Guilt-Free Homeschooling

Math Awareness: Tactile Counting

2008-06-03T16:01:00.003-05:00

An interesting idea occurred to me when we were driving home late a few nights ago. My throat was dry, so I pulled a box of Tic-Tacs out of my purse, shook some pieces into my hand (without turning on a light), and popped them into my mouth. As I rolled the candies around with my tongue, I began trying to count them to see just how many there were. The box that usually releases only one or two pieces with a good shake had instead given me a mouthful in the dark. One, two. One, two, three, four. No. One, two, three... One... two... three... four... FIVE? Yes, Five. A number that would have been very simple to identify with my eyes in a lighted situation was suddenly very difficult to count with just my tongue!

That experience set my mind to working overtime. How simple is it to count objects that I can see? How much more difficult is it to count objects that I can NOT see? The whole idea of blind counting made me consider the possibilities of math as a tactile experience. I have often carried coins in my jeans pocket and had to pull out a handful and look at them to select just one or two. If I was more adept at tactile identification, perhaps I could pull out only the coins I needed!

So here is my challenge for the day: experiment with tactile counting. I recommend trying it with fingers first, not letting your young children pop random objects into their mouths -- although that can be an interesting lesson for more advanced students (who are less likely to swallow). Expanding the awareness of number values to tactile skills and not just visual skills will allow the student to count quickly and easily by touch, even when seeing the objects in question is difficult or impossible.

I tested my own tactile counting skills by spreading a towel on the table, folded in half, with the fold farthest away from me. Then I closed my eyes and grabbed a large handful of goodies from my Activity Jar and inserted the objects between the layers of the towel. (The towel kept balls, marbles, and other small, round objects from rolling away.) Carefully keeping the upper layer of the towel in place to conceal the objects, I slipped my hands underneath it and began feeling the hidden treasures. To my surprise, there were a lot of things inside my towel -- many more objects than I expected to find.

I eventually pulled one hand out and began writing notes of what I had found, so I could record how many buttons and how many game tokens were included in this cache. I wrote down each basic category of items and used tally marks for the duplicates. When I was satisfied that I had sorted and counted everything successfully, I opened up the towel to check my accuracy. Oops. Close, but not perfect! I had miscounted the buttons: 14, instead of 15; but I had correctly identified five different types of game tokens: large, small, ridged, smooth, and cardboard (not plastic like the others). I had also correctly identified a coin as feeling different from the plastic game chips and accurately concluded (by touch only) that the coin was a penny, not a nickel or dime.

This was such a fascinating challenge that I repeated it several more times! Once, I purposely sorted out a large group of flat game tokens from my Activity Jar, some smooth and some with ridged edges. Placing those inside the towel, I attempted to sort them into two piles and count how many were in each pile. I accurately counted the ridged tokens, but I was off by two when I counted the smooth chips. My conclusion was that the thin, smooth chips could slip out of my hands unnoticed much more easily than the ridged chips could.

How about some other variations of this tactile math challenge?

Blindfolded; count objects with your fingers
Blindfolded; feel and count objects in a box on the floor with your toes
Use several sizes of the same shape, such as a variety of coins
Use a variety of shapes and sizes of different objects, such as buttons
Count behind your back, feeling objects placed into your hands by a helper
Feel objects placed inside a sack, box, or pillowcase (so you can't see them)
For older or advanced students: tiny, hard candies in the mouth to count with the tongue. Tic-Tacs work well, since they are quite small and don't melt quickly.

The variations using toes or tongue develop tactile skills beyond the usual finger skills. Even a student who can quickly count or identify with finger-touches will find it a challenge to repeat the assignment with toes. I suggest starting with fewer than ten objects for toe-counting and using 3-dimensional objects, not flat items like coins.

For tongue-counting, be sure the student is not likely to choke or swallow the candies, and start with fewer than five small pieces. Keeping the head tilted forward can also prevent accidentally swallowing the candies. I cannot recommend putting non-edible objects in the mouth, nor do I suggest using anything larger than a plain M&M candy. Hard candies work better for this experiment than do soft, chewable candies. Tic-Tac candies are ideal: small and solid.

One more variation would be to turn this into an auditory activity by counting sounds. Conceal your hands behind a large book or similar partition and tap quickly several times, while your student attempts to count how many taps he hears. A more complex version would involve listening to music and counting notes, beats, or instruments heard. Take this activity outdoors and listen for vehicles, horns, or bird songs.

Math is primarily a visual task, but stretching our abilities and learning to sort and count with our other senses will bring the benefits of increased skills and a related increase in thinking power. And just imagine the fun of impressing your friends with your ability to count the change in your pocket without looking!

Top 10 Ways to Salvage an Interrupted Day

2008-05-01T17:09:00.003-05:00

You had finally found your homeschooling "groove." Lessons were zipping along, your students were working like well-oiled machines, and then it happened: something came along that broke that wonderful, systematic rhythm. You may have known it was on the calendar, but that still didn't prevent it from upsetting your entire homeschooling apple cart. Now you feel as though your students may never regain their previous momentum.

Rather than taking an entire day off, you may be able to salvage the remaining portion of an interrupted day and manage to keep enough of the energy that the interruption is merely an insignificant blip on your radar. Here are several ways to complete "school" when the normal routine has been interrupted by doctor's appointments, a minor family crisis, a field trip or co-op class, a funeral, or any number of other inconvenient breaks. These measures may also help you get through a bad weather day, a not-feeling-so-well day, or a we-really-overdid-it-yesterday day. (Tip: In the case of a minor family crisis that lands you and your loved ones in the local Emergency Room, try to redeem the experience as an impromptu field trip: encourage observational skills and appropriately timed Q & A sessions about what the medical professionals are doing, so that your students gain knowledge about other career fields along with the immediate medical attention. Plus, it can also help focus children's minds away from pain, suffering, and generally frightening situations.)

1. Half-Lessons--Scheduled interruptions (such as dentist appointments or well-child check-ups with the doctor) can allow you to plan ahead for a half-day of lessons. Shorten each subject's work load to a portion of its regular size and zip through your schedule in record time. Your students will know they have covered the usual subjects, and the results of the faster pace can spur your students into working more quickly on "normal" days, too.

2. Consumer Math--Shopping is necessary for every household, so incorporate it into your curriculum by posing price comparisons to your students. Show them how to read the labels for ingredients, size of contents, or any other vital statistics, and then help them compare brands and sizes to determine the best value for your family's needs. Yes, this can make shopping take longer, so I do not recommend doing this with every item when you are already pressed for time or when you are restocking a nearly bare pantry.

3. Life Skills--Sewing on buttons, hemming a skirt, ironing shirts, following a recipe for cooking or baking, washing windows, folding the laundry, cleaning out a closet, organizing the kitchen "junk" drawer, or sweeping out the garage--all are vital skills for life that can redeem the productivity of an interrupted school day.

4. Phys-Ed--Let 'em run. Dust off the bicycles, roller blades, baseballs, or jumpropes. Everyone needs a physical break now and then, and younger children need them even more often. The physical exercise relaxes their tired muscles and gives their brains "processing" time. You may be surprised at the creative ideas that are hatched during this "down" time.

