Could it Really be True?

Gotta have art!

There are big changes coming in our family. We are in the midst of our last year of homeschooling. Late this spring, I will officially be done homeschooling my children. Hip Hip Hooray and all that jazz -  celebrations to ensue, but there will be more than just a tear or two being shed through these final months of homeschooling. Mostly, they are tears of joy, for all that has been accomplished by us as a family and by each of us individually. I will miss so very much our homeschooling lifestyle.

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Homeschooled pets are lucky creatures.

I am anticipating a major shift in my life and daily activities. We still have a couple of things to complete with our home schooled high school senior. Baring any dramatic changes, she will be given her high school diploma in June of 2019, just a few short months away. She is currently preparing for her own independent adventures as a young adult. Our two sons are also making their plans for establishing there own domestic domains. With all three leaving the nest there will be big changes in this household! 

Milestones and next steps.

As a result, there will be new blog topics for me to explore in the months to come. I hope to be posting more about my own activities, the plans I am making and the adventures I am looking forward to. Homeschooling was in part an outcome of my own interest in intentional life long learning. My own education continues, anyone interested in joining me as a life long adult un-schooler?

Technology and classical ballet meet.

For our daughter this winter and spring, the final homeschooling agenda has included her completion of some course work and taking care of some of the details of high school graduation. She will finish some language arts requirements which in our 'school' continues to require daily reading and writing. Just a few things beyond that for her to complete, including the completion of a math component and  she'll be completing the official testing required. I'll be completing her transcripts.

Acquiring a driver's licence is in the mix for her to top it off with some additional real world functioning. Add the attainment of an actual drivers licence and she's off!

For my daughter the next few years will include more dance training and auditions in hopes of participating as a dancer in an actual ballet company. She plans to begin college classes while continuing her focus on dance.

Thankful for amazing online resources.

It has been an amazing journey. A learning adventure where the adage about how the teacher learns more than the student has consistently been realized over and over in our home. in full force!  I do not regret for a moment, our choice to home school our children. I am in fact sad to see it end even as I know it's eventual ending was the ultimate goal. I can barely remember any difficulties of learning on the part of my "students" I do remember some frustrations with myself as a "teacher".  

Oh those days!

My own inadequacies were overly obvious to myself and probably my children time and again throughout all the years of homeschooling. Each display of my lack of skill whether it was simply knowledge, preparation or organization, was an opportunity to show the value of life long learning, growth and character development. The need for growth for all of us in character was and is always more imperative than any immediate need of academic requirement. 

There were moments, hours, days and sometimes, though not frequently, weeks, when I questioned what or how we were homeschooling, but never the choice overall. My children have been eager learners and good sports as we wound our way through growing together. They have been wonderful companions and I  delighted in allowing them to keep their childhood curiosity and wonder alive as they grew. As they say, the proof is in the pudding. So far each of our children have taken steps and begun to step out into the world with a solid foundation and in a positive direction. I am extremely proud of each of them.

Over our homeschooling years, one of my main go to resources has been SchoolhouseTeachers.com. It is is an online product with downloadable, printable elements as well as online classes and video components. There are online classes for homeschooling students of all ages. There are encouraging parenting resources and forums for the addition of a potential community of other online homeschooling families.

It is a valuable resource worth looking into if you haven't already.
April is a great month to do so because there is a wonderful promotion going on.

SchoolhouseTeachers.com ~ (http://www.SchoolhouseTeachers.com/) 
This is an online product with downloadable, printable elements as well as online classes and video components.

A Book Review of a New Title by Julie Polanco, God Schooling: How God Intended Children to Learn

For Homeschool Review Crew, I received and was delighted to read a copy of the book God Schooling How God Intended Children to Learn by Julie Polanco. While reading the first pages and through every chapter, I have been creating a gift list of those I'd like to share this title with.

First, a bit of an upfront disclosure.. As a home school mom in Chicago-land, Julie and I have crossed paths on occasion over the years. We met early on in our parenting journeys at a friend's house for a play date with our little ones, later at a home school mom's book group that met at Julie's home and once again at a Special Olympics gymnastics meet. It has now been several years since and though over those years we didn't spend enough time in each other's company to develop a closer friendship, we did both develop a similar homeschooling approach. Our children's interests have led us down different paths, with fewer opportunities to meet, but with a shared understanding of learning.

