Homeschooling in California

There are tons of books out there for parents about homeschooling, but not so many for kids.  I was listening to a homeschool podcast a couple months ago, and there was an author being interviewed, Rain Perry Fordyce.  She’s written a very cute picture book for kids about homeschooling.  The book is called “I am Learning All the Time” and is illustrated by Audrey Anne Miles Churney.

Being different can be tough on kids, and homeschoolers are different just because most people still send their children away to school.  Having a book that tells their story, that says homeschooling os normal, that lots of families do it, and that it’s good, I thik is very validating and reassuring for a child.  One thing I like about this book is the positive tone.  I tells the story of a 5 year old homeschooled boy and what he does at home compared to what some of his regular school friends do in school.  It doesen’t make any judgments about which way is better.  It doesn’t trash public schools.  It just shows that ther are different, and equally acceptable ways to do things. 

And from the kid point of view, I think Hannah would also give it a good rating since she asked for “I am Learning all the Time” as her bedtime story for at least 5 days in a row when we first got it, and frequently ever since. 

Another aspect that impressed me as I listened to that interview was what lengths Ms. Fordyce had gone to in order to keep the publication of her book as eco-friendly as possible.  She tracked down special a special publisher that would be able to print in the most environmentally friendly manner.  This is a self published book, and probably not available all over the web.  She specifically mentioned that they chose not to offer it on Amazon.  I ordered my copy directly from her at her website:

http://homeschooladventurebooks.com/

There is even an option to get an autographed copy there, so I couldn’t resist doing so. 

Well, life overwhelmed me in November so I didn’t work very hard on NaNoWriMo.  I’m okay with that.  Sometimes we need to prioritise and realise that despite all the motivational speakers, and cheerleaders out there, sometimes we just can’t do everything we want to.

 So I’ve been focusing on pulling myself together, taking care of my family, and enjoying this journey we’re on.  When we first started homeschooling, I thought I could just add it on to all the other things that already filled up my life.  Turns out, that wasn’t the best way to approach it.  I think we’re doing generally well, but it’s a learning curve for sure.  From what I read on homeschool discussion forums, it will continue to be so too.

 My biggest personal problem, I think, is trying to do too much.  I know how smart my kid is, and she’s also sweet, eager to please, curious, and enthusiastic.  She made it too easy for me to keep pushing at her more than I probably should have, because she just goes along with me. 

We didn’t do much over the week when schools were closed for Thanksgiving.  We did some reading, and other little projects.  Found little lessons in everyday life.  Made me think about what it may be like to unschool.  When we went back to our regular schedule, my agreeable child started complaining from time to time.  Not much, but it was clear, that she wanted more freedom, and more free play time.

I keep telling myself, “This is kindergarten.  We should be playing all the time.  If she isn’t having at least some fun with a lesson, then I’m probably doing it wrong.”  And yet it’s still hard to not try to make sure we cover each subject every day.  Today I think we did better.  We made applesauce (science, math), did a reading lesson, and worked on her scrapbook (writing and art).  She loved it all. 

The school that we work through give parents almost total freedom.  Our advisor gives us ideas if we ask for them, but doesn’t ever tell us what we should or should not do.  We see her this week, and I think I’m going to ask for a little guidance about the level we should be working at.  It would help me to have an outside opinion about how much we should be doing.

I really think we’re on the right track, but it seems like the more we move away from workbooks and toward everyday life skills and lessons the less tangible stuff we have to provide “work samples”.  Is that a problem?  I dunno.  I guess we’ll find out when we see our advisor.

I’ve found that the hardest part of homeschooling for me has been to pace myself.  It’s so easy to get excited about a subject, and want to go wild with it, forgetting that my daughter is barely 5, and maybe doesn’t need or want to know all the gritty details surrounding every innocent question she asks.

For example, when we were learning about frogs, I happend across a science catalog where you could order actual tadpoles and watch them grow into frogs.  IT would have been so cool!  SHe’d love it.  I’d love it.  But, other than the cool factor, what would she get out of it that she wouldn’t get if we waited a year or two?  Actually, later on, she’d get so much more out of watching a tadpole transform.  When she can keep a log of her observations, really notice subtle differences, and understand how what she’d read about actually occus in front of her eyes it will all mean so much more.  More than just, “Whoo Hoo, I have a pet frog!”

I even considered getting a frog now, then another one later on in a few years to do the deeper observations with, but the more I thought about it the more I thought that would take away from the specialness of doing it.  I really have to learn to pace mayself.  We have plenty of learning to do, and many years to do it.  We need to remember to play a lot.  Sing, read, paint, count, and play some more.  She loves science, and asks great questions.  I have to remember that we’ll get to all the fun experiments eventually.  We don’t need to start on the particle physics doctorate dissertation in kindergarten.

I read the term’ unit studies’ in various places, education books, and homeschool chat boards, for quite awhile before I knew what it meant. A few weeks ago, we actually used a reptile and amphibian unity study pack that our advisor gave us when my daughter asked to learn about snakes.