5. Snuggle Up & Read Day--Grab your favorite books and head for the sofa. Read to each other or just let each person read his own book, side by side. Snuggle up with warm blankets and thick, warm socks. I love soaking in the warmth from a sunny window when the winter weather is too cold to enjoy venturing outdoors.

6. Craft Day--There is something infinitely satisfying and therapeutic about creating things with your own hands. Whether you make silly masks with paper plates and colored markers or intricately detailed ornaments for your next Christmas tree, the time spent with your children provides an opportunity to talk together, create together, and giggle and laugh together. Check hobby stores for ready-made craft kits if you need help getting started.

7. Cooking or Baking Day--Make an extra-large batch of cookies or soup and freeze the extra for use on your next too-rushed-to-cook day. Dicing onions, celery, or carrots to freeze for future use in soups or casseroles is a time-saver as well as an opportunity to work and talk together with your children.

8. Game Day--Play your favorite board games. Combine the pieces from several games and invent a new game. Don't keep score, but focus on the aspects of strategy and sportsmanship, instead of on winning and losing. Show lesser-skilled students how to plan ahead and think through their moves to help them strengthen their abilities for next time.

9. Nature Study--Take a walk. Sit under a tree. Watch and listen to the birds. Weed the flower bed. When the disruptions of life have intruded upon the security of your routine, regain control by surrounding yourselves with the peace and solitude of God's handiwork. It can be even more refreshing than a nap!

10. Video Day--Watch a favorite movie. Watch a new movie. Watch an old movie. Use technology to your advantage and pause the movie at strategic moments to discuss why the characters act the way they do or discuss how the plot would have changed if a key character had chosen another option at a crucial point.

Life Happens. I repeat that often to explain what has disrupted my formerly-planned day. When Life happens to your schedule, use it to your advantage to teach valuable life lessons. And remind yourself that children sitting in orderly rows in a sterile classroom are missing out on the inevitable spontaneity that is Life.

For further encouragement on the topic of interrupted days, missed lessons, and messed-up schedules, see:
A Day Without Lessons,
Reschedule, Refocus, Regroup, and
Sick Days, Snow Days, and Other Interruptions

Carnival of Homeschooling, April 22

2008-04-22T10:29:00.003-05:00

Spring has been taking a long time to appear here in central Iowa, but things certainly are blooming heartily at the Carnival of Homeschooling! This week's collection is huge, which simply means that everyone will find something encouraging there! Many thanks to Dana at Principled Discovery for her valiant efforts in hosting this Carnival!! Dana's theme is "The Homeschool Bag Lady," in honor of all the bags o' stuff we moms tote around, both literally and metaphorically.

Top 10 Benefits of Homeschooling with Grace

2008-04-14T13:33:00.003-05:00

No, Grace is not my name, nor is it my daughter's name. "Homeschooling with Grace" refers to making homeschooling a real possibility for you. If your mental image of homeschooling (before you began) was much different from what your homeschooling reality has become, perhaps you need a dose of Grace. Sit back, relax, and lower your standards just enough to allow yourself to breathe easily again as we look at the Top 10 Benefits of Homeschooling with Grace.

10. You can provide your students with as much time as they need to truly understand a concept, and you can allow your students to skip redundant portions of lessons they have already learned. [Grace is patient, but Grace also recognizes achievement.]

9. You meet other homeschooling families who do things differently than you do, and you smile, knowing that all homeschoolers are unique. [Grace appreciates the differences in life.]

8. Every member of the family relaxes, knowing that Grace bestows forgiveness, second (and third and fourth) chances, and hugs when you need them. [Grace understands, and Grace loves anyway.]

7. You give up "flying under the radar" to avoid attracting attention as a homeschooling family and boldly traipse through parks, stores, and other public areas between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 3:15 p.m., knowing that anyone foolish enough to inquire why your children are not "in school" will have to endure a barrage of giggles, several quippy answers from each child, and at least 3 recitations from recent history and science lessons. [Grace accepts Life as a good teacher.]

6. You redefine a "clean" house to mean one that looks lived in but can still be occupied without fear of actually contracting any truly scary diseases. [Grace knows that perfection is unattainable on this side of Heaven.]

5. You no longer cringe at the thought of friends dropping by unannounced, realizing that they are more interested in sharing 5 minutes of conversation with another grown-up than in performing a white-glove inspection of your bookshelves. [Grace prefers people to things.]

4. You realize that no one who really loves you will care if the breakfast dishes are still in the sink when you start supper. Or that once in a while last night's pizza boxes can be found on the coffee table. At least the leftovers are all gone... thanks to the family dog. [Grace knows when you need a break.]

3. The thought of seeing your family pictured on the cover of a homeschooling magazine would mean that chore-boot footprints and mud stains are being featured in that issue's Art Corner. [Grace knows that Life is not tidy.]

2. You lower your expectations of homeschooling to include only those things your students might actually be able to accomplish in this lifetime. [Grace does not expect the impossible.]

And finally, the Number One Benefit of Homeschooling with Grace is:

1. Grace. Just when you think you've messed up everything beyond all hope of repair, God gives you the Grace to start fresh and try again. [His mercies are new every morning--Lamentations 3:22-23]

Guilt-Free Homeschooling STORE -- Now Open!

2008-04-10T15:33:00.005-05:00

Observant readers may already have spotted the new link in the right sidebar: Guilt-Free Homeschooling STORE! This is one more proof that the absence of recent blog posts does not mean I am lounging about, eating bon-bons, or worse -- leaving struggling homeschoolers to fend for themselves. On the contrary, I am very pleased to be able to provide you with even more GFHS resources, starting with two that you can purchase for use when the computer isn't so handy.

NOW AVAILABLE in the GFHS STORE--

Diagnostic Tools to Help the Homeschooling Parent
For those who may be missing the links to our (formerly-on-the-internet) quizzes (What Type of Homeschooler Are You? and What Is Your Learning Style?), the quizzes are now available in our new book, Diagnostic Tools to Help the Homeschooling Parent, along with pages and pages of supplemental information to help you analyze, evaluate, and remedy your daily homeschooling difficulties. This book is not for everyone, but if your students are struggling to make academic progress, it is definitely for YOU!

Guilt-Free Homeschooling Planner
Can't find a planning book that fits your unique homeschooling situation? We are happy to announce the Guilt-Free Homeschooling Planner, an innovation in homeschooling planners, offering multiple planning modules -- not a one-size-fits-all, our-way-is-the-only-way record book. GFHS Planner modules work for the large family or the single-child family, plan-ahead organizers or record-after-the-fact less-organized types. Choose from 8 versatile modules to create the planning notebook that will work for you!

P.S.
Our experience at the Chicago-area InHome Conference was great. Thanks to all of you who popped in to say, "Hello, I'm one of your blog readers!" and WELCOME to the new friends we made in our workshops!

Conference Reminder

2008-03-03T11:17:00.006-06:00

This is just a quick reminder that I will be speaking in the Chicago area this weekend (March 7-8th) at the InHome Conference. My workshops will be Friday morning (What Type of Homeschooler Are You?), Friday evening (Losing the Guilt), and Saturday morning (Taking the Mystery Out of Learning Styles). Seating is limited, so register now and come early for a good seat! Bonus--Guilt-Free daughter and co-blogger/co-author, Jennifer, will also be there! If you are able to attend, please introduce yourself to us as a Guilt-Free reader--we hope to see you there!

