Tag: homeschool

365 Snap Shots of Life: Day 88

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The Stage

Have you ever felt like you’re the one everyone depends on for seemingly everything? You’re the one people try out their best  and worst lines on. You’re the one they leap, twirl, tip-toe, prance  and dance on. You’re covered will all sorts of scuff-marks and scratches. There are days you don’t feel special; in fact you have days when you’re so exhausted that you just lay there.

Welcome to that part of life I’ve come to embrace and dubbed “The Stage”.

If you’re a parent you’re acquainted with being the stage for your kids. You’re the one they try their best and worst lines on. You’re the one they try their firsts on; from crawling, to first steps, then jumping, running and eventually dancing. You’re covered with all sorts of scuff-marks and scratches but you keep going nonetheless because out of those, you know dreams are launched. And, as parents we all have days when we feel overlooked, ignored and forgotten. The activity continues though because you know the show must go on.

You know that at the end of the performance you’ll get no credit. The actors will be lauded. The director and his crew will receive pats on their backs. The lights will shine but you’re underneath it all. Still you don’t care because when you’re called to be the stage, you know that without you, they won’t have a place to stand on. Without you dreams won’t come true. Much is said about great performances; little is ever mentioned about the stages they played on. It takes great confidence to be a stage. You must have a firm grasp on yourself; a knowing that you are a vital part of the show’s success.

When the lights go out and the audience goes home, you’ll just lay there, quietly fulfilled, resting for the next performance.

-Eva Santiago 2012

Stand on This!

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From time to time in my years of home schooling I have run into certain insecurities about my calling. Are my kids learning enough? Can I teach them everything that they need to know before they leave the nest? Have I done my job as their teacher well? Will they be able to succeed in life? I mean the questions kept coming over the years until one day I read this scripture in Isaiah 54:13, ” Your children will be taught of the Lord and they shall know great peace.” I made that scripture the  focus of my homeschooling philosophy.
 
Since then I have talked to parents from both camps; homeschoolers and public schoolers and I have heard parents raise the same questions I have had. The answer is simple really; of course we can’t teach our kids EVERYTHING they need to know by the time they are 18. Seriously, does anyone ever graduate from high school having all the knowledge they will need for the rest of their life? Also, as far as what kind of job did I do as my kid’s main teacher? That too becomes more clear as they grow up; I rest in knowing that I gave them my best and I tried my best. As far as knowing whether they will succeed in life; that will depend entirely on them; yet again I rest knowing that I equipped them with tools for their lives and it’s up to them to take what was given to them and use that for their benefit.
 
May I suggest something to you? Give yourself some credit from time to time. If you are doing your best by your children, God honors that! Enjoy your summer day 🙂
 
” I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” -Chinese Proverb
 
 
 

Work!

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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!
 
 

School Defined

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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?

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 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
 
 

 

 

Throw Out The Classroom Mentality

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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!!
 

Homeschooling on a Shoestring Budget

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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