Search Results for: blog why i dont believe in early childhood education

I’m (Sort Of) Really Qualified to Homeschool a Gifted Child

A big thanks to Andrea for inviting me to share in the adventures of homeschooling our kids who have grown a bit since the last time I wrote. The last time I wrote, I had two children that I was homeschooling full time. Now I have three full time and two part time–Lizzy who is in 4th grade, Alex who is in 2nd, Meghan who is in K and the twins who are so insistent that they too be homeschooled that despite my reservations about preschool, they too get some “school time.” (Don’t worry folks, just reading out loud and … Continue reading →

Maneuvering Through the Preschool Pressure

As many of you know, I have recently been working with my two eldest daughters to help them make a plan for college. Things are starting to relax around here now that they have both applied to and gotten accepted into schools and are starting on their college paths. I have to say, however, that I had plenty of preparation for the pressures of college hunting and it hearkens back to trying to find a good preschool and get my children accepted and enrolled! When I was a child, preschool was something SOME KIDS did and it was either short-term … Continue reading →

Mommy Burn Out

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Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m a relative energizer bunny. I rarely slow down and even when I’m sick, I’m still going. I hate to be idle. . .the worst weekend or vacation in the world for me, would consist of sitting around just “being”. Even in the early days of my twins, I swore I was getting nothing done and while my house might not have been a vision of pristine, those around me kind of watched dumb founded as I homeschooled, had dinner done, and kept sanity and peace among five children under the age … Continue reading →

Homeschool Questions: Keeping Preschool Fun

“Q: A lot of people are anti – schooling for preschool age, but by 4yr. old is asking to play school, and wants to do “home work” like his cousins. A friend was generous enough to give me a preschool activity book. I’ve tried to stay away from “instructing” him by counting cars and sorting colors of marbles, but when he’s playing, he gets frustrated with me when I suggest counting or sorting in the situation. But then later he’ll say, “I want to have school” and pull out that activity book and work/play in it for quite a while. … Continue reading →

“Behind” Is a Relative Term in Homeschooling

Has anyone ever been surprised at how “behind” your child seems to be? This has happened to me a few times actually. . .always in reference to my preschool aged children and always in reference to learning how to read. I have mentioned before that we don’t do preschool formally. While I consider reading literature to the children (all of them–even the two year olds) a necessary task on my daily agenda. I don’t consider teaching them their alphabet, teaching them their numbers, or teaching them letter sounds necessary until about age 5 or 6. Sometimes, they just learn them … Continue reading →

Preschooling at Home: My Thoughts

As many of you know, Valorie is our homeschool blogger here at Families.com. While she prefers the home education setting, I am into the public school setting. Although the two of us have some differences when it comes to how to educate our children, we also share many similarities and beliefs. If you have read previous articles from Valorie, you likely know that she is not for formal schooling of children under six years of age. I suppose that I differ. My daughter is in preschool. However if I did not work a full time teaching job, she would receive … Continue reading →

What Does Preschool Look Like?

I’ve made it no secret that I’m not a fan of formally schooling kids before age 6. I think our society has pushed the idea that kids need to be educated earlier with the Universal PK agenda, but I still maintain that providing good experiences to little ones is more important than providing the 3 R’s at an early age. This isn’t an academic blog so I’m not going to delve into that research here. However, I thought it might be helpful to talk about what preschool might look like in a homeschooling setting. Turn Off the Television I don’t … Continue reading →

Multi-Aged Tips: First Day of the Month

Now that I’m officially homeschooling two and have three more that are sort of ‘tagging’ along, I’ve been making major revisions and evaluating my previous schedule to try and include more of my children in more of the activities. Mind you, it’s not that I feel my younger three need to homeschool. . .but they really want to do something more formal than what we’ve been doing and so a compromise of sorts has been born. One aspect of this new ‘compromised’ schedule is the first day of the month. The first day of every month, I’ve decided to set … Continue reading →

Gasp! My Older Children Help Their Little Siblings

I had no idea that this was a controversial subject in the homeschooling arena. We have survived on encouraging our children to work together. It has allowed me to homeschool all of the children at once. I have even (double gasp) had my oldest child read to my youngest child. Against Working Together In fairness, I shouldn’t quite say that moms are against children working together. What I should say is that there is a section of the home schooling population that feels like it’s unfair to the older children to have to always do things with the littler ones. … Continue reading →

Some More Thoughts on Homeschooling More Than One

I was asked recently on another blog about home schooling more than one child. While it has been covered in the home schooling blog before, I thought I’d share some insight on home schooling five, and some practical tips on how we manage. Although I think most who normally read this blog know this, by way of reintroduction, I have five kids. While I still maintain that preschool is optional, most of my younger children want to at least read every day. So I will say that I’m home schooling three preschoolers, one gifted first grader and one third grader. … Continue reading →