It has also been a while since I've read a book from cover to cover about education and learning generally, or even homeschooling specifically. In the early days of our family's homeschooling journey, I devoured books about homeschooling from cover to cover late into many nights. John Holt, John Taylor Gatto and David and Micki Colfax, were a few of those who truly spoke to me and reassured me about my own observations and our approach to guiding learning in our home, with our children.

Julie's book falls in line with these authors, who's observations resonated with me then and still today. This is the homeschooling genre that I have read and collected from early on, these are the writings and the views that sustained me, they will always remain in my collection. I think Julie will be pleased to read that her book will join those authors on my shelf.

Learning all the time, natural learning, free range learning, child led, are all descriptive phrases that have been used in an attempt to explain an approach that takes the child into full consideration as their adult teachers and mentors guide them through a topic of interest. It is from a child's own innate curiosity that leads a child into a greater understanding and to continue through the study of any subject matter.

Julie takes a reader through her understanding of this approach, how she has developed a deeper appreciation of a plan bigger than her own for her children. In her well organized writing she reveals her Christian faith as the basis for her approach to homeschooling.

http://www.juliepolancobooks.com/

Julie discusses topics that I have often considered while on this journey, not just of homeschooling but of parenting. My desire to increase the chances of my children maintaining their love of learning and internal drive to continue to acquire new skills and learn throughout life led me to books like Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn. Julie references Kohn's book as well. She sums it up with this statement "The extent to which the environment is controlling through rewards/punishment, threats, survveillance, evaluation, deadlines, being ordered around or by competition is the extent to which a person will lose their intrinsic motivation." Julie Polanco
I think she would appreciate the story of my oldest learning to ride a bike with onlooking neighbors. To their dismay, I did not cheer in excited positive exclamations as my first born rode a bike down our suburban sidewalk for the first time. Without fanfare, I was pleased, I did smile and he did continue to ride a two wheeler!

Julie gives similar examples from her own family. She describes the evolution of her own journey and provides us with a clear and deep understanding of learning and the benefits of following God's lead, as seen in the blossoming of those in our care. This book is a welcome bridge between the many homeschooling communities that I have been aware of in Chicago-land, from the undisciplined unschoolers to the strictly book work, no nonsense scholars, Julie's book could help us see our similarities, in our hopes and in God's plan for our children. Easy to access and easy to share, I am glad Julie followed the calling to put it all into a published book. I will be sharing this title with the gift list I began while reading the very first chapter. I hope you will, too. It is also available in e-book format for half price through August 22nd.

God Schooling How God Intended Children to Learn by Julie Polanco

To read more reviews of Julie's book, click the banner below.

Where they lead...

As parents, no matter the plans we have for our families and specifically each of our children, their ideas, talents and interests are their own and the more they are allowed to develop them and their own thinking the more we may find ourselves in unknown territory, assisting them in accessing the resources and training they need to explore and develop their own unique gifts and talents.

It is an adventure to see where our children, in the developing of their own unique gifts, might lead us as we explore, learn and enjoy the world together.

With our boys, providing for physical activity was always a priority, allowing for exploration and the opportunity to develop the physical skills they wanted to possess meant being outdoors and active; learning to ride tricycles, bicycles, skates, skateboards. It meant sports, organized and unorganized, golf courses, driving ranges and many summers at the baseball field; community sports, travel team sports, and athletic teams in the local public school.

Our daughter, our youngest, could have followed in their footsteps, and she did in a family backyard playground, kind of way. However, when it came time to participate in an organized activity, she declined. There are many girls in our community who play baseball and many who play softball, but apparently, she had had enough of running the bases. She was interested in dance and gymnastics. Her pursuit of gymnastics and invitations to join competitive teams led us to finding and her receiving excellent training. We traveled to regional and national competitions. She found one of her passions. She accomplished so much. She developed relationships with other dedicated girls who became her best friends. And then...


Change is inevitable and when our daughter chose to focus on dance training, we were in for another learning experience. So much to learn while following another potential passion; ballet, variations, modern, contemporary, and shoes, shoes, and more shoes, pointe, flat, jazz, and character shoes.

Ballet class leads to ballet performances and stage time, individually and as a group. Those performances lead to behind the scenes parent volunteer time and more learning opportunities for family members in unexpected places.


In homeschooling families, the learning of a particular subject matter often carries over to siblings as they watch and support one another. Her older brothers have attended (and actually enjoyed) more ballet performances then any of us would have ever anticpated.

