LAMP stands for Language Arts Mentor Program, an exciting new option for parents using BookShark who may feel intimidated about instructing their children in writing. Through the online support of writing coach Dave Myers, students get the feedback they need on their compositions so they can grow as proficient writers. Hear Dave's story from public school English teacher to homeschool dad and his thoughts on the superiority of homeschooling.
For a long time, I felt like I was struggling. We would barely get any schooling completed because of all the distractions and tasks that come with having a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old.
I don’t have a magic fix, but I did discover a key: I am homeschooling my toddlers just as much as I’m homeschooling my second grader.
I often wish we were wealthy enough to travel the world. I’d love to expose my children to all the wonders of the world and have them learn firsthand about what makes each culture unique. Unfortunately, we do not have the means to travel extensively, and so we have taken to travelling the globe from our home using these twelve winning methods.
When we first started homeschooling, we picked a classical curriculum that required five days of school work. Since I had just pulled my son out of a parochial school, I took the the five-day school model as an assumed standard. My son must do five full days of schoolwork to learn just as he had in school.
When families begin homeschooling, it seems natural for moms to step in and do the bulk of the teaching, organizing, and planning. As the primary or sole wage earner for the family, dads are considered the principal of the homeschool. However, this situation also puts dads at a disadvantage. They come home at the end of the workday and don’t know what went on or how the children are performing in school.
I have three of them—each one with her own brand of anxiety. It’s an ever-present reality we’ve learned to live with in our homeschool. On good days, it’s pretty manageable: we acknowledge the fear, address it, and move on. On bad days, it’s crippling: there are tears, stomach aches, cancellations and despair.
Parents have been trying to bribe their kids to read more often for ages. Reading is often seen as a sign of intelligence, but more so, reading expands our horizons. In addition, we are told as parents that our kids should be reading a certain amount every day. And so the pressure is on to entice our kids to read or force them to read.
But we don’t merely want our kids to read, we want them to love reading. We want them to love reading like we love reading. So how do we share our passion for reading with them?
We read together as a family every night. Sometimes we get so caught up in making it through the book that we never pause to discuss what we're reading. I recently ran across this article about how adding 30 seconds to your bedtime reading can foster empathy, and I had to try it.
The next night while reading, the main character of our story had just secured his family in a cellar vault, and he was turning around for one last great stand against the impending enemies. I paused and looked up to see how long it would take my doodling listeners to realize that I wasn't continuing.
When I first started homeschooling, one of my greatest fears was that I would not know enough to adequately teach my kids up to and all the way through the high school years. It's a common fear.
The good news is that you have many years to prepare for upper level maths, and if you follow a path like Saxon lays out for you, you'll be ready.
Ask any veteran homeschool mom whose kids have already graduated from high school, and she will reassure you. She had the same fears you have now. She realizes now how pointless most of those fears were.
What a difference 10-15 years of hindsight makes! But you don't have to wait that long. Let's look right now at ten of the biggest and most common homeschool fears so you can face—and more importantly, conquer—them.