Attendees of this conference will get the first official opportunity to purchase our brand-new book, Diagnostic Tools to Help the Homeschooling Parent. Break free from your homeschool struggles, measure your homeschooling efforts, and discover the best materials and methods for effective and unlimited learning.

The Guilt-Free Homeschooling Planner will also be available for the first time. An innovation in homeschool planning books, the GFHS Planner uses a modular concept that allows you to custom-design a unique planning notebook to fit your specific needs.

113th Carnival of Homeschooling

2008-02-28T11:01:00.003-06:00

The Daily Planet is hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling: Political Parties of Our Government Edition. Good reading!

Top 10 Dress-up Items

2008-02-19T15:26:00.003-06:00

Kids love costumes. Dressing up in fanciful attire does something to spark a child's imagination. Turn your children loose with a boxful of dress-up items, and they will be busy for hours, dressing up, imagining, changing, playing, wondering, and becoming many different characters.

When I was a little girl, my family had a large box of dress-up clothes. I remember playing with them for hours and hours. My favorite Halloween costumes either came out of this box or were added to it after the treats were gone. Specialty items were gathered and quickly tucked into the box. Fanciful costumes created for school plays also went into the box once the performances were over.

Many years later, I created a dress-up box for my own children. They spent many afternoons trying on everything in the box, sharing the costumes with friends during play days, making up skits to fit their costumes, and doing it all over and over again. Some days they dressed up as elegant ladies and gentlemen and held fancy "tea" parties; other days they strived for the goofiest costumes possible and convulsed with laughter and delight.

As dress-up quickly became one of my children's favorite activities, I began searching for specific items to round out their collection. I cleaned out closets and shopped thrift stores and yard sales for wonderful items: a faded prom dress had been discarded in a yard sale "free" box, and my daughter played with it for years afterward. Here are some basic categories of dress-up goodies to help you get started on your own fanciful fashion collection.

1. Hats. Ladies' hats; men's hats; silly, Dr. Seuss-style stocking caps; construction hard-hat; sailor hat; baseball caps; cowboy hats; berets; English-style driving caps; plastic crowns and tiaras; any type of specialty headwear you can find! We had extra boxes just for hats to keep the fancier ones from being crushed.

2. Skirts and Dresses. Elastic-waist skirts, with the elastic made tight enough to fit small kiddies. Full, twirly skirts are best! Dresses are wonderful, especially an old prom dress or bridesmaid's dress with lace, sparkles, and/or layers of ruffles. My mom sewed spaghetti straps onto a formerly-strapless 1950's prom dress so that it could hang from my ultra-thin childhood frame. She also made me a "Miss America" banner (which I still have to this day) when I entered the 2nd grade costume carnival in my beautiful gown. It didn't matter to me that some of the canary-yellow lace ruffles were torn or that the gown was woefully out of style--I loved it and felt very special when I was wearing it. It was originally designed as mid-calf in length, but it dragged on the floor when worn by a 7-year-old, making me feel beautiful and elegant in my tattered, hand-me-down gown.

3. Vests. Dark colors or leather vests work just right for playing cowboys or sheriff. Add a necktie for a businessman's look. (Keep the knot tied, and just loosen it to slip over the child's head. For safety with very small children, hand-stitch the knot in place, then cut the tie at the back of the neck and sew in a section of elastic.)

4. Suit Coat or Blazer. Don't forget that boys like to play dress-up, too! And both boys and girls have fun dressing up as Mommy and Daddy.

5. Gloves. Any colors, all lengths--children love gloves. I snagged opera-length gloves in bright turquoise and short brown gloves trimmed in shiny gold glass beads at a yard sale for 25 cents per pair.

6. Costume Jewelry. Ear clips, bangle bracelets, long strings of beads--the gaudier, the better. Old eyeglass frames (lenses removed) and sunglasses fall into this category as well. You may want another box just to hold the junky jewelry!

7. Shoes. I combed dozens of yard sales before I found the ultimate treasure: women's black suede pumps in a petite size 5 (for only $1)--the perfect size for a small child to clomp around in. We also had a pair of lace-up shoes large enough that my youngsters could put their foot (shoe and all) inside them for clown shoes they could actually walk in!

8. Furs. Fake furs are best for wash-ability after tea party accidents. We had stoles, wraps, and hats. (Real furs can be quite heavy, especially if the garment is very large and the child is very small. Real furs also attract insects to your dress-up closet!)

9. Scarves. The larger, the better--a really large scarf can double as a superhero's cape, a princess's train, an elegant shoulder wrap, an apron, a doll blanket, etc. Include remnants of lace (even a discarded lace tablecloth or lace curtain panel) for veils or wedding dress trains. Remember to include bandanas for your cowboys.

10. Props. Plastic swords, holsters and six-guns, purses and tote bags, a sheriff's badge, artificial flower corsages, aprons, suspenders, tool belts or carpenter's nail aprons, etc. Bring out the toy dishes for the tea parties, the toy doctor's kit and old elastic bandages, and the play tools and an afternoon of make-believe will be unstoppable.

We tossed everything into a huge cardboard carton, large enough that the children could clean up after themselves easily. The size of your storage box is important: it should easily hold everything when tossed in carelessly. Folding the garments as they are put away will result in better looking costumes at the next play session, but diligence sometimes gives way to speed in clean-up. From time to time, I went through the items as we cleaned up and sorted out things which needed laundering, mending, or disposal.

A full-length mirror is another valuable item--the children will love seeing their creative couture, and the resulting giggles will fill your home with the sounds of happiness. Be prepared for costume parades, spontaneous dramatizations, and strange looks from the neighbors if your children venture outdoors in their finery. One mom even asked me how we created a hoop skirt, and she praised our ingenuity: several sizes of hula hoops suspended with string from a belt worn underneath the full-skirted dress.

My children are now grown, but they still cherish their favorite costume pieces and manage to find uses for them year after year. They also find new items now and then that they want to save for their future children's dress-up collections! Dress-up and make-believe are excellent ways to ignite a child's imagination, stimulate creative thinking, and reward Mom with a bit of free time while the kiddies entertain themselves.

Carnival of Homeschooling

2008-02-05T11:40:00.000-06:00

Beverly at About.com: Homeschooling has created an acrostic poem for this week's Carnival of Homeschooling.

The Activity Jar

2008-01-31T14:41:00.000-06:00

**UPDATED** -- See the photo link at the bottom of this article.

Homeschooling parents often lament that they lack the educational gadgets and fancy learning aids that students can benefit from in "real" school classrooms. The Activity Jar is a wonderful store of math manipulatives and assorted learning aids that you can assemble yourself from no-cost items readily available in your home. Gathering the items and filling the jar is as much fun as dumping the contents out again and playing with them.

