A Homeschoolers Experience with the Public School

I’ve had an interesting time with the Homeschooled Young Man during a volunteering opportunity. We spent 2 days with around 140 kids ages 8 ½-11 years old. These public schooled kids took part in engaging and hands on activities over the course of two school days. The presenters were upbeat and kid friendly. The kids were well behaved and quiet...too quiet actually for my liking.

Over the course of 8+ hours I spent with these adorable 8 ½-11 year olds, I did not hear the usual giggles from the girls that I am use to hearing, nor small talk amongst boys that I am use to hearing. I saw emotionless faces, frowns and blank stares from these children. But, I saw a hunger in the children for attention from the presenters, when those men and women engaged one on one with these children. Each boy and girl was eager to talk with and spend time with these adults. But after each session they became like little robots. Back to frowns and staring at the floor while being told to line up against the wall, "1-2-3 eyes on me" by their public school teacher. I know that public school teachers will say that this is a must to keep order. But it makes me think of when we had 4,000 adults and children for a homeschool meeting at the state capitol a few years ago. There had to be order and quiet voices with almost 2,000+ kids involved, there were no robot children in the group nor forced lining up against the wall, yet there was no chaos.

At 14 years old The Homeschooled Young Man was a group leader of about 25 children and 2 public school teachers. He held the door open for the group on 11 different occasions and was told “Thank you.” only 3 times over the course of 2 days each lasting 8+ hours.

I was pushed and shoved numerous times throughout the days without so much as an excuse me, sorry or anything by these students.

Then after awhile I had opportunity to sit back in a chair in the back of the room and sort of take it all in. It was then that I noticed the clothes that the teachers were wearing. Skin tight workout pants that stop at the calf, that showed panty lines and a bold written word across their backside, another one wore a similar pair of pants that were way too small and every time she bent over her pants came down and her shirt went up to expose her bare backside (she looked like a plumber, KWIM?). Yes, these were public school teachers of 8 ½-11 year olds.

I guess I could look past that, but the thing that really struck me was the manners that the teachers displayed, yes these are the people that are entrusted with most American children for 7+ hours each day, 30+ hours each week, 5 days per week, 180 days per year and nearly 1,300 hours per school year. I saw teachers not sitting properly in chairs (ya know one of the things that drives us parents crazy at the dinner table is when our kids don’t sit properly, slouching down in the chair with the rear on the edge of the seat and their neck on the back of the chair), teachers talking to each other during the presentations (ya, know it drives us crazy when our kids do this), teachers yawning like roaring lions (ya know how many times you have been trying to teach your child to yawn with their hand over their mouths?). I saw so many kids being grabbed by the arm and yanked around like dogs on a leash and teachers yelling in the face of the kids and the blank looks on the children’s faces while they have an adult standing over them yelling. This must go on often because the other teachers never even looked over to see what was going on. Think about where your kids bad habits are coming from, those things that drive you crazy when your kids do them.

The icing on the cake was the way that the teachers spoke to the children. Every time there was an instruction of “Throw your trash away, PLEASE & THANK YOU!” I thought to my self that “PLEASE & THANK YOU!” really comes out sounding snide and rude no matter how you say it. That phrase seems to be up and coming. We were eating out about a month ago and the waitress said that to us when she gave us our check. The Homeschooled Young Man commented how rude that sounded, even though he knew she was not meaning for it to be rude. 

Now mind you this is NOT a representation of all public school teachers, I happen to know some fine teachers. But this was a peek into the system and I do think this was a typical day in many school systems.

As we drove home I was thinking about all this and here was my take away. Hey Homeschool Momma, are there things that you are doing during your homeschool day that might be negatively effecting your children? Are there things that you are unknowingly passing on to your children?

This brought to light a few things I need to work on in my homeschool. Take some time to assess things that you think of and then improve your homeschool for you and your children.

2014 RUNNER UP for the top blog post

Homeschooling Websites To Kick Off The New School Year

Kicking off the new school year with some of my favorite homeschool websites!!!

