One of the first preparations we undertook for the trip around the USA - after writing to each of the governors (see their responses here: http://bestplacesintheusa.com/USA/_letters.aspx) - was to start homeschooling. We are fortunate to live in an excellent school district, but we knew we didn’t want to be driving away on our first day of the trip AND cracking open the school books for the first time as homeschoolers. Believe me, THAT would have been a nightmare!
We actually started homeschooling 5 years ago to prepare…has it been that long?? There are many wonderful curricula out there - so many, in fact, that the decision was overwhelming that first year (and even in subsequent years), but we chose Sonlight, a literature-rich curriculum. It was fun to snuggle and read together a lot. My son gained a love for history, which the trip will bring to life for him. This year, however, we went one step further to prepare and started using a curriculum that is more travel friendly. Alpha Omega Academy Switched-On Schoolhouse is electronic-based. We chose it for its portability in not having to haul all the books, workbooks, etc. around with us on the road. It’s completely loaded on the laptop.
I was very nervous about homeschooling when we started, but I’m so glad we did, not only for being prepared for the trip but also for the great experiences we’ve had homeschooling. Our kids seem to be well-rounded and have done well on their achievement tests every spring. Homeschooling does require discipline, but it’s nice that we can look forward to the trip without having homeschooling jitters.
Interestingly, the difficulties came from unexpected places. The social aspect isn't that big of an issue unless you lock your family up and never let them out. A shy kid is a shy kid and an outgoing one is an outgoing one. We have both..and it has strangely switched over time. What has been difficult is providing the motivation to excel. In public school (many years ago), my husband and I both wanted to impress the teacher and our parents. Something changes when the teacher is your mom, and we started out the year with some bad grades.
We sat down with the kids and came up with ideas that would motivate them to work harder. We decided on losing privileges (video games, TV, friends) for grades under a B. In addition, acing (100%) a quiz or test got them 10 tokens (a reward system to earn cool stuff I'll have to blog about later). Then we watched.
They read a lot of books that first month, but soon they began to get it. They figured out what they needed to do to get a B or A. So now I think we're ready - at least on the school side of things...That is until we actually leave on the trip. Then we'll have a whole new problem when they don't have friends around to begin with! How will we ever motivate them then??
-The Mom (the practical one)
No comments:
Post a Comment