How can the teacher lecture if other students of different levels are in the same room? Is most of homeschooling reading and working out of books? Just curious.
Quote from: GiftOfGod on May 24, 2021, 11:15:06 PM
How can the teacher lecture if other students of different levels are in the same room? Is most of homeschooling reading and working out of books? Just curious.
I have no personal experience, but regular school rooms are full of people at different levels. Regular school is more about managing crowds and dealing with boredom than education.
The basics are the same for everybody though, so one focuses on that. Then, one can exercise flexibility for the more capable.
Also, older ones can help younger.
Quote from: Insanis on May 24, 2021, 11:17:30 PM
Quote from: GiftOfGod on May 24, 2021, 11:15:06 PM
How can the teacher lecture if other students of different levels are in the same room? Is most of homeschooling reading and working out of books? Just curious.
I have no personal experience, but regular school rooms are full of people at different levels.
By levels I meant grades. If you have a kindergartener, a third-grader, a sixth-grader, and a tenth-grader...what do you do?
Quote from: GiftOfGod on May 24, 2021, 11:21:54 PM
By levels I meant grades. If you have a kindergartener, a third-grader, a sixth-grader, and a tenth-grader...what do you do?
Grades are a construct, not reflecting reality that much.
People almost always progress faster than public school grades allow, so the distinction is for legal purposes only.
As for your scenario, that is pretty good for learning.
Are you picturing kids sitting all together and a parent lecturing them as a group? That is not how learning works. I'm sure it is a lot more flexible depending on circumstances, and one can just have different focuses at different times.
Think of it as an extension of parenting. How does one raise the kids? One probably teaches them the same basic way.
For not having any experience, Insanis is pretty spot on. I have 8 kids, and I basically do what he laid out. I do have a block of time in the morning where I "lecture" as a group....the younger ones are around and listening in (my 4 year old can quote Shakespeare, sing chant, and knows who Plutarch is - or atleast his name, anyway), but only the 8 year old on up are required to sit in on those lessons. I cover literature (in the form of family read alouds, varying the reading level with each book), picture study (again, 4 year old can do this), music appreciation, chant and sacred music, history, geography, folk music and solfa. I have a loop that I work through. After that, we take a short mid-morning break, then the children have a spiral notebook with their own studies assigned, tailored to their level. The only true education is self education, so for the older ones, I mostly guide, check work, and engage in discussions. Until a child can read, I am very hands on. For the non-readers, we stick with math, phonics, religion, and a read aloud loop in which I read a different book each day to them from either literature, history, or science. My oldest is musically talented, so she teaches piano to some of her siblings. It's not for the faint of heart, to be sure.
Once my kids get to high school, I do outsource math, writing (she does a history/literature course for this), and science to a fellow homeschool Mom who is finished with her own kids. She has classes at her house. I am capable of teaching them higher level math/science, but it's helpful and it works for our schedule, so I take advantage.
*Edited for spelling/grammar
Quote from: MundaCorMeum on May 25, 2021, 06:29:50 AM
For not having any experience, Insanis is pretty spot on.
Well, I've seen others, and at home, while I wasn't strictly homeschooled, I learned far more at home than in a school.
QuoteI have 8 kids,
Congratulations. It is always good to see healthy families.
Thank you for the encouragement and compliment, Insanis.
One more thing to add...it's very easy to "lump" various kids together, and assign the same books for a year. For example, two of my kids are reading the same science book this year, though they are doing it on their own. They work together on projects and experiments, but do the readings and journal entries on their own. For my 1st and 2nd graders, I do the same read alouds with them, so my time is used more efficiently. They enjoy it, too, and often the younger (sometimes even older ;)) ones will sit in and listen. It makes for good family discussions to group them together this way, and I find it makes them less peer oriented.
It's actually not that hard.
1. In general, long lectures are not required.
2. Some students need more assistance than others, so they get more hands-on time.
3. Older kids help tutor the younger ones.
4. Some students are assigned busywork while the others get assistance on new lessons.
5. If you have some self-motivated kids who can read well, they can often do things on their own all week, no problem.
Quote from: The Curt Jester on May 25, 2021, 08:08:49 AM
5. If you have some self-motivated kids who can read well, they can often do things on their own all week, no problem.
Would you say it is
trivial to homeschool properly?
Quote from: MundaCorMeum on May 25, 2021, 06:29:50 AM
For not having any experience, Insanis is pretty spot on. I have 8 kids, and I basically do what he laid out. I do have a block of time in the morning where I "lecture" as a group....the younger ones are around and listening in (my 4 year old can quote Shakespeare, sing chant, and knows who Plutarch is - or atleast his name, anyway), but only the 8 year old on up are required to sit in on those lessons. I cover literature (in the form of family read alouds, varying the reading level with each book), picture study (again, 4 year old can do this), music appreciation, chant and sacred music, history, geography, folk music and solfa. I have a loop that I work through. After that, we take a short mid-morning break, then the children have a spiral notebook with their own studies assigned, tailored to their level. The only true education is self education, so for the older ones, I mostly guide, check work, and engage in discussions. Until a child can read, I am very hands on. For the non-readers, we stick with math, phonics, religion, and a read aloud loop in which I read a different book each day to them from either literature, history, or science. My oldest is musically talented, so she teaches piano to some of her siblings. It's not for the faint of heart, to be sure.
