geography book Sailing alone around the world and frustrated

Tamara, when did you take him out of public schoo?  Did you take any time to “de-school” him before starting homeschool?  It is a huge transition, and takes some time…  they estimate about 1 month for every year of school, including Kindergarten and preschools…   So assuming you took him out recently – at age 10 he was probably in grade 5, assuming there was a K year, there is at least 6 months of deschooling he needs to do to get PS out of his system so to say.  Of course that varies from child to child some, but is a good rule of thumb.

Not much should be expected during the deschooling time – it is a good time to work on attitudes, respect – as well as having fun doing things like going to zoos or the museum… time learning to do chores… and a fair amount of free time.  I’d try to wean him off of twaddle books and onto better books during this time too (not sure the best way to do that…)

HUGS!

Hi Tamaralynn;

It seems you and I might be in similar situations in that we are both new to HSing kids who have recently come from PS.  My boys are 11 and 7 and I am feeling the pressures of working PT, being a mom and wife and teacher.  I am a little stressed and finding “school” tricky. I’m feeling my way around and trying to sort it all out.  There is definately a learning curve here!  I’ve not been doing a lot this year — my focus has been on math and copy work.  I’ve felt these were the areas where my older son was lacking and my younger son excelling.  I do literature fairly regularly, but reading to my boys is always somthing I’ve done regularly, I just have different reasons for picking some of the books I have.  Many of the books we’ve read are not typical for boys — we started the year with Anne of Green Gables of all things because we spend our first week of school on a week long field trip to PEI (my dh had to be there for work and we were able to take the week and go along with him).  We’ve been reading books that take place in Canada as that’s where we are from.  They enjoyed Owls in the Family.  I will soon read to them Margy and possibly Margy Misunderstood after that as the woman who wrote them is my sisters’ Godmother — I plan to have them interview her after we’ve read the book(s). 

I agree with the deschooling thing, but it’s so easy to feel like you are wasting time with them not doing anything, like you’re letting them fall behind.  My kids would rather play video games all day long, and certainly would if I let them.  We are still working on habits, and I have come to the conclusion this evening that habits and chores are  more important than science and history, etc. at this point.  They are still young and have plenty of time to learn all of that — and most of it cycles anyway, especially in grades 7-12 — but habits are foundational.  If I do nothing else with them the rest of the year but teach good character traits and habits, I think it will take them much, much further in the long run.  I think I’m about to go reconfigure the rest of my term with that in mind.  Certainly something to pray about and consider carefully.

Tracey

When we took the girls out of public school after 6 years, we took almost 8 months of where we read, did art, nature, traveled and did some basic math…it was all very relaxed and it was necessary – they needed to get that schooling experience out of their system and then relax gently into our new way. I recommend a period of decompression as well. Linda

Oh I am so glad to hear we aren’t the only ones! We stuck it out for a llooonnngggg time unti I finally called it quits. We just couldn’t go on. Thanks!