Some are oldies but goodies and some are ones you may have never seen before. Come get encouraged about the new year! These are in no certain order, just some different sites that I really enjoy and get a lot of help from. I also have these listed in a SAFE folder for the Homeschooled Young Man. So when he has his computer time he can click on any of these sites and freely peruse them. Please let me know if any of the links are bad and I will see about fixing them.
Happy schooling!
Moe
http://www.homeschool-your-boys.com/index.html
Homeschooling boys
http://www.spellingcity.com/
LOVE this site! I entered in an entire year of spelling words and each week he uses this site to learn them. There is a ‘teach’, ‘play’ and ‘test’ area. He loves this site.
http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/
Make your own comics, this is a great tool for creative thinking
Thanksgiving ideas
http://localhs.com/holiday/thanksgiving_elemetary.asp
Math games
http://sheppardsoftware.com/math.htm
Tests grade school through high school
http://www.thatquiz.org/
Math games
http://www.quia.com/mathjourney.html
Word scramble and puzzle makers
http://www.theteacherscorner.net/printable-worksheets/make-your-own/word-scramble/
Math & grammar games
http://www.funbrain.com/
Math games
http://www.lizardpoint.com/math/add-ws.html
http://www.keepersofthefaith.com/
Keepers of the Faith
Christianity Today home school info
http://www.christianitytoday.com/momsense/homeschoolcenter/
Lots of neat stuff here for Bible believing homeschoolers & Bible studies & character studies
http://highland.hitcho.com.au/bibleforms.htm
http://www.tlsbooks.com/
Worksheets for different grades
http://www.squidoo.com/50statesnotebook
Great ideas for state notebooks
http://www.bjupress.com/resources/ecamp/
Bob Jones University kids website
http://www.barbarafrankonline.com/
The Imperfect Homeschooler (great encouragement)
Workbox system-we use this system and LOVE IT!
http://wayzleyacademy.homeschooljournal.net/2009/07/31/my-workbox-system/
http://www.wfmu.org/onthedownload.php/album/5654
Neat Christian science/nature programs
http://www.johnsburglibrary.org/
home school resource library
Let’s play math
http://letsplaymath.wordpress.com/
Lessons plans using Legos
http://www.weirdrichard.com/activity.htm
Lego site
http://forum.littlebrickschoolhouse.com/index.php
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/
Lots of printable lessons
http://www.sonlight.com/TF4.html
I don’t use Sonlight curriculum, but the website offers up lots of great info on home schooling, books and has book lists by grades. I enjoy the emails they send too.
Lots of printables
http://www.canteach.ca/
http://www.canteach.ca/links/linkhomeschool.html home school area of above website
http://www.homeschoolmath.net/worksheets/grade_4.php
Math games & printables
http://www.ntm.org/kidstuff/index.html
New Tribes Mission kids website
Info and printables
http://homeschooling.about.com/
http://www.homeschooldiner.com/
Arts & crafts
http://www.sundayschoolresources.com/clipartcoloringpages.htm
Lesson plans
http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/dailylp/dailylp/dailylp067.shtml
Resources for Christian teachers
http://www.teacherhelp.org/hs.htm
Crafts/Art
http://www.teacherhelp.org/crafts.htm#recipes
home school info
http://delicious.com/LifeSchool
Physical science
http://www.physicscentral.com/experiment/physicsathome/index.cfm
Free resources
http://www.learningresources.com/category/teachers/resource+center/for+your+classroom/free+activity+masters.do?code=PROMO-WIND09
Coloring pages & resources from National Geographic
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/coloringbook/archive/
http://highland.hitcho.com.au/index.htm
Neat stuff
http://www.unshackled.org/
Pacific Garden Mission-great place to take a field trip.
http://www.thehomeschoolmom.com/
Good info & printables
http://www.distance-education.org/Articles/100-COMPLETELY-FREE-Distance-Learning-Resources-for-Homeschoolers-125.html
Neat free stuff
Homeschool articles
bonajo/index.htm
Homeschool programs
http://caa-archeology.org/html/programs.htm
Math curriculum & games
http://www.mathusee.com/
Evangelism tools for kids & fun stuff
http://www.wycliffe.org/Resources/Kids/RecommendedResources.aspx
Homeschool Classifieds
http://www.homeschoolclassifieds.com/planner_form.asp
This is a funny home school blog a few great articles & links to home school websites
http://www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com/2009/07/my-ten-must-haves-from-back-to-school.html
Timeline helps
http://www.homeschoolinthewoods.com/HTTA/TimelineHelps/
Frugal website (sometimes has home school content, but otherwise about saving money with kids & being frugal.
http://www.livingonadime.com/articles/deprivingkids.htm
Interesting home school blog
http://chocolateonmycranium.blogspot.com/2007/10/homeschool-resources.html
Science homeschooling
http://www.hometrainingtools.com/Default.asp?bhcd2=1256956745
Socialization of homeschoolers
http://www.angelfire.com/mo/sasschool/socialization.html
home schooling forms to print
http://www.donnayoung.org/forms/index.htm
Candy science experiments
http://www.candyexperiments.com/
Geography worksheets
http://www.superteacherworksheets.com/geography.html
Scholastic
http://www.scholastic.com/parents/play/games/
Neighborhood Bible Time kids site
http://www.nbtime.org/kidscorner.html
Weather
http://urbanext.illinois.edu/treehouse/
History
http://www.historyglobe.com/jamestown/
Lego building projects
http://creative.lego.com/en-us/FamilyTime/buildinginstructionssecret/BuildingInstructionsBoxSecret.aspx?domainredir=legofamilytime.com
Homemade Homeschoolers
http://hmhomeschoolers.com/blog/category/games-for-learning