Basically, a unit study takes a topic that’s interesting to the child, and teaches as many subjects as possible around that topic. So, Hannah wanted to learn about snakes. So we read books about snakes (science and reading), looked at pictures of snakes, and painted and drew pictures of snakes (art), counted, sorted, and graphed all our reptile toys (math), made up a story about a snake (writing), Looked up where some snakes live on a map (science and social studies), and so on.

It was really a lot of fun. As a mom, I liked the way this type of learning combines many subjects, and shows the interconnectedness of learning. That math, for example, is relevant to other subjects. That all subjects can relate to each other in some way. I think it helps show how subjects fit into real life better than having every subject stand all alone.

That said, we were pretty well tired of learning about reptiles and amphibians after two weeks. Although, since we’ve moved on to other topics, Hannah still brings up, and wants to talk about what she learned about reptiles, so I know that unit studies can really stick with a kid.

This past week has felt really tough on the homeschooling front, but I’m not real sure why.  Nothing major has happened to take up our time.  We’ve had some fun playdates, got some neat project ideas from our advisor, and yet I just feel like I’m spinning my wheels, not moving.

I did a lot of reading before making the decision and commitment to homeschool, so I’d read plenty of homeschoolers discuss the bad days.  Somehow I thought the bad days were when mom or the kids were sick, or there was some upheaval in the household.  Maybe it is.  Maybe the bla-s I’m feeling this week don’t actually qualify as bad, just, bla.

When I take a step back and look at things objectively, I think the homeschooling has been going fine.  It’s the rest of my life that’s been overwhelming.  I had a bunch of writing deadline all land on top of each other, so I had several late nights in a row.  That’s left me tired, and. . .well, bla.

Juggling work (as in a job, and working from home to boot) homeschooling, and regular life stuff is still a skill I haven’t mastered yet.  I don’t switch mental gears quickly, so it makes it hard to go back and forth from one thing to another.  I don’t feel like it’s undoable, but I’m just not doing it well yet.

Now on top of feeling overwhelmed and fractured, I’m rambling in my blog.  Sorry to take you down with me.  I do have a few thoughts on more solid posts to make, but I can’t seem to pull them into focus in my mind tonight.  But I’ll be back to coherent thought soon.

The message for tonight is, brain and/or emotional overload happen.  I’m trying to remember that it’s all just inside me.  My family says it isn’t spilling out as much as it feels.  It’s just hard to see that things are still good when everything is filtered through my own temporarily flawed perceptions.

Sometimes things really aren’t as bad as you think.

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.

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!

We met our teacher (or I guess the school program we’re enrolled in calls her our advisor) for the first time since we started homeschooling this week. I was really nervous about it, even though I knew there was no reason to be.

She started by asking how things were going for us. I said that I felt like some days we weren’t doing much, and maybe other days it felt like too much. She told me that sounded pretty normal. She looked over my notes about what we did each day, and said we’re doing well.

What I found interesting was that, as she watched my daughter playing, she said some interesting things about how she thinks and how she also probably learns. Now none of what she said was anything I didn’t already know, but it was interesting how fast she picked up on these things in such a short amount of time.

It made me very happy that we picked a program with a knowledgeable advisor to work with us. I know she’ll have lots of suggestions and recourses for us in the coming months and years that we probably wouldn’t have thought of on our own. I feel like we’re really going to get the best of both worlds (school and homeschool) this way.

Or maybe I’m too easily impressed. Maybe any fool could see that despite being not yet 5 years old, my daughter is a mathematical genius. Hey – I’m her mom, and I’m allowed to be irrationally proud of my small ones if I want to – so there.

I highly recommend the Homeschool Association of California (HSC) Yahoo group to anyone homeschooling in California. I mentioned in my last post that we went to the wonderful conference they put on at the end of each summer. For that matter, I also recommend checking out their website (http://www.hsc.org) as well. Nothing on the website will tell you how to teach a particular subject, or get into the nitty-gritty of day to day homeschooling, but there is a lot of nice introductory information. If you have any questions that fall into the nitty-gritty spectrum, then the Yahoo group is the place to go. The members there are very supportive, and only too happy to share their stories, and what wores for them and their children, and what doesn’t.

The only complaint I have about the HSC website is the area for county contacts. It’s a great idea, but that system just doesn’t seem to work. I’ve tried to contact my county contact person both through the HSC website, and by asking for help in the Yahoo group. I never received a reply in either case. Someone in the Yahoo group mentioned that the website contact links seem to fail sometimes, and they’d make sure so-and-so got a hold of me, but nothing ever came of it. I’ve seen other people come into the Yahoo group looking for their missing contact person as well, so I know I’m not the only one being snubbed. I’m sure the county contact folks are volunteers that have a lot on their plate to begin with, and who knows how up to date that list is anyway?

So – check out the site, check out the group, but don’t bother trying to contact the county volunteer. If you want to meet local homeschoolers, ask on the Yahoo group for people who live in your area. That’ll work a lot better.