My children love sports and I love to let them participate. Right now they are young enough that the only team sports available are through the local recreation departments. But they are growing up fast. In just a few more years, the only sports that will be open will be through the local schools.
Currently, there is a move in Alabama to allow homeschooled children to participate in extracurricular activities through the public school system. Tim Tebow has helped this cause because he was homeschooled but participated in public sports. Still, I can’t help but wonder is this is the answer we are looking for.
1. Technically there is no homeschooling in Alabama. We are “church schooled.” There for our activities should come through our school system.
2. There are more than enough homeschool students in any community to form organized teams if we would all just quit hiding in the bushes.
3. Public school kids are exposed to different attitudes, elements, and ideas than most homeschooled kids and they WILL out number the homeschoolers on a given team.
Instead of looking to the government to fit our needs, there has to be a way that we can do that as a group. Maybe a church in each district could sponsor a homeschool cover and that cover could sponsor sports teams, debate teams, and even drama teams.
There is a lot out there that homeschoolers are missing because we aren’t coming together. Although I still have a few years before a decision has to be made, it is something that I think about almost every day.
There are times when I worry that maybe I’m not teaching my children enough. The parents around me talk about the hours they spend “doing school” while our family is through before many of them get up. It doesn’t help when I read about children getting college degrees at the ripe ole age of 10 (my oldest is 11).
The easy way out of this is to send them to real school and let the teachers and administrators figure it all out. The social acceptable thing to do is to give the power to someone else. The RIGHT thing for our family is to trust my instincts and not be concerned about what “they” are doing.
All of my children are learning. Could they be learning more and faster? They certainly could. Would they be able to play outside, make up brier clubs, and build weed forts? There probably wouldn’t be time for all of that non-sense.
Which way is best? It all comes back to personal needs and desires. If the child wants to push and study and graduate college at 10 then more power to her. If the child wants to learn a little and play a lot then there is nothing wrong with that.
I will continue to give my children a small amount of “school work” and instead focus on the life lessons. We do our reading, writing, and math first thing in the morning and spend the rest of the day planting a garden, clearing the land, and doing puzzles.
They may not graduate college before they can drive, but they will have amazing memories of the times we spent together and that’s worth more than all the college degrees in the world.
After spending the day at a curriculum fair, I have come to the conclusion that there is no perfect curriculum available today. There are some amazing ones on the market – some of them even come with a script so that you don’t have to think about what you are teaching – but because every child is different and every year is different then none of the curriculums will ever be perfect.
Sonlight is a nice package with lots of reading, which is one of the fundamental learning activities my husband and I want the kids to use daily. There is a LOT of books in each program, which might be a problem for those of us with little (or no) storage space.
Alpha Omega has some pretty layouts, and its programs cover every subject under the sun. The subjects are set up in five day periods, but it seems easy enough to adjust them if you dance to the beat of a different drummer. It is a Christian based curriculum and the company offers print and computer based programs.
Abeka is another large, Christian based curriculum company. It is labor intensive, so probably not the best route for the freeschooler or unschooler. It is widely used in the Church schools and some private schools in our area.
These are just three of the major curriculum companies that were represented at the fair. What I found was that, for the most part, the curriculum is the same. Some of the books were colored. Some of the books came in hard back. Some of the books came with teacher’s manuals. Most of what I read was similar to what I have been doing with the kids all along – only using the internet and the library for my source work.
Do you have a favorite curriculum? Is there something that you just couldn’t live without? Share some of your favorite items with those of us who are curriculum challenged.
The longer we homeschool, the more curriculum there seems to be. The massive amount of information can be overwhelming – even for a veteran. I can’t imagine how panicked it would make a new comer.
The best way to view a large amount of curriculum at one stop is to go to a homeschool conference or curriculum fair. It’s great to be able to physically flip through the material before you make the investment. Even still, there is no guarantee that the kids are going to like what you bring home.
In the past, I’ve used hand-me-down curriculum from other homeschool families to develop my own course outlines. It’s a labor intensive way to do things, but it gave me complete control on what we studied AND how we studied. I supplemented the lessons with library books – which the kids learned how to look up and find on their own.
As my career has started to take off, I have found that there is less time in the day than there was just a year ago. This year I’m going to make the investment in full curriculum for each of the kids. I’ve started slow – I spent a few dollars on Weaver spelling and penmanship.
The kids and I all like the way the curriculum is set up (although it’s pretty much what I was doing for them already – without the extra investment of time). I also got the Lifepac Electives for Art, but we haven’t even opened it yet. It’s designed for 7th grade and up. My oldest will be going into 5th. He’s a strong reader, though. I’ll probably start attempting it some towards the end of the month.
If you do buy homeschool curriculum that you and your children HATE, don’t force yourself to push through just because of the investment that you made. A fun experience with education if more valuable than the dollars you put into the curriculum. Advertise on some of the homeschool swap/sell sites. The system you hate may be the perfect match for another family.
Homeschooling is more of an art than a science. Finding curriculum is like finding the medium that best suits your artistic talents and tastes. Each child will be different. Each year will be different. Keep in mind that what ever you do, if you and the kids don’t enjoy it, you probably won’t do it any way.