The learning, thankfully never ends and based on our youngest's participation as a dancer, we are headed into another new experience this summer. The same daughter, on the verge of  becoming a young woman, will be attending a many week summer dance intensive, away from home! As a homeschooling family, (if you are one, you'll get this) we have very rarely even spent overnights away from each other. This is a wonderful opportunity, it is an exciting adventure, that puts her, as a student on her path to independence, a little sooner than we might have predicted. We are headed, once again, into uncharted territory. For her, a summer of new and advanced training, a summer of hard work and learning away from family. For us, a summer with many days apart from our youngest, still a teen.

Wish me well as we hit the road, to take her to this exciting new adventure. I'll be coming back home to an almost "empty nest". I'll be coming back to work on some long neglected projects and passions of my own. There are so many, I won't know where to begin!

What unexpected learning, adventures and travel have your children led you to? Leave me some comments, I'm going to need the company!

A Round Up of Ideas for Summer

Improving A Communication Skill - A Review of Ultrakey Online

Despite my use of a desk top key board for writing, blogging and emailing, my typing is far from efficient. I am slow. So when the opportunity to use and review the Ultrakey Online Family Subscription  from Bytes of Learning was offered, I was happy to give it a try. I was equally happy to encourage my daughter to learn and improve her typing. Given that she is not an exception to the fact that most teenagers currently keyboard with their thumbs, I was happy that this product included up to 8 users with our family subscription. I was the most willing to improve my typing skills but she has gone along with the plan. 

Initially, signing up with Ultrakey was effortless. I did have trouble figuring out how to set up additional accounts for more than myself. The information on how to do so was available in the program, however, my kids will all tell you that I am impatient with technology in that way. One phone call to a very friendly costumer service department with an actual person responding and answering my questions and I was kindly walked through getting my daughter's account set up and ready to go. 

UltraKey Online has given me easy to access tools to practice and improve my typing skills one lesson at a time. My daughter is doing the same with UltraKey Online. The lessons and drills are given based on the users chosen goals and "adapts to whatever ability the user has, and proceeds at the user's personal pace". Different users within one account can progress at their own speed, working to attain their own goals. Each student's progress reports can be recorded within a family account with individual access to continued practicing. Individual goals can be set, reviewed and re-evaluated within one overall account.

The lessons are based on the importance of the "motor memory process", the ongoing repetition and continued practice needed to instill motor memory. The concept of muscle memory is easily understood by my teenage dancer. I appreciate the thorough user manual that comes with this product and the references to educational principles behind learning a skill. It is clear that the creators have done their research and understand the learning process of students gaining the skill of typing. Having those references was useful in communicating to my daughter the effectiveness of returning to practice regularly. The easy use of this product has made the option of ongoing practice attainable. We used the game section to add an edge of fun to the practice routine.

Games add some fun
to the learning process

Though we only used the program on a desktop it can be used on a variety of devices. It can be used on tablets and chrome books. The fact that it doesn't have plugins is an advantage to me. As I mentioned, I don't always have a lot of patience with technology and it's dynamic status. Using resources that need updating when I return to them has always been an annoyance to me as a homeschooling mom. With Bytes of Learning Ultrakey this is not an issue. They handle that end, the students at my house can simply log on and begin where they left off.


My daughter has improved her typing skill significantly. With the Bytes of Learning  Online Family Subscription the family manager has access to the progress reports which gives me the option of reviewing what she's done and accomplished within the program. We have both improved our typing skill. I am excited to continue to increase my typing accuracy and wmp and increase my writing productivity through improved typing. Like it says in the Ultrakey user guide, "Fluent keyboarding is ultimately a communication process."

A printable certificate of
attaining goals. Please don't look
to closely at mine!

Learning In Every Season

In the late days of summer, conversations with other homeschooling parents often include the questions of "Have you started school?" or "When do you begin the school year?" During the spring, conversations usually include questions and discussions regarding the completion of a school year. For us, conforming to the established school year has been secondary to living our lives together as a family, in rhythm with the natural seasons of the year and of the developmental stages and activities of our children.