New Year ~ New Ideas

The NEW YEAR can be full of new ideas for your homeschool!!

I have been given permission to share these ideas with you from Mary Beth a fellow homeschooling mom, she says that the first 3 ideas came from Chris Davis of Home School Marketplace, but the rest are her own. Long before I read Mary Beth's list I had come up with a similar listing for our homeschool and it's helped me through the years to revisit the list to make sure we are on target.
Mary Beth was answering the following question.

What curriculum do you like best and why?

1. What things did you do or learn in school that have served you well
in your adult life? (Be sure to include them in your curriculum.)

2. What things did you do or learn in school that have proven to have
been a waste of time? (Don't bother with these.)

3. What do you wish someone had taught you? (Be sure to include them.)

4. There is a reason God put these children in your home. What do you
suppose He has in mind for them that you and only you can equip them
for? (This is why your homeschool shouldn't look like everybody
else's.)

5. Imagine that you have a daughter. What kind of man would you want
her to marry? How can you raise your boys to be that type of man?
Think ahead to the day your child leaves home, whether it be for
marriage, college, work, or missions. Answer the following questions:

6. What skills, values, character qualities and faith foundations do
you want your child to have in order for you to be confident that he
is ready to face the world on his own? What can you do now to take
steps toward those goals?

7. What do you not want to regret when your children leave home?
If you look over these lists, you will see that you are well on your
way to a custom-designed curriculum for your family.

We can have a fresh start right now, if things are not working, think about how you can get things working.
How are you going to change things up in your homeschool this new year?

Moe

Praying in the new homeschool year

I plan on printing out & laminating this very nice prayer reminder that was sent to me by another homeschooling mom. You will find it here  on the keeping it personal website you can print out an 11x17 or 8.5x11 size 31 Biblical Virtues to pray for your children chart.

Check it out, it's super nice!!

Have a great weekend.
Moe

Character lessons learned through a baby chick

We are doing school at the kitchen table while a dying baby chick is nestled in a warm t-shirt next to us. Praying & petting him until he passes.

Character lessons being learned today in compassion, availability, gentleness, flexibility, alertness, reverence, thoroughness, love, contentment, responsibility, and sensitivity.

Sometimes life is our best teacher and life is hard at time. But knowing that it builds character helps.

Moe