1/19/2008

My Five Best Homeschooling Tips

I've been a homeschooling (unschooling) mama since 2004 and I've made some "mistakes" along the way, but I always tried to look at them as a learning experience. When the Pass The Torch blog asked homeschoolers for their best tips, I decided to share five of my best ones.

1. Give yourself some time to
deschool. Letting go of preconceived notions about school and learning, is a gift you can give yourself, and your child/ren. My own deschooling is a work in progress and the more I see unschooling first hand, the more I question what I once thought about education and learning.

2. Expect a period of deschooling from your child/ren. It's been said that one month per every year of school is common. As I said in this post about deschooling, "your child/ren has probably their natural desire to learn squashed and will need time to recover from that. With a parent's help, they can gain back most, if not all of what they lost and begin to see the world as a place where learning is enjoyable, and all around us".

3. Let your children feel your energy and passion for life. Light a fire within yourself. Let it burn so bright that they see it! What are your interests? Is there something you've always wanted to learn? Do It! Let them see YOU learning and living life to the fullest. Be curious. Be interested.

4. Don't make the mistake of duplicating at home, what you didn't like about school. Sometimes we just automatically repeat the same patterns, without even thinking about it, just because it's all we know, it's what we're used to or it's what we've always done.
Replace school with a full and interesting life. The public school system can not compete with that. They can't even come close.

5. Don't make cookies to teach
math. Make cookies because they taste good. :-)



Originally written in 2007, updated in 2008


20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here's to more cookie making and less math obsessing!

Stephanie Appleton said...

Good tips. Except #5 can't we teach math and get something good to eat?! :)

Joanne said...

LOL...who are we kidding? We make the cookies for ourselves. LOL

Anonymous said...

LOL! I love cookies, but if a math lesson sneaks in, that's ok too :)

~Leslie

Alexandra said...

I can't get my nine year old son to help me make cookies, but he'll sure eat them!

Great tips.

Joanne said...

I'm no baker-the closest thing I come to baking cookies is those squares you break apart and throw in the oven. LOL

Brenda said...

Joanne--there's fractions in there, right? Surely you can squeeze some math out of the break and bakes? :)

Joanne said...

Oh yeah, it goes something like this...if I eat 1/2 the cookies before the kids get home, I'll have 1/2 to share with them. LOL!!

Unknown said...

No save the Hershey bars for fractions and the M&M's for graphing.
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/midwifemom/

Kelly Curtis said...

It has been so interesting to hear all the different thoughts on homeschooling. Thanks so much for chiming in for the Homeschool Tips and Advice project!

Joanne said...

Hesheys!! M&M's!! Now I'm craving chocolate AND cookies. :-)

Your welcome Kelly-it was fun. :-)

Tracy Million Simmons said...

LOL. I was once teasing my daughter about eating her cookies. I said, "If I take one of your cookies how many will you have left?" Then I asked if I took two. Then I asked if I took all of them. She said, "You'll have a tummy ache!" ... Now that I think about it, maybe it was M&Ms. But I loved her answer. And that was back before I figured out you are right... there is no need to teach math at all, the math just happens, cookies or no! It's a small distinction, but a worthy one.

Joanne said...

Hi Tracy...yes, I totally agree. :-)

Anonymous said...

Hi.. i agree with the comments before..

PS: Greetings from argentina!

piscesgrrl said...

This a great post! And all I'll say about math lessons and cookies is that as soon as I try to make something wonderfully fun (baking) about something horribly dull (a lesson), my kids stop wanting to help! The little buggers can sniff an ulterior motive a mile away.

And that takes us back up to #1, doesn't it? Deschooling ourselves.

Joanne said...

Yes and I think that's the most difficult part of it all. My girls took to unschooling like a fish to water...me, I'm the one who had all that crap to work out.

LuAnn @ BackPorchervations said...

Hey feel free to post a link to your blog in the HUMM group on Maya's Mom. :)

Fairion said...

Thank you for reminding us how easily it is to replicate the mistakes of the past without ever intending to.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for contributing this post to this week's edition of the Carnival of Family Life, hosted at Confessions of a Novice. The Carnival will be live on Monday, January 28, 2008, so be sure to stop by and check out all of this week's excellent submissions!

Anonymous said...

thanks for the tips, are very interesting.
And greetings from Spain1