Adventures in Homeschooling

As some may know, we made the decision recently to remove my child from the public school system and try homeschooling. This was a difficult process and decision, but the alternative was not to be considered, and so, here we are. No one is more surprised than I am that I could maintain a full time job and meet and even exceed his educational needs. Thank God for an employer who allows me to be flexible in my schedule.

We are now in our second week and my conclusion so far is "why didn't I do this sooner?"

Aside from the fact that I now have TWO full time jobs, the sacrifice is well worth the extra efforts. I have a brilliant little boy!! I can say that without bragging since I did not contribute to his DNA. He absorbs new information like a sponge! I can actually see the excitement about learning returning to his eyes and he eagerly looks forward to each new lesson. I am also gradually seeing a reduction in the anxiety and stress that had become such a part of him in the past few months.

As is par for the course for me, I've been researching my butt off about different homeschooling philosophy, methods and curricula. I naively assumed that I could do a simple Google search for 2nd grade homeschooling, and would find a single unit or recommendation for instruction. Uh. . . NO! Apparently, the predominant idea is that since I have chosen to take responsibility for his education, I can pretty much teach him whatever I want.

One of the recommendations that I am taking to heart is to let my child dictate and guide what and how I will teach. Whichever curriculum I choose should take advantage of his strengths and maximize his weaknesses. The pace of instruction will be dictated by his ability to absorb and internalize the information. I now understand that part of his struggles in the regular classroom is that he does not require a stepwise progression to learning; he is a concept/abstract learner, a big picture thinker. He gets really impatient when I try to teach in increments; ok, his mommy is a big picture thinker too, so things just got really interesting for me!

Even though he is nearly a semester behind, due to all of the chaos that has been going on since September, he reads on a 3rd or 4th grade level. So, I'm KO'ing the weekly Spelling tests and we're now focusing on building Reading Comprehension. Math and Science comes naturally to him too; and so I know I will have to be creative and more experiential in these subjects than I am perhaps comfortable with.

I found a curriculum that I will use as a base, KONOS. It is Christian based and focuses on developing values and character. We start each morning with a brief bible study and each semester is driven by a character theme: our theme for the next several weeks is Obedience. The lessons are active and hands on, with very few paper/pencil, worksheet lessons.

I will supplement KONOS with traditional reading, writing, math, and science lessons because I know that he will, at some point, return to a formal education system, and I want him to have an easy transition.

So, let the adventure begin. . .