How to Assemble an Activity Jar--
Begin with one rather large, wide-mouthed container, such as a gallon jar (unbreakable plastic, if possible). Use a small storage tub or cardboard box if you wish, but a secure lid is a must and see-through sides are a bonus. Now set out on a scavenger hunt through your home and garage, poking through the "junk" drawers and all of those little nooks and crannies that tend to collect odds and ends. Pick up those interesting bits of stuff and place them into your jar. Continue this process until you have unearthed all possible objects or until your container is approximately 75% full. Do not give in to the impulse to fill your container brim-full, or you will seriously impede the clean-up phase of using the Activity Jar. Close the lid and set the container aside for a rainy day or any other time when your children want something to do or need practice in sorting, categorizing, or math in general. Bear in mind that the jar will be shaken and rattled around often, so you may need to remove any objects from the jar that become broken with use and replace them with more objects as you find them to keep the Activity Jar's contents new and interesting.

Be creative with what you select, thinking "outside the box" and including items from all areas of your home, not exclusively small toys. Do include tiny toys, coins, buttons, paper clips, nuts and bolts, and any other fascinating flotsam and jetsam. This is a great opportunity to recycle the remnants from incomplete, broken, or discarded board games. Be careful to select only larger pieces if toddlers may be at risk for swallowing the objects.

How to Use the Activity Jar--
Pour the contents into a large cake pan, unless your children can easily reach into the container to remove the items. Caution: unless your children are already skilled in sharing and showing patience, you will want to limit the Activity Jar to one student at a time. The discovery process can foster territorial feelings and selfishness, especially if two students are attempting to divide the contents without supervision or guidance. Encouraging your students to work together as a team toward a common goal can help them to overcome competition and rivalry.

Allow a student to begin with periods of free play with the objects, and watch him begin sorting without being prompted. When the student has exhausted his own ideas, challenge him to begin sorting the contents into 3 basic categories: Category A (such as round), Category B (such as not round), and Category C (for Other, or I'm not sure what to call this one, because one side of it is A and the other side is B). Other possible basic categories (for A & B) are flat objects and fat objects, single-colored objects and multi-colored objects, buttons and not buttons. Category C is always useful for speeding up the process, since there will usually be something that does not fall easily into the two main categories. Use more cake pans, cookie sheets, shoe boxes, freezer containers, bowls, muffin pans, egg cartons, paper cups, or any containers that will make the sorting process simple and easy.

Once Categories A and B have been sorted out, choose one of them and set the other objects aside for now. Further divide this selection of objects into more specific categories. Sort single-colored objects into individual color families; sort round or flat objects into disk-shaped objects and non-disk shapes; or sort the objects into general size categories of small, medium, and large before measuring them for more accurate classifications. Again, it may help your child to have an "Other" category for things that are difficult to categorize into his chosen groupings.

Preschoolers can enjoy digging through the contents of an Activity Jar (filled with toddler-safe objects) while Mom is helping their older siblings with lessons. Provide them with several empty plastic bowls or freezer containers, and they will have fun sorting and moving objects from here to there and back again.

How to Learn from the Activity Jar--
Sorting and categorizing are the most basic skills that can be learned. Since the jar contains a variety of objects, the student must make decisions for which category applies to each object. Begin with very basic categories (as described above) and proceed to more complicated descriptions later, as the student's abilities advance. The more the student sorts and categorizes, the finer the details become that can be used for sorting as categories are divided and sub-divided into smaller and smaller groupings.

Even the youngest student can perform simple sorting tasks. Vocabulary and recognition skills are increased as preschoolers practice sorting to learn shapes: Let's find all of the round things. Color names can be even easier to demonstrate with the jar's goodies: Today, let's find all of the blue things. Now let's make another group of things that have some blue on them.

Students quickly learn that each object can be classified in numerous ways: a single button may be round, flat, pink, have a certain number of holes through its middle, and be an object that starts with the letter "B" or a color that starts with the letter "P." It may have a design of squares on its top, and it may be made of wood. The student will expand his abstract thinking skills as he learns to look at each object in numerous ways and learns to see all of the various attributes of any given item. Sorting these same objects over and over (by colors, by shapes, by materials, etc.) will illustrate to your child how common objects can be anything but common.

As skill levels advance, so can the sorting criteria, as well as the mathematical applications. Students of all ages will benefit from practice in sorting and counting, resorting and recounting, but other skills can be improved as well: comparing, judging, and classifying; the basic arithmetic of adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing; illustrating fractions and percentages; taking measurements; and on and on.

Once your student has divided and sub-divided objects into satisfactory groupings, challenge him to count the total number of objects and count the number of objects in each sub-group. A student who can perform long division can calculate each smaller group as a percentage of the larger group. If the concept of percent is difficult for the student to grasp, try the exercise again, but this time limit the large group to exactly 100 objects, then repeat the sorting, counting, and arithmetic portions. After the student understands percentages of 100, he can try again with a different (larger or smaller) number of objects as the larger grouping. Fractions can also be illustrated with sub-groups: one student has sorted out 12 game tokens, 6 of which are red; therefore, one-half of the tokens are red. Notice that 2 of those red tokens have a pattern of ridges on them, representing one-third of the red tokens and one-sixth of the larger group of 12 tokens.

Algebra uses the concept of sorting with polynomials. An algebraic expression may contain many objects to sort and categorize, but instead of being red buttons and blue buttons, pennies and nickels, and yellow and white game tokens, they look like X and 2X, XY and 3XY, and 4Y and 2Y. A student who understands that buttons are buttons and that coins are not buttons can also understand that X and 2X are both X-objects, and that neither of them are XY-objects or Y-objects. That is the basis of algebra: sorting and grouping similar objects, while not grouping dissimilar objects.

The skills to be gained from an Activity Jar are nearly limitless. Classification is the basis of scientific research, sorting useful facts from insignificant facts. The plant and animal kingdoms are carefully sorted and classified into similar groups. Other applications of the Activity Jar cover many academic subjects. The visually-oriented student might make graphs and charts to show how many objects were sorted into each group or compile lists of attributes (color, size, shape, material, etc.) for some items. The tactile student might experiment with stacking objects to see which types of shapes can and cannot be stacked easily. You can spur your students' creativity by them to invent a game using some of the objects. Sharpen your students' tactile and memory skills by placing some objects inside a paper sack, then asking each student to reach into the sack and try to identify the objects by touch alone. To improve auditory skills, secretly place an object inside a box and challenge your students to listen closely as each one shakes and tips the box to see if he can determine what type of object is inside, just from the sounds it makes while sliding back and forth.

The more activities your students do with the Activity Jar, the more ideas you and your students will think of for new activities to try. Your applications for the Activity Jar will probably go far beyond the few simple projects that I have described here, making your jar one of the most valuable learning aids in your homeschool. And you thought this was just a jar full of useless junk.

Photos of my Activity Jar and some examples of sorting activities can be viewed HERE.

Want to Help the Carnival of Homeschooling?

2008-01-17T10:20:00.000-06:00

Henry Cate wants your help in designing a graphic for the Carnival of Homeschooling. See Henry's post HERE for all the details. Don't delay -- the deadline for submissions is January 28th!

Upcoming Conference

2008-01-15T11:40:00.000-06:00

Readers in the greater Chicago area, take note -- I will be speaking at the InHome Conference in St. Charles, IL, on March 7-8, 2008. See the conference website for registration information: http://www.homeeducatorsconference.org/

My 3 workshops will be --
What Type of Homeschooler Are You? (session A-2),
Losing the Guilt (session D-1), and
Taking the Mystery Out of Learning Styles (session F-7).
I hope to see you there!

