Since I’ve homeschooled year round for a decade, sent a kid to public high school & insisted he homeschool over the summer, and continue to homeschool our youngest – year round … you can say I get a few questions. Most my public school mom friends really want to know 1. how do I remain sane, and 2. request “light schooling suggestions” during winter, spring, and summer breaks. I can’t answer 1. So ….
Rewind to 2008
Let me start off by saying I never in a million years planned on homeschooling. We didn’t know many homeschoolers and I thought it was something desperate parents did who had misbehaved children.
One morning Hubs was working out with a dad friend – their family was the only homeschool family we knew at the time and they weren’t visibly crazy. Jacob was attending a 3 day/week preschool program while I was home napping and nursing our newborn. The dad friend was talking about rearranging his work schedule. He had to help homeschool in the evenings because his wife was sick and couldn’t homeschool during the day.
This “flexible schedule” set off a million light bulbs in my traveling husband’s head and he came home to immediately ask me what I thought about homeschooling. WHY WOULD I WANT TO DO THAT?! He had obviously lost his mind! I only had an AA degree from a community college. I couldn’t homeschool anyone!
But once we talked about his schedule, not seeing his boys as regularly because he was always out of town – it just made sense. Even if I went into the whole thing thinking … surely even I can’t screw up Kindergarten. Hubs also might have sweetened the pot with talks of family trips around the world – I wouldn’t see them for 10 more years, but that’s besides the point.
Homeschool was not my first choice. We grew. We adapted. We became flexible. We had a blast! And we got to see Italy and Thailand together.
Always Learning Attitude
We decided to do “year round learning”, which meant: I didn’t take off much time during the summer. Being a public school kid myself I wondered as a homeschool mom, why put time restrictions on learning?? We did enjoy a long winter break in Florida when the weather was awesome and we could get outside without melting. But the weather in summer is miserably hot so we chose to stay indoors. Always learning is less likely to loose any skills learned during the year. Always learning attitude doesn’t complain it’s a holiday, or July, or 6pm.
edit 2020: after just 2yrs of public high school, my oldest has a horrible attitude toward learning something new. ‘It’s not assigned’ or ‘I’m out of school right now’. Hard to believe he was ever homeschooled – and for 10yrs!
Light Schooling Suggestions:
So if you’re schooling over the summer, catching up a delayed skill, or just building off some lessons for fun …. Light Schooling does not mean buy truck loads of curriculum and kill yourself trying to fit it in to your busy schedule. Don’t go buy bulletin board crafts at Office Depot. Don’t purchase stock in Michael’s. Don’t fill your entire day with lessons. You don’t need a grade book nor a Best Teacher Mug.
Start off light, ease in to lessons, let your kids direct learning (follow their interests to an extant) and most importantly: enjoy learning together!
What can you do to start light schooling?
books reviews. We loved reading and I even started Reading Rewards at home to keep the interest going.
biographies. We really loved Story of the World for history. So I created Biography Pages – free printables are an awesome resource for light schooling.
Download-N-Go unit studies. I can’t rave about Amanda Bennett’s Download-N-Go- studies enough. We’ve completed many and they are full of great information.
ChalkPastels.com If you have an artist combine some reading topics and art.
Animal Studies. Grab every book on (whatever animal) at the library and then do an animal study using My Favorite Animal worksheet & print the Similar Yet Different Science Pack or Animal Worksheets.
Purchase a Science Experiment Book and dive into hands-on science learning. Print our Science Experiment Worksheet and check out the 15 experiments we think are pretty cool.
Try online classes. We just took our 1st online Outschool class, Guinea Pigs. This is a live – teacher taught – class. I was responsible for making sure the mute button was off and followed up with some discussion questions. Super easy! But, I would not suggest packing every day full of them.
Board Games. It’s amazing how much kids learn through play. Of course I encourage you to stay away from the cheap laughs of burp & fart games. Check out Think Fun games – they are really purposeful. We had a great night playing Escape the Room and I just purchased Ticket to Ride.
You Set the Tone!
However you start light schooling just remember, you set the tone! If you come to the books with a smile and “can do” attitude – lessons are easier. If you drag, complain, or criticize your children – lessons drag! Set the tone with a positive attitude. A smile goes a long way and they’re free. Be gracious with them.