It is Finished! Another school year that is…

· Leave a comment ·

Another school year ends 

the books are shut,

feet scurry out the door

it’s time c’mon,

let’s go…hurry it up!

Looking at four arrows-

wondering, pondering

did I do enough?

Sitting here long pondering,

will they have the right stuff?

I will never stop wondering

could I have done more?

I have shot my arrows

they all flew into the air;

I know not where they fell

aimed them all with great care.

I know not where they’ll land.

Parts of me I did share,

setting my foot prints in the sand;

trusting them to a greater power

they’ll be lead by an unseen hand.

~~ EVA SANTIAGO copyright 2011

Josephine Wall images

 

I hope all of my students, including my friends from WRITING ROYALTY have a safe, fun and amazing summer. Kick back, relax and DREAM!!

 

Work!

· Leave a comment ·
Hola!
I want to touch on the value of teaching children to work at an early age. Home schooling is not just about opening the books everyday; it is so much more than that. I have given my children certain chores to do around the house that they are responsible for completing. This is to instill in them to learn to value work; all kinds of work. This is an ethic they can take with them for their whole lives. Washing dishes, making beds, cleaning bath rooms, cooking, grocery shopping; and countless other jobs that go with the running of a home are all as important as the type of work you get a grade for or later on in life, a pay check for. This kind of work is humbling and it helps instill character in children.
 
Proverbs 14:23
In all work there is profit. So please teach your kids the value of work!
 
 

Poets

· Leave a comment ·
Poets:
Encourage, delight,outrage, inspire –

they capture life

as is, nothing held back,

with all the calm, in all of the strife.

Poets photograph the future

and bring it back.

Poets remind us of the past –

helping us put it behind

where it belongs at last.

Poets sing a song of rain,

and tell us we’re gonna make it,

we’ll rise above the pain.

The poetic voices

from the past and those in the present;

listen to them!

They feel the pulse,

They ARE the heart beat –

the nation waits with anticipation,

for the poets to speak –

encourage, delight, outrage , inspire.

Poets take us to the next great expectation.
 

EVA SANTIAGO COPYRIGHT 2011

 

Children Are Natural Learners

· Leave a comment ·
Hello again!
I hope you are having a great summer! I want to touch on a slightly over looked fact. Have you ever noticed that children are naturally curious? Albert Einstein  referred to it as, “A holy curiosity for enquiry.” This needs to be nurtured in our children and one way to do so is to encourage their questions. My teacher in the 3rd grade, Ms. McClellan once told me that there are no dumb questions except that ones you don’t ask. I never forgot that and I do the same with my kids.
So next time you are pressed for time and your child comes up to you and peppers you with a myriad of seemingly silly question remember; what maybe obvious to you maybe a mystery to him because he’s new in this world. So count to ten, take a deep breath and relax if you don’t know the answer to his question. Then be brave enough to tell him, “I don’t know but we can find out together.”  I will leave you with a couple of quotes on education. Adios!
 
“Education has become too important to leave to educators.” – Peter Drucker
 
“Educate a man and you educate an individual-educate a woman and you educate a family.”
-Agnes Gripps
 

School Defined

· Leave a comment ·
Hello!
I am so excited to be here sharing about one of my passions in life. I love to teach and my decision to stay at home in order to home school my 4 kids was the best career decision I ever made. My husband and I met when I was still a college student and as we dated, he told me one day that he could see me teaching our kids if we ever decided to get married and start a family. I was flabbergasted because I really didn’t see myself as he was seeing me. So I finished college, we took the plunge, we got married, started our family and I made a career change, one that I have never regretted.
 
So here I am 16 years later and I’m starting on this new venture; a blog about home schooling! Have you ever wondered what the word SCHOOL means? One day a few years back while I was helping my kids with some of their school work we decided to look it up in The Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary; School, n.[OE.scole, AS.sclu, L.schola, Gr. leisure, that in which leisure is employed, disputation, lecture, a school, probably from the same root as , the original sense being perhaps, a stopping, a resting.
 
Something occurred to me as I read that particular definition of the word school. I began to see that children learn best in an environment where they aren’t being rushed to learn subjects that they may not be ready to grasp. Look back to your own school days. Can you remember learning a new concept in any subject and the frustration that came when you didn’t get it and then the teacher had to move on to the next new topic and then you felt completely lost? That was my experience in a lot of the math and science classes.
 
The good news is that home schooling caters to each childs’ individual style of learning. Whether you have 1 or 10 kids, each one of them learns at a different rate and in a different way; home schooling allows for children to learn in a leisurely way without the pressure of being forced to move on to higher levels of comprehension that he or she may not be ready for.
 
Enjoy your day, enjoy your life and enjoy teaching your kid/kids!
 

Do Your Kids Socalize?

· Leave a comment ·

 Hello Again!

Since I have been home schooling for a while now, I recall one of the first questions people ask me is how do my kids socialize. Are they hermits who never get to see another human face other than mine and  our family members? Do my kids have friends? We all have grown accustomed to these bizarre questions; but now I think we need to take a closer look at what to be social actually means.
Social-SO”CIAL,a. [L. socialis, from socius, companion.] 2. Ready or disposed to mix in friendly converse; companionable.
 
