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Poking Fun In The Homeschool

With the Homeschooled Young Man going into his junior year of high school in the fall, I've been doing a lot of reflecting and thinking back on our homeschool years.

We have been downsizing our homeschool materials for an upcoming used curriculum sale and it has brought back some fond memories of days gone by.

Just today as I was sitting in my rocking chair, a chair that holds many fond memories (our church nursery was remodeled and they bought brand new rocking chairs and gave away the old ones. They were delivered to my house and what a blessing it was to sit down in one, pick up the phone and call my out of state friend and say "Guess what I am doing? I am sitting in one of the rocking chairs that we both rocked our babies in!" It was a precious moment, remembering back to those days, for her 19 and 16 years ago, for me just 15 years ago.

Ok, rabbit trail here, back to the title of this blog post Poking Fun In The Homeschool...lol.

Finger Pointer Thingy

My son walked up to me this morning and poked me in the side with that finger pointer thingy. I am very ticklish and I was just giggling like a school girl as he kept poking me with it. The more I laughed the more he poked. I was not so much giggling at the tickling as I was at not having seen that finger pointer thingy in a very long time! He came across it as he was digging through his closet the other day.

I remember the day I bought that finger pointy thingy, we were at a Scholastic Book Fair sale and I was buying my teaching supplies, like a real teacher don't ya know? Hahaha, it was one of our first years of homeschooling, ya know the one where you have the Homeschool Momma dress on (actually I wore a cute denim apron that my Mom decorated up with buttons that had pencils, school bell, books and cute stuff like that on them), the student desk, decorated classroom, student with feet flat on the floor, pets banished from the room until school was over, ya, you're gettin' it now! lol. Yes, I was one of those 8:20am-3:00pm homechoolers. We even had school colors and a school mascot, we were Home of the Pugs!

I had big plans for that finger pointer thingy, it was going to keep my boy's eyes on the board, keep him engaged and force him to learn. I was going to fill that bucket (child) up as full as I could with information that he could spit out on a test!! You bet ya, he was going to learn!

Long about October of that same year, the Homeschooled Young Man asked if he could do his history on the couch with the dog, I told him as long as he got his work done. Then next thing you know he was under the kitchen table (his all time favorite place) on the floor with the dog doing science. A short time later he discovered fort making with sheets, blankets and kitchen chairs to study in. These shenanigans nearly ended our homeschool career before it really got off the ground when Homeschool Dad saw what was going on. Because you know, homeschooling dad's think that learning can only be done in a straight backed chair, a desk and feet flat on the floor.

Over time I sold the school desk (yes, it was the kind with seat attached and desktop lid that would lift up), took off my cute denim apron (I still have it), took down the classroom decorations and instead of doing school at home, we started HOME schooling. Better known now in the teenage years as car schooling since we live in the middle of nowhere and I am driving the Homeschooled Young Man back and forth to 4-H, job shadowing at the hospitals, doctor's offices, and his high school pre-medical school program, and to volunteering. We just pack up the school books, pile into the car and off we go! His chemistry book seems to be intriguing to many doctors and starts up some interesting conversations with them. They have shown him apps that they still have on their phones for the Periodic Table and chatted with him about struggles in O Chem.

After attending my first homeschool conference, I also realized that teaching is not simply filling a bucket with information that can be spit out on to a test. That one really rang my bell.

My homeschool decor has also changed, I have cute laminated quotes and pictures all around our homeschool bookshelves. They perk me up on a long day and get me through the tough times. The picture below is from The Old Schoolhouse magazine I've had it for years on my refrigerator and no matter how bad my day is, I can look at it and just laugh, I don't know why it makes me feel happy, but it is just so funny!

You can see how our homeschool has evolved over time, changed and morphed into something wonderful and unique to our family, now do you see why I was giggling so hard when being poked with the finger pointer thingy? It is amazing how a little finger pointy thingy can bring back so many memories.

COVID-19 Emergency Schooling to Full-Time Homeschooling...