What Do You Do with a Smart Kid?

2008-01-08T12:00:00.000-06:00

Imagine the plight of a young boy whose story was recently brought to my attention. He is 8 years old, reads the newspaper daily, and tries to discuss current events with his classmates during recess. Since his classmates are mainly interested in childhood playthings, the boy finds himself ignored and alone most of the time. He then turns his attentions to the adults around him, reasoning that surely they would share his interests in the things of their adult world, but, alas, they, too, spurn his attempts at conversation and suggest that he should go play with children his own age.

The boy's mother laments his "social incompetence" (her words), but rejects the idea of homeschooling, because (again, in her words) "if he were homeschooled, he would not be able to relate to other children his own age." Nod your head if you are seeing the irony in her statement. The child already cannot relate to children his own age, and he is in public school. How could homeschooling worsen his situation?

In my opinion, the child in this example is an ideal candidate for homeschooling (but then, so are most children, regardless of intellect or ability). He is highly intelligent and highly motivated. His thirst for knowledge is undeniable. The drawback, according to the child's parents, is their fear that homeschooling would reduce their child's chances for a normal childhood and normal childhood playmates. I've got news for them: this child passed that point a long time ago, no matter where his education comes from.

The boy expresses his disappointment when people talk to him in the same manner in which they would talk to any other child. His mom feels obligated to remind him that he actually is a child. The frustrated boy insists that he wants to discuss news items and current events--real stuff, important stuff--with grown-ups, but the grown-ups refuse to talk to him as though he knows anything. I've got news for him, too: the adults he is trying to talk to are probably afraid they will be exposed as knowing much less about world affairs than he does. Adults hate being embarrassed, especially by children, and particularly when their ignorance of relevant news becomes apparent.

So what is the solution for this boy and his family? My recommendation, of course, is for homeschooling (You knew it was coming, didn't you?) so that the child can explore the subjects of interest to him to the depths of his desire. I would also recommend finding (or creating) a discussion group where he could participate in conversations about the current events that he finds so fascinating. Such a group outside the home may not be easy to come by, since even adults are not all at the same level of maturity with each other. Two or three participants is sufficient for discussion, so a family "group" would be adequate. However, home education would allow this eager boy to expand his knowledge and use his mind to greater heights than his current third grade classroom can accommodate.

To leave this child in an ordinary school classroom is to punish his mind for satisfying its own curiosity and to replace his zest for learning with ultimate stagnation. A bored mind looks for ways to entertain itself, and those ways usually do not fit in with the teacher's lesson plans. Some teachers and some schools try to provide for the extraordinary students who happen along every so often, but a few extra assignments within the classroom setting often leave the student feeling as if he is receiving punishment instead of opportunities to fill an eager knowledge vacuum such as this child possesses.

Parents, you need not be afraid that your children know more than you do. Instead of fearing his intelligence, be proud of your child's abilities and take an interest in a few topics to cultivate conversations with him. Ask your child to tell you something he has learned from his reading each day, giving him non-threatening experience in public speaking (developing a common interest will help you both avoid the Know-It-All Attitude). No harm will come from letting your child see that you, the parent, do not know everything. In fact, it may be the spark that further ignites the flame of his learning passion. Informally sharing knowledge on a daily basis is excellent preparation for leadership, as it breaks down the fear-of-public-speaking barrier. (My children frequently had opportunities to share their hobby collection with small groups, which ultimately prepared them for giving speeches and presentations in college. Their fellow college classmates dreaded speaking in public, but for my students, it was something they were already very well acquainted with and felt comfortable doing.)

For the parents of any child who excels at learning, whether in public, private, or homeschool, you do not need to be alarmed when your student is readily leaping beyond the level of his peers. Encourage your child and help him gain the knowledge he desires. If you do not want your child to skip ahead a grade level, you can work on expanding his learning experience at the level where he currently is. Is your child devouring chapter books one after another while his classmates are just beginning to read them? Reward your child with more chapter books to read, help him find series of books on his level, or interest him in a wide variety of reading materials on this level to keep him from excelling too far beyond his peers. He can broaden his horizons to prevent boredom but still be able to discuss common interests with his classmates. Is your child excelling in math? Occupy his extra time with math or logic puzzles and other game-type activities and challenges within his level of ability, rather than pushing him to advance his ability too quickly. Allow your student ample time to practice and use the skills he already has, before advancing him to a higher level. If your student forges ahead and worries you that he will be ready for college too soon, encourage him to use the extra time during his high school years for pursuing other academic interests and expanding his education with further preparation for college.

Einstein, Edison, Franklin, DaVinci--these names have become synonymous with vast realms of study and knowledge. I have no way of knowing whether a frustrated 8-year-old boy has the ability to join their ranks, but I am quite certain that his current aggravation will not help him attain anything but more aggravation. Homeschooling at least provides the means toward the end he is seeking: the freedom to fulfill his desire to learn. Having a child who craves higher levels of education is not something to fear: it is simply an opportunity for both you and him.

(co-authored by Carolyn Morrison & Jennifer Leonhard)

Homeschool U at the 97th Carnival of Homeschooling

2007-11-07T10:56:00.001-06:00

Dana at Principled Discovery is hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling. Her theme is Homeschool U for a virtual university experience. I'm grabbing my notebook and running on over--I don't want to be late to class!

Guilt-Free Homeschooling Means Freedom

2007-11-02T11:31:00.000-05:00

How is Guilt-Free Homeschooling different from other homeschooling philosophies? Guilt-Free Homeschooling focuses on what works for your family, not what anyone else may be doing. Guilt-Free Homeschooling is all about finding success, making homeschooling work for your family, and producing admirable students. Here are the top 10 ways that Guilt-Free Homeschooling will bring freedom, success, and encouragement to your homeschool.

Guilt-Free Homeschooling gives you the freedom to homeschool for the reasons you choose and the freedom to set your own priorities and the goals that you want your family to achieve through homeschooling.

Guilt-Free Homeschooling gives you the freedom to draw closer together as a family, supporting, encouraging, and enjoying each other.

Guilt-Free Homeschooling gives you the freedom to ignore what the "Homeschool Joneses" claim to be doing and the freedom to use the methods and materials that enable your children to learn quickly, thoroughly, and efficiently.

Guilt-Free Homeschooling gives you the freedom to start and end your school year and your vacations and breaks when you choose.

Guilt-Free Homeschooling gives you the freedom to sleep late and only do lessons after lunch, if that is what works for your family, or to rise early and get all your lessons completed before noon, if that is what works for your family.

Guilt-Free Homeschooling gives you the freedom to have a 2-hour lunch break or 5 recesses per day or 3 snack breaks or do lessons in your pajamas or read stories all day, if that is what works for your family.

Guilt-Free Homeschooling gives you the freedom to take an occasional day off from structured lessons for the enjoyment of life and family.

Guilt-Free Homeschooling gives you the freedom to leave the house during the day, because education happens everywhere and all the time.

Guilt-Free Homeschooling gives you the freedom to do only the group activities that interest your family and/or stay home from any activity day if you want or need to do so.

Guilt-Free Homeschooling gives you the freedom to take your lessons on the road and let school happen wherever you are, if that is what works for your family.