The beauty of homeschooling is defining our own lives as a family. Humans, especially young humans, learn all of the time. If a family supplies a child with the basics; a physically safe environment including good nutrition, a nurturing home with adults who care and if those adults pay attention, are responsive and interact, they will all be learning. Conversations will encourage development of vocabulary and communication skills, a print rich environment will foster an interest in reading and encouraging responses from each family member will help a child develop self motivation to be an active participation in his or her own learning. However it's labeled, whatever the time of year, these are the basics of human development and learning.

It is a wonderful thing as a homeschooling family to have the ability choose our own schedule. Our "school year" of focused academic learning happens mostly in our own time frame. For us "schooling" follows the seasons more than it follows the standard public school calendar.

Energetic children need plenty of physical activity all year. That activity is easily pursued in the great outdoors. Where we live, the summer months provide the opportunity to spend significant amounts of time outside being physically active. During the beautiful days of late summer restricting outdoor time to begin intensive academic work has always seemed counter productive to learning.

Summer

When our boys were young, baseball participation dominated our summer days. Many years we capped off their baseball involvement with a trip as spectators to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, PA. After following local teams to their final games we watched teams from around the country advance to the popular tournament to complete the season. The Little League World Series extends into the accepted school year with player participants usually missing their first week of school to complete the series. As spectators, we enjoyed the final playoff games as well.

Fall

Enjoying summer has naturally led us into an appreciation of the beautiful crisp days of autumn. Following the harvest, we gained an understanding of the cycles of nature and how it influences food production and food availability. Learning to appreciate the harvest lends itself naturally to increasing our knowledge of nutrition, biology and economics. Gratitude for the abundance we enjoy brings it home to our own family table, to the farmers of our region in the mid-west and growers of our food world wide.

Winter 

As the temperature cools, we settle into the coziness of winter with lots of reading. This is the time of year when we really dig into the academics. Reading together or individually on a cold winter day is a pleasure. A cup of hot chocolate and it creates a comfy cozy atmosphere with a warm memory of time learning together. We have included academic activities like learning to play chess. Winter focus on at home academics has also allowed me to avoiding driving on snowy or icy roads unnecessarily. Physical activity is never gone completely from our agenda. The DIY backyard ice rink still has it's fair share of activity during the winter months.

Spring

Spring always feels like it includes new beginnings even though it as frequently for wrapping things up. We are often planning for summer activities, recitals, travel and baseball practice. There are frequent reminders that in Northern Illinois spring holds onto traces of winter weather long into the spring. Despite anticipation for warmer weather most outdoor activities are rainy, wet and chilly. Early in the season, baseball games are usually uncomfortably chilly for spectators and provide an annual reminder that sometimes there is a need to review what we have learned in the past.

Happy learning to you and yours, no matter the season or calendar you enjoy!

SchoolhouseTeachers.com

Second Language Learning - Family Unit Study

As a homeschooling mom, I kind of think of our whole life, as a family, as one big unit study.
A few of the ongoing study questions for the (not)quiz are;
How do we best live our lives?
How do we contribute to the well being of the lives of others?
How do we provide for ourselves?
What is the next set of skills I need to develop to accomplish?..... whatever the next goal is.

Yes, I'm a big picture person, but the big picture often leads into very interesting nooks and crannies. For example, like many others, one of my big picture ideas is that it is important to be aware of other cultures and understand that there are many countries, languages, customs to experience and understand to some degree. That idea has led us to hosting an exchange student this year.

Our exchange student is from Mexico and is the same age as my home schooled daughter. She attends school, but her presence in our family is influencing my homeschooling choices with my daughter. Her presence is also influencing my daughter's personal study choices. She has, as a result of more personal and direct exposure to the Spanish language, been more diligent about her own daily study and practice of Spanish.

For a teen, there's nothing quite like seeing someone of your own age be proficient in two languages to shine a little light on your own deficiency. My children are seeing first hand the usefulness of being bi-lingual. They are also becoming acutely aware of the need to use and speak a second language on a daily basis to become a master of it. Observing our student's process and progress in the English language is enlightening.

We are all adjusting to our new situation and learning not to take for granted what someone else experiences or understands or needs. We are all experiencing first hand the differences in how we each see things and how each of our view points have developed out of different cultural backgrounds. My children are seeing how our culture and life circumstances influence how we see things, what we expect and what we assume. We are all learning not to take too much for granted in our expectations. We are developing a deeper sense of the importance of communication between individuals, how cultural assumptions can lead to misunderstandings and also how reaching out to understand our differences can enrich our lives.