Thinking of homeschooling your child now that you got a taste of it? Don't wait until August, pull them out of school today! Here are some ideas to get you started.

1. Find out from HSLDA what the homeschooling laws are in your state and move on it today by following them. 
2. Read up on deschooling your child and work on that from now until the fall.
3. Attend a homeschool conference in your area once things return to normal (contact your state homeschool association for info). Some are holding these online right now due to the virus.
4. Limit your child/children's use of media to 1 hour per day (DVD, Texting, Internet, gaming, TV, music etc). It is very easy to fall into the trap of the electronic babysitter during times of crisis and stress.
5. Work on getting chores assigned and teaching child/children how to do them correctly.
6. Work on building relationships through games (taking turns, being polite, losing is OK).
7. Teach siblings to get along and to rely on each other.
8. Break the 'parents are dumb and friends are everything thing' mind set.
9. Work on subject matter your child struggles in (times tables, math facts, spelling, writing).
10. Teach home-ec skills (cooking, baking, laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, making menus).
11. Teach finances (bill paying, credit card use, student loan debt, budgeting). Listen to the Dave Ramsey or Money Matters podcasts.
12. Teach your values and convictions, discuss why you are home educating.
13. Have family Bible devotions each day start with 10 minutes if this is new for your family (if you are a secular homeschool family find something to read together that adds value to your family).
14. Volunteer and have fun with it! (once the Shelter at Home is lifted)
15. This should be number #1, but it is so important I put it last. STAY HOME ALL BUT 1 DAY PER WEEK once the virus restraints are lifted. (well, you can leave for church on Sunday/Wednesday hahaha). This concept can be hard for current homeschool parents to understand, however when your children are new to homeschooling, you need to deschool which includes unlearning bad habits and stereotypes that children learned in school. Bring the family back together as a whole.
This time of deschooling is to help you get your child's heart and mind back. Kids may sleep more, getting up to catch that bus by 6:30am and not getting home until 4:30pm plus evening sports and then homework etc is VERY tiring on growing bodies. Family time helps with the transition from peer dependency to family dependency, life is not all about texting friends and hanging out at the mall. There will be time for all the other stuff as time progresses and you have your kids hearts back.

Think about how crazy EVERY PLACE will be once everyone is off of the Shelter in Place time. Help your kids learn to enjoy spending time as a family, learning to rely on one another for life long relationships. Before you know it, you will learn to Car School and will be involved in all sorts of things if you desire.

These are all suggestions you can try throughout the next 5-6 months depending on when you decide it's time to look into the academics of homeschooling and how you plan to proceed with this (unschooling, textbooks, Charlotte Mason, Eclectic etc) in a way that works best for your family. This will help you to find your groove and help your kids to settle into homeschooling.

There will be time for co-ops, homeschool groups and all that as you move along between now and the fall. Right now is the time to bring your relationship back as a family. This time also helps remove the peer group dependency and the past peer pressure issues. You may even learn a thing or two from your children about good and bad experiences that they had in their former school setting.

This is a time for you to reconnect with your children, for siblings to love each other again and to learn to look out for each other. There will be times for field trips and the library etc, but you need this time to deprogram your children from their years of sitting all day at a desk, having to raise their hand to use the restroom, throw away trash, or sharpen a pencil. Think about how your kids are hungry and thirsty all the time now that they are home due to the virus. Now think about how they must feel when they are at school all day hungry and thirsty and can't eat or drink until lunch time.

Last but not least, keep in mind that homeschooling is NOT school at home, it is not recreating the classroom in your house. We already know that classroom settings fails many children, classrooms do not work for most children. Our children are not little cookie cutter children, they are created as unique individuals by God. So, once a week during this deschooling time, head out during the school day when everyone else is trapped in their seats at school, and enjoy the park, the library, children's museum and you may just meet other homeschool families that can help you along your new journey (of course wait until the order is lifted saying that we can leave our homes first).

Remember this golden nugget, each homeschool will look different, you don't need the magic curriculum and some days, learning does not come through textbooks.