Guilt-Free Homeschooling is comfortable, it's relaxed, it meets your needs, and it fits your family's lifestyle. Welcome to a new way of homeschooling: Homeschooling... Guilt-Free.

From the Mailbox: Pregnant & Homeschooling

2007-10-18T14:17:00.000-05:00

This is part of a series of articles based on actual questions I have received and my replies to them. Real names will not be used, and I will address my responses to a generic "Mom"; if you are a homeschooling Dad, the advice can usually be applied to you as well. The wording will be altered from the original letters (and often composed from parts of multiple letters) and personal details will be omitted or disguised in order to protect the privacy of the writers while still maintaining the spirit of the question. If you have a specific homeschooling question that you would like me to address, please write to me at guiltfreehomeschooling@gmail.com. If part of your letter is used in an article, your identity will be concealed.

Dear Carolyn,
I am trying to homeschool my children and keep track of the toddler, but my current pregnancy has upset our whole routine. How in the world will I keep up with homeschooling while caring for a new baby??? I find my strength is diminishing as the size of my tummy increases. I do not have the energy to do all of the household chores that I usually do, and my children are not very helpful in picking up the slack. Some days, I have hit my emotional limit and become a screaming maniac toward my poor children. Again, I am really worried about how I will ever be able to manage homeschooling and housekeeping when the newborn arrives. Any advice?
--Mom

I will not pretend that anyone can wave a magic wand and solve all of your problems with one quick *POOF*, but I can offer some encouragement and maybe a few helpful hints and shortcuts.

Do not try to look too far into your future -- do not consider the entire school year, do not consider this entire semester or even one month at a time. Right now, with Baby on the way, you need to deal with one day at a time. Once Baby arrives, you may need to shorten that to even just an hour at a time or 30 minutes at a time. I am serious. Dealing with shorter blocks of time will keep you from becoming completely overwhelmed. Take life in small bites -- it is easier to digest that way.

Everyone can learn to do their part in helping out -- as long as you give them responsibilities and the expectation that they can accomplish those tasks. Do not try to do everything yourself -- not even everything that you have always done up to this point. As Baby's arrival nears, your physical abilities will become more limited and your attention will be required in more places than before. Explain to your children that they have now matured to the position where they can assume new challenges and new responsibilities -- even the toddler can learn to help out with folding washcloths or dusting the furniture legs that you can no longer bend over far enough to reach.

There is no crime in being pregnant! Your children know that you are pregnant, but they also need to learn that being an adult does not exempt a person from feeling tired, angry, frustrated, or overwhelmed (and that goes at least double for being a pregnant adult). Both boys and girls need to learn that pregnancy brings hormonal shifts: as potential fathers and mothers, they need to know what to expect, so do not try to mask all of your symptoms, putting on a happy face and unintentionally giving them the wrong impression. You do, however, want to show them that adults can and will admit their own shortcomings and apologize when necessary. A heart-felt apology can soothe the most hurt feelings, and the hugs that accompany an apology bring tremendous healing.

Although I did not go through a pregnancy during our homeschooling years (so you are free to ignore my advice if you wish), I did have many incidents from other outside factors that stressed me enough that it overflowed into our "classroom." I learned (eventually) to recognize the source of the irritation, and I learned (eventually) not to blame my students for things they had not caused. I also learned (eventually) that humbling myself before my children, apologizing, and asking them to pray for Mommy to be able to handle things better worked wonders. We became closer, more forgiving, and more patient and tolerant through each trial. At one point, a foot problem limited me to do no standing or walking for several days, so my children came up with the solution of seating Mommy in a wheeled office chair and pushing the chair (with me in it) from room to room. The resulting giggles from all of us brought more healing than just the physical "rest" could have.

Let your physical limitations be known -- to yourself as much as to the rest of your family. Then sit down, put your feet up, and enjoy being hugely pregnant for a few more weeks. Accept the offers from friends to bring in a meal or stop by to vacuum the floors for you. Call your church or a close friend and ask for help if no one has realized that you need some help now, before Baby is born. Let each older child take a turn at entertaining and caring for the toddler for a little while each day, giving them an opportunity for bonding and giving you a short break and a time to focus your attention on the other children. Realize that peanut butter and jelly sandwiches can be a nutritious supper. Realize that it will not matter if the kitchen counters do not sparkle or if the sink has a few dirty dishes in it. The "homeschool cops" will not come to your door and haul you away merely for letting your family eat from paper plates or scaling back the lessons to just reading and math for a while.

Responsible, older children can be given the privilege of checking their own work for some subjects. The math books we used had an answer key that could show my students whether or not they had arrived at the correct answer. A separate solutions manual guided them step-by-step through the solving process when they were truly stumped. When consulted honestly (after completing the work, not before), answer keys and solution guides can teach as much as the lesson itself does. Those same older students can also serve as teaching assistants with their younger siblings, helping the youngsters scan their work for glaring errors before submitting it to Mom's checking pencil. Every step a student takes toward checking his own work takes him that much closer to being an independent learner, something that will be very valuable when he makes the jump from homeschooled student to college student.

Once Baby has arrived, your strength will begin to return, but you can continue to give your children more responsibilities in the daily upkeep of your home. After all, it is their home, too, and lessons in cooking, cleaning, laundry, and home maintenance would be referred to as an Independent Living class by most public school programs. Enduring a pregnancy while homeschooling will be a learning and growing process for all of you, and one that will reap tremendous benefits. Do not underestimate the lessons that your children will learn through it.

For more encouragement, see these additional articles:
Do the Best Job You Can, and Pray for God to Clean Up the Rest
Your Children Will Not Always Be Like This
Using Your Household Staff
Family Is Spelled T-E-A-M
Teaching Your Students to Teach Themselves
Teaching with Preschoolers Around... and Under... and on Top... and Beside
Guilt-Free Lesson Plans and Scheduling
People LIVE in This House
What Is Your "Best"?
Biblical Model of Discipleship
Sick Days, Snow Days, and Other Interruptions

A Day Without Lessons

2007-09-25T13:18:00.000-05:00

Try it. I dare you. Just try to go through an entire day without learning anything. I do not think it is possible.

If we spent a day reading a novel just for the pleasure of it, not seeking to learn any specific lessons from the reading material, we would still learn the author's writing style, new ways of phrasing thoughts, new personality traits from the characters, and new details about the geographic area or historical period described in the story. Lessons learned, and my experiment failed.

Suppose we spend a day in mundane domestic pursuits, otherwise known as cleaning the house. We might learn the whereabouts of several missing items, the best method for cleaning a mysterious gooey substance from the front of a kitchen cabinet door, a family member's odd habit of discarding her shoes underneath the sofa, and how to quickly repair the vacuum cleaner when its rolling brush becomes hopelessly tangled with strands of hair, thread, and whatever else it has found. More lessons learned, and more failure at avoiding those lessons.

Okay, so maybe we need to leave the house. C'mon, kids, let's go shopping -- surely we can spend a day browsing our favorite stores and escape from lessons. Is that a Sale sign? Wait a moment -- isn't that "sale" price higher than the regular price at another store? Oops -- that's a lesson. Back to the browsing. Oh, look, we need some of those -- now which size package is the better value? A little quick math, and, oh no, another lesson. We seem to have failed again at our attempt not to learn anything today. It seems that lessons are harder to avoid than was previously thought.