So you see if you are asking me whether my home taught kids can actually relate to other people my answer would be of course they can! My kids attend weekly dance lessons where they meet other children; my son takes guitar lessons as well. We also attend church on a regular basis and they have made friends there as well. The neighborhood we live in has plenty of children too and usually my home is full of kids because they all come over to our house after they get out of school.
One very interesting aspect of most of the home schooled children I’ve met is that they relate well with people of all age groups; this is quite unlike their public school counter parts who behave shyly or completely disregard adults.My husband and I have a theory that what happens to children when they go to school transfers to their world outside the classroom. Public school kids are all separated by age, therefore they learn to relate to just their peers for 8 hours of their day. Real life is not that way though; in reality we all run across all kinds of people from all age groups and I believe home schooling prepares kids to be well rounded individual because they are in constant contact with people of different age groups.
 
I’ll leave you with this quote:” The first quality of a good education is good manners-and some people flunk the course.  Hubert Humphrey
 
 

 

 

Our Forefathers Learned At Home

· Leave a comment ·
Good day to you!
Today I want to share from a historic point of view; I am a bit of a history buff so allow me to indulge for a minute. Did you know some of our nation’s forefathers began their education at home? Here is a short list if some of them:George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.
Do you know what else each of these men have in common? As children, none of them had any regular, formal schooling. They were all self-educated or taught at home!
Learn more about them and other famous homeschoolers at FamousHomeschoolers.net!
 
I want to encourage you that even though it may seem like a long road to travel, seemingly alone at times; that when you decide to answer the call to home school you are far from being alone. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses that testify to exactly the opposite. If our ancestors had the strength to do so back then,so can we!
Have a wonderful day and give yourself a pat on the back for your wise decision!
 
 
 

Throw Out The Classroom Mentality

· Leave a comment ·
Hello again!
This is such a treat to be able to share from my heart and know that I may be actually helping someone out there in cyber space. Today I wanted to talk about a subject that perplexes many of the parents I speak with . Once I tell them I home school I get 2 types of looks: the first one is a total look of almost ( excuse me as I giggle here) awe- as if to say, “Wow! How DO you do it?” The second look I get communicates an , “Ok lady you’re weird and I’m not going to say much to you.” Well I want to expound on the first reaction.
 
Usually parents who want to know how I “do it”, want to know so I tell them this:” First of all if you’re going to home school, you must throw out the class room mentality because if you try to bring the public school class room method into your home, you’re going to go loco.” You see, home schooling is not a replacement of one method of learning over another. No siree, home schooling is a way of life and there for you have to make it fit your life style.
 
Another good question I get often is how long do you teach your kids for? Well a long time ago when I was learning about this amazing field, I learned a new term: UNSCHOOLING– it is an approach to home schooling that allows you the freedom to teach your children any time, any place, anywhere; and believe me a lesson can begin from a single question asked over family dinner and continue to be studied and discussed for days on.
 
So you see, the sky really is the limit once you decide to throw out the classroom mentality and embrace home schooling as a way of life. Adios!!
 

He Who Reads Leads

· Leave a comment ·

Read, read, read. Read everything- the classics trash, good and bad and see how they do it.” – William Faulkner

 
I have been reading to my kids since they were in my belly. As they grew into toddlers and now older kids I still read to them. Reading is an important habit to instill and nurture in your kids because books can become life time companions for them. I have met numerous kids who attend public school and most of them tell me they hate reading. Do you ever wonder why?
 
When I was a student there was nothing I loathed more than getting a book from an English teacher that I had to read for a grade and by a specific time. I did it because I had to and there went the joy in that.
 
A great way to nurture this habit of reading is by making a weekly trip to your local library; loose your kids there and let them freely explore and find material THEY want to read. Let them also see you read and as you model reading to your kids it sends the message out loudly and clearly. Then watch out! Here come life long readers who will likely do the same for their kids later on.
 
One way  I keep the reading habit going is by including it as part of our family’s celebrations. Every time we have a birthday, at the end of the day, before the clock strikes midnight; we all take turns reading THE BIRTHDAY BOOK by Dr. Seuss to the birthday boy or girl. We all laugh at the ridiculously funny lines and we have a great time.
 
Next time you’re looking for a new way to celebrate, include reading together!
 
 

Homeschooling on a Shoestring Budget

· 1 Comment ·
Greetings!
I wanted to share with you today some ideas that I have used over the years as I have grown in this field. I believe home schooling families can attest to the fact that it doesn’t take a whole lot of money to give your children a good education. If you have a good imagination and a little bit of $$ then you are on your way! For starters, books and curriculums cost and they cost more when you purchase your materials brand new. I am fortunate to live in a city where the local libraries sell their discarded books to the public. I have found the majority of my kid’s text books there and I’ve paid very little for them. I also go to thrift stores where I have found a complete volume of A Beka and Rod & Staff books for my kids at a crazy price. So ask around at your local libraries and see what they do with their discarded books. I want to leave you with a list of books that I have found to be valuable tools for teaching over the years. Adios!
 
–PEARABLES Character Building Kingdom Stories (Volume set of 3)
-McGuffy Readers Set of 6
– America‘s Providential History -Mark A. Beliles
– The Gift in You -Dr. Caroline Leaf
-The Parables of Peanuts – Robert L. Short