loves the best.

Today was a work day for me, and my mother was not available to watch my girls. I’ve taken a lot of time off lately as we got our homeschool started, and didn’t think I could take off yet another day at short notice. So my husband took the day of to stay home with the kids.

My mom was thrilled that he was going to do this. She thought it would be ‘good for him’. Her attitude bothered me a little because it implied to me that she didn’t think he appreciated what we do by homeschooling. That he somehow takes us for granted, and thinks what we do is easy, or unimportant. At home, he is very supportive. Not one has he ever criticized what I do, or don’t do. He’s never expected dinner to be on time, or cooked at all when he comes home. If there on no clean socks, he doesn’t complain, he does a load of laundry. He’s proud an impressed with what our daughter is learning.

Nevertheless, I knew he hasn’t put in all the research and background preparation that I have. So I asked him if he wanted to do his own projects today, or if he wanted me to give him a plan. He asked for the plan. I spent some time explaining what we were doing, what we’d already done, and gave him several options for activities for each subject we like to cover. I told him to pick a few, or let our daughter pick.

Even thought I thought he understood what he was getting into, I came home to an exhausted husband who happily turned the kids over to me, and retreated into his computer as soon as I was in the door. I tried not to be, but I was a little disappointed in how little school they did today. I think I’ve let go of that now – it just came as a surprise since homeschooling was originally his idea.

I didn’t think daddy needed a lesson about the homeschooling, but he got one today anyway.

I don’t think I mentioned before that in addition to writing, and homeschooling, I have a day job outside the home. Fortunately, due to a lot of dedication from my husband that I should be home as much as possible, and some sacrifice of many material things in life, I only have to work part time outside the home – about 2 ½ days a week on average.

I mention it because I’ve seen this issue come up on homeschool forums and chat boards from time to time. People wonder if it’s possible to homeschool and have an outside job at the same time. Maybe a working family wants to homeschool, but doesn’t look into it because they think they can’t do both.

Well, you can do both. Many families do. Some even work full time and homeschool, although that’s obviously exponentially harder than what I do. I am actually quite lucky in that I have wonderful extended family support. My mother watches my girls when I work, and she also oversees my daughter’s schooling on my work days. Not everyone has that option.

But even if my mom was not available, I believe we could still make this work. Again, because I’m only out of the house 2 ½ days a week, we could simply move ’school’ days to the day’s I’m home. For homeschoolers, there are not set in stone rules that say school can only happen Monday through Friday. I can happen Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday if it has to. It can happen in the evenings instead of the daytime. If the child is old enough, they can work independently most of the time, with the parents just being available for evening help the way they would help with homework if their teen was in a regular school.

What I’ve found is that families who want to homeschool can get very creative in order to make that happen. Maybe one parent works a swing or night shift while one works traditional hours. Many find a way to work from home (as I’m slowly, but surely moving toward doing.) Others just reevaluate their lives, find a way to live on less, and bring one parent home.

Finding solutions to these tricky life problems is a passion of mine. I hate that money keeps people from living their live in a way that embraces their beliefs and ideals. But it does. I hope to dig out other ideas to help bridge the money/work/homeschooling gap, and will share whatever I find here.

If you work and homeschool, and have a tip to share, plpease leave a comment. We can all use any support we can get.

So far, my little kindergartner enjoys almost all the schoolwork we do together – except writing.  She also doesn’t care for art.  I didn’t know there were kids who didn’t like art, I thought that was one of universal things that kids just naturally like.  Not so.  Even as a toddler, she never wanted to scribble or color.  It just isn’t her thing.

I’ve been on the hunt for ways for her to practice writing her letters and numbers in a way that won’t make her hate writing even more.  Most of the projects I find online involve an art or craft project, so it’s been a challenge finding something else.

I’ve mostly tried to keep any writing time short.  Just a few minutes a day.  I’m trying to have faith that when she’s ready, she’ll write.  Doing it now isn’t vital.

Then our advisor recommended something.  She said to start big, and then get smaller later.  She suggested writing letters really big in sidewalk chalk, or with finger paints, etc. (There is no way my daughter would muss her hands in paint!)

Yesterday, we tried using our dry erase board.  I asked her to write her letters as big as she could.  She actually didn’t write them very big, but she loved writing on the big board.  What impressed me the most, aside from the fact that she really enjoyed writing, was that she only made one letter, the lower case ‘b’ backward.  She normally writes many of her letters backward.  When she’d gone through the whole alphabet, and I was planning to move on to another activity, she insisted in also writing all the numbers from 1 to 10.  That was the real proof to me that she was enjoying herself.

 I think we’ll be using the dry erase board a lot from now on!

My daughter is learning to read right now. I stumbled on Starfall.com well before I started any formal reading instruction with her, but now that she’s learning phonics rules, we visit Starfall together to read the stories there.

I thought at first that she loved this site only because she loves to play on the computer, but she is only allowed to do it for a short time, and not every day. It was bonus computer time – what’s not to love? Now I know that isn’t it. She has plenty of computer games that she doesn’t care for, even ones featuring some of her favorite cartoon characters. But she loves the Starfall stories, and works really hard to read each story by herself.

The stories in the section we use the most, Learn to read, are arranged by what phonics skill they work on, like the short ‘a’ sound, etc. It makes it easy for me to find a story that will compliment what we are learning about, and that she’ll be successful reading on her own.

The stories all can be read by the computer too, if you want. It starts by just displaying each page, but if you click on a word, it will show you how to sound it out. So there’s help for any words that she needs it for.

There are other, more advanced, reading sections too. We haven’t done much there yet, but I’m sure we will eventually. There is also a preschool section for learning letters and letter sounds. You can even print out writing worksheets that go along with the stories.

There are also some other activities there too, but learning to read, and phonics seem to be the main focus of the site. Last week we talked about calenders and the days of the week, and we made a calender at Starfall. I was disappointed that I didn’t see an obvious way to print out the calender my daughter made, but the game really did help her get the days of the week straight in her mind.