Off to the park. Surely we can escape the learning process with an afternoon of guiltless playtime. What's that, dear? What kind of leaf is that? Umm... it's a tree leaf. If you really want to know, you may take it home and look for it in the nature book. Tomorrow. We are trying to skip lessons today, remember? Yes, son, I did see you over there doing chin-ups. And you say that's more than you could do last week? Sigh. Another lesson learned.

Parents, if you are feeling guilty that your homeschool routine is not quite as routine as you think it should be, be encouraged. Your students are probably learning valuable lessons no matter what they are doing. The preceding examples show that we can learn something from every situation we encounter. We may not be solving quadratic equations while doing housework or yardwork, but we are still learning important things. Our students may not be conjugating verbs while at play, but they are still learning important lessons.

Problem-solving, negotiation, investigation, exploration, analysis -- these are extremely valuable skills that are rarely mastered between the pages of a textbook. Just try to go through an entire day without learning anything -- but realize that each "failure" to avoid lessons will actually be a tremendous success in increasing knowledge.

Latest Developments

2007-09-11T10:48:00.000-05:00

First, the 89th Carnival of Homeschooling, Soccer Edition is up and running at Why Homeschool? There is a TON of information there, so join me in dribbling down the midway!

Second, we're moving! That's right, Guilt-Free Homeschooling will soon be occupying its very own domain in the blogosphere. What does that mean to you? An easier to remember URL, for one thing, and a chance to talk to all of your friends about GFHS by reminding them to update their bookmarks. The length of time it will take to move everything is still uncertain at this time, but you can avoid any problems by changing your bookmarks now to guiltfreehomeschooling.org.

UPDATE: Moving has begun! If your favorite links here are temporarily out of service, it's only because we're still working on it all. Many thanks to Andrea of atypicalife.com for her assistance (Who am I kidding? She's doing 99.2% of it!). Now, where did I put that box marked Blogging Stuff and Purple Things???

Top 15 Mottoes to Get You Through Your First Homeschooling Year

2007-09-07T13:52:00.000-05:00

I have said it before, and I will say it again: the first year of homeschooling is the toughest. No matter who you are, no matter what background you have, no matter what ages your children are, the first year of homeschooling is the most challenging, simply because it is uncharted territory, both for you and for your students. You are understandably nervous.

Because of that, I am sharing these articles from the archives of Guilt-Free Homeschooling, just for you, Brand New Homeschooling Parent. (Homeschooling "veterans" are allowed to read them, too.) Read them as often as you need the encouragement. Recite the titles as your own personal mottoes as often as you need the reminders. Copy the titles onto note cards and tape them to your bathroom mirror or your kitchen cabinet doors. Shout them as declarations of defiant resistance to the voices that would challenge your ability to teach your own children effectively. Hold your head high and your shoulders back, knowing that you are making a positive difference in your children's lives. And know that I am very proud of you!

Who Taught This Kid to Walk, Talk, and Potty? (You, did, Mom, that's who!)

What Didn't Work for Today Can Be Changed for Tomorrow (Homeschooling is flexible.)

Every Day Is a Learning Day, and Life Is Our Classroom (Again, homeschooling is flexible.)

I Give One Grade: 100% -- But You Get to Keep Trying Until You Get It (for as long as it takes, because homeschooling is flexible)

"Family" Is Spelled T-E-A-M (Your children are not your enemies, they are your teammates.)

You and I Drive Different Cars (and teach our children in different ways)

Who Wrote This "Rule Book" and Why Do I Feel I Have to Follow It? (The Official Omnipotent Homeschooling Rule Book does not exist)

"Parent" Is a Verb (Who's in charge here anyway?)

Any Dead Fish Can Float Downstream (And anything worth having is worth working for.)

We're Not Raising Children -- We're Raising Adults (What is your desired outcome?)

Classic Literature Is Not Necessarily Good Literature (Who decides which books are better than others?)

Knowing How to Find the Answer Is the Same as Knowing the Answer (Where in real life are you required to know everything at every given moment?)

If You Can Present Your Case with Facts and Logic and Without Whining, I Will Listen with an Open Mind (Negotiation is an excellent skill to possess.)

Your Children Will Not Always Be Like This (I promise.)

Do the Best Job You Can, and Pray for God to Clean Up the Rest (No one can expect you to do better than "your best.")

10 Ways to Ease into Homeschooling

2007-08-16T12:56:00.000-05:00

(For Your 1st Year or Any Year)

1. Do any simple craft project together. Don't obsess about neatness: have fun. Make decorations for a "Family Friday Feast" party and kick off your new school year with a celebration.

2. Read aloud to your children, even if it's only for one week of the summer or for a short period each day. Pick a short, simple book or use fun poetry. Be expressive! Use different voices for each character. Take turns and let the children read, too. Listen to an audio book as an alternative.

3. Take your children for a walk each day. Keep it short, if desired. Focus on everyday sights you usually overlook. Use this time to get into the routine of discussing simple things together.

4. Use the hot summer days to hide in the air conditioning and learn italic handwriting, read and write silly poetry, read a stack of books from the library (even picture books), do a jigsaw puzzle, or play every board game you own at least once.

5. Visit a museum, zoo, or other "field trip." Follow up with a time of family discussion about each person's favorite points and new discoveries.

6. Hold a "Cooking Marathon Day" to make some basic meal components ahead and freeze them for use on busy homeschool days. Make a huge batch of cookies and freeze them in small packages for quick treats in the car on field trip days.

7. Hold a "Game Day" and let each child select a favorite game, and everyone plays together, rotating through the selections. Relax, laugh and get silly, and enjoy each other's company.

8. Hold a "Family Conference" to discuss what each member expects from homeschooling. Let each express his hopes and fears, likes and dislikes. This time of open sharing will reveal some new things you had not thought of trying and some other things you may want to avoid. (I had not realized how traumatizing a teacher's red pencil had become to my formerly public schooled child until she shared, so I then began marking her papers with other, happier colors.)

9. Back-to-school shopping--even homeschoolers enjoy a few new items. Find some new containers for homeschool storage, art materials, or just some fun pencils and notebooks. Purchase a special reference book, wall map, or other useful learning aid for the whole family. If your students have left public or private school to begin homeschooling, allow them to choose some things that were not allowed for use in their last classroom (Trapper binders, mechanical pencils, colored-ink pens).

10. Begin classes with only one subject per day for each student. After a week, add a second subject; week three, add two more subjects. Continue until you are up to your full schedule.

So You Think You're Not Smart Enough to Homeschool?

2007-07-24T13:32:00.000-05:00

Suppose your child wants a special cake for her birthday. What will you do? A few moms may be practiced in the fine art of baking the perfect cake from scratch, combining flour, sugar, and eggs in the correct proportions to rise to delicious heights without falling. Some moms will grab a boxed mix, whip it up, and top the resulting cake with ready-made frosting and colorful sprinkles. Other moms will simply stop by their favorite bakery and purchase a completed cake. In each case, the problem has been solved, and the birthday will be celebrated.

The same strategy can be applied to teaching in a homeschool setting. You can research topics yourself, much like looking for recipes in a cookbook or online or asking friends to share their favorites. You can collect a few do-it-yourself elements and put together your own curriculum, as with the mom who used the cake mix, canned frosting, and instant decorations. Or you can purchase an assortment of courses fully prepared by someone else, as in the case of the bakery cake.

I have met many people whose reaction to homeschooling is "You would have to be smart to do that!" Knowing what really goes on behind the scenes in homeschooling, my thought is "What is smart?" How intelligent does a person have to be to homeschool successfully? I do not have to know all the answers in order to be a good teacher, I just have to know where or how to find the answers. I do not have to be able to do something myself in order to be able to teach about it.

In my past educational experiences, I have had art instructors who effectively taught me about DaVinci and Rembrandt, but who could not duplicate the works of those masters themselves. I had English instructors who taught me about Shakespeare and Longfellow, but who had never written comparable works. I had history teachers who had done nothing memorable themselves and geography teachers who had never traveled the globe. My science teachers had made no remarkable scientific discoveries, and yet they were able to pass on accurate scientific knowledge. These successful instructors all relied to some degree on the resources and experiences of others.

A successful homeschool teacher is one who is able to impart the material to his or her students. The source of the material is not relevant if no one is able to learn from it. There are homeschool students whose curricula cost hundreds of dollars and students whose books are borrowed for free from the public library, and both learn equally well. There are homeschool teachers who write every page of their own lessons and teachers who read word-for-word from purchased, scripted manuals, and the students of both learn equally well.

If I had waited to begin homeschooling until I felt confident enough in my own knowledge and abilities that I could answer any question my students might ask, well, I would still be studying. In reality, I learned right along with my students. If I became hopelessly confused on some topic, the resources and experiences of others were nearby in the form of other homeschoolers, reference books, internet websites, or packaged lessons. When we encountered an unfamiliar word, we consulted the dictionary together. When we stumbled over a math problem, we worked it out together. When we were stumped by a reference to an exotic location, we leafed through the atlas or did a quick "Google" search together. The bonds created through learning together taught my students more than just new information. My students saw first-hand that learning can be an enjoyable and profitable, life-long process.

If you are intrigued by homeschooling, but feel you may not be smart enough, I encourage you to give it a try. You can supplement your knowledge through the materials you choose, increasing your teaching staff from one (just you) to dozens or even hundreds of experienced and qualified tutors (the authors whose works you consult).

If you currently use pre-packaged curriculum and would like to try your hand at creating a lesson on your own, go ahead and give it a try. There is no Official Omnipotent Homeschooling Rule Book that states you must always continue using the same method with which you started. If you currently are writing all of your own lessons, but find yourself so overwhelmed by recent developments in life that you would really like to try an all-in-one package, go ahead and give it a try. There is no Official Omnipotent Homeschooling Rule Book that states you must always continue using the same method with which you started. That non-existent Official Omnipotent Homeschooling Rule Book also does not prevent you from switching back to your original choices if you find you really prefer them. Variety is the spice of life, and flexibility is the blessing of homeschooling. Take a break, take a chance, and watch the learning continue.

If you are able to create your own lessons out of thin air, God bless you. If you prefer to use pre-prepared lessons purchased from an experienced publisher, God bless you, too. Guilt-Free Homeschooling frees you from the competition for Most Original Lesson Plan and allows you to use the method that works best for you and for your students. How smart do you have to be to be able to homeschool? Just smart enough to use what works.

Carnival of Homeschooling

2007-06-26T12:44:00.000-05:00

The latest Carnival of Homeschooling is up and running at Homeschool Hacks. This week's theme is "The Surgery Edition," but don't worry -- there's no blood. Thanks to Shannon for her hard work!

Top 10 Signs You're Doing a Good Job as a Homeschool Parent

2007-06-20T12:42:00.000-05:00

Time is not a factor in homeschooling. Finishing lessons quickly or working on lessons all day long is not an indicator of quality in education. Here, however, are some more important signs that can show that you are doing a great job as a homeschooling parent.

10--Your children think "writing" involves more than a text message on a cell phone.

9--Your children know that the first line of the National Anthem is not "Take me out to the ballgame."

8--Your children read without being bribed. Or threatened.

7--Your children hear about an interesting science experiment and insist on trying it for themselves, even though they already know the outcome.

6--Your dictionary never collects dust.

5--The TV news mentions a remote country and your children already know where it is located.

4--The TV news mentions a remote country that your children don't know, and they race each other to the world atlas.

3--People notice that your children get along well with each other.

2--People ask you questions about homeschooling, and your children answer for you.

1--Your children giggle and elbow each other when people ask, "What do you do about socialization?"

"Test Drive" Homeschooling

2007-05-01T10:25:00.000-05:00

Many parents wonder if homeschooling could benefit their family. Many parents wonder if they could actually teach their own children. Many parents are tired of the government education system and wonder if homeschooling could be a viable alternative for them. Summer is coming -- why not give homeschooling a "test drive"?

Spend some time this summer trying on homeschooling to see how it fits and see how you could make it fit your family. All it requires is the motivation to spend time together as a family, parent(s) with children, exploring, investigating, and learning -- together.
--Explore a current interest to new depths
--Learn a new game and get really good at it
--Try a new hobby and learn all you can about it
--Stay up very late, study the stars, and learn about astronomy

Break all the "school" rules and do things the way you would like to do them in your own version of homeschooling. Experiment without using a public school-style format and just pursue your students' personal interests to see where they will take you.
--Visit the library -- often
--Visit a museum -- and study your favorite exhibit for a long time, then go back to the library (or home computer) for further research and exploration
--Visit a zoo -- and watch your favorite animals for a long time, then go back to the library (or home computer) for further research and exploration

If you think you might like to continue homeschooling, be aware that everyone's first year of homeschooling is tough, because homeschooling presents an entirely new routine. The hardest way to homeschool is in a way that does not fit your family. Exploring your own interests in the ways you enjoy most will give you a headstart on finding a homeschool method that fits you well.
--Read biographies of intriguing people
--Build projects of your choice, whether model cars or restoring a '57 Chevy, birdhouses or a family room addition (just do it together, as a family learning experience)
--Visit interesting places, whether nearby day-trips or an extended vacation
--Watch historical or biographical movies or video versions of literary classics
--Play games: board games, card games, dice games, group games, lawn games

Homeschooling is simply learning based from home, with family. It does not have to involve textbooks, memorization, dull facts, or tests. It does not have to occur only between the hours of 8am and 3pm, Monday through Friday. It can be non-stop, fascinating, and positively delightful. Give home-based learning a summer "test drive." You may be pleasantly surprised!

"2006 Homeschool Blog Awards" Nomination

2007-04-09T11:15:00.000-05:00

BLESSINGS to the reader(s) who nominated Guilt-Free Homeschooling for The Homeschool Blog Awards for Best Nitty-Gritty Homeschool Blog. This classification is for the opposite of the Super-Homeschooler, for someone who is "brutally honest and open about her mistakes and failures." That has definitely been my mission in this blog: sharing my mistakes and failures in the hope that doing so will help you avoid those same pitfalls. MORE BLESSINGS to any readers who click the link above and vote for GFHS!

P.S.
The invitations for Wedding #1 are almost ready to go!