Do you 'sit in' for all the lessons or read alouds? I don't, I give work to do but when needed I will sit and teach something if they need it e.g. new to fractions or history lesson.
How many hours a day do you give to school? I only do 3 hours for primary and 1 hour for junior infants .
The older two have paid for curriculum for A levels for the older and similar for 15 year old. I never really teach them and have topped up with grinds from a maths teacher.
Quote from: Insanis on May 25, 2021, 08:20:45 AM
Quote from: The Curt Jester on May 25, 2021, 08:08:49 AM
5. If you have some self-motivated kids who can read well, they can often do things on their own all week, no problem.
Would you say it is trivial to homeschool properly?
I should modify what I said.
The step process isn't hard in itself, but there's still plenty of work involved.
Keep in mind that it's a generalization. Difficulty is affected by:
- Your children's ages
- Their motivation level
- The number of children
- Your own workload
- Your own affinity (or lack thereof) for the various subjects
- Is your spouse willing to help?
- Support groups
- Making your own curriculum/using a tutoring service/paying for a curriculum/paying for a curriculum, plus full grading
Quote from: The Curt Jester on May 25, 2021, 10:28:35 AM
Quote from: Insanis on May 25, 2021, 08:20:45 AM
Quote from: The Curt Jester on May 25, 2021, 08:08:49 AM
5. If you have some self-motivated kids who can read well, they can often do things on their own all week, no problem.
Would you say it is trivial to homeschool properly?
I should modify what I said.
It was a reference to the Trivium (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trivium) of education.
With this model, people learn grammar, logic, and rhetoric first, how to use language, how to think, and how to communicate, and this sets the basis for all future learning.
It is in line with what you described.
Trivial is a reference to these beginning classes, but most people have forgotten it and focus on "math and science" without knowing how to communicate or think, so the basics are now not so trivial for most people who come out of a modern education system.
Math in itself is logical, so that falls in with the whole logic thing. But I agree, use of language is extremely important and it is something I will be stressing with my children.
Quote from: The Curt Jester on May 25, 2021, 11:05:27 AM
Math in itself is logical,
Math is a massive subject in itself. People tend to underestimate its expanse. After learning arithmetic, Euclidean geometry, trigonometry, the calculus, etc, people think they learned a lot of math, but that is just the basics. Math goes way deeper than that.
Of course, the ancients and medieval view of it was a bit simpler.
Quoteso that falls in with the whole logic thing. But I agree, use of language is extremely important and it is something I will be stressing with my children.
The quadrivium (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrivium) follows the Trvium, and includes arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.
However, these distinctions are from a time when things might have been viewed differently. Technically, most things have some element of math in them, whereas, ancients viewed math primarily in terms of geometry and worked from there (we square numbers because of this geometric view).
from diaduit:
Quote
Do you 'sit in' for all the lessons or read alouds? I don't, I give work to do but when needed I will sit and teach something if they need it e.g. new to fractions or history lesson.
How many hours a day do you give to school? I only do 3 hours for primary and 1 hour for junior infants .
The older two have paid for curriculum for A levels for the older and similar for 15 year old. I never really teach them and have topped up with grinds from a maths teacher.
For Morning Time block (which I call our Family Liturgy), I do sit in for all those lessons. It starts with prayer, Epistle of the day, scripture memory, and a hymn. Then, I work through our loop of enrichment studies. We end with the Gospel of the day and a chant. I am leading or reading all the lessons for that. Any "read alouds" are read by me, except for poetry and the daily Mass readings, which I allow the older kids to read, so they can have practice reading aloud and speaking to a group.
For independent studies, I only sit down and do all lessons with the non-reading age children, which is only my 1st grader right now. He takes not quite an hour, maybe, when his focus is good....but, he's a boy, so ::). My 2nd grader can read, but she still does some read alouds with the first grader and I, in addition to her own lessons, because I want her to. Next year, she will be on her own, unless she has questions or needs help, like all the other older ones. I also do math with my 6th grader, because I want to make sure she's grasping the foundations for algebra and geometry well at this stage. I will have her do a lesson on her own occasionally, to save me time and so I can gauge her level of understanding of concepts. For any non-read-aloud reading assignments (which is all of my older kids' independent work, outside of morning time), they are still required to give me a narration....either written, typed, or oral. That is their comprehension portion of the lesson. I would say school takes my attention for about three and a half hours each day. Not all of the kids are working for all of that duration, though. I move around from student to student, checking on progress, listening to narrations, helping 1st grader with his lessons, swinging the toddler and four year old while singing solfa songs, and otherwise fussing at everyone to stay on track and stop bickering and making messes ;D.
Quote from: The Curt Jester on May 25, 2021, 10:28:35 AM
Quote from: Insanis on May 25, 2021, 08:20:45 AM
Quote from: The Curt Jester on May 25, 2021, 08:08:49 AM
5. If you have some self-motivated kids who can read well, they can often do things on their own all week, no problem.
Would you say it is trivial to homeschool properly?
I should modify what I said.
The step process isn't hard in itself, but there's still plenty of work involved.
Keep in mind that it's a generalization. Difficulty is affected by:
- Your children's ages
- Their motivation level
- The number of children
- Your own workload
- Your own affinity (or lack thereof) for the various subjects
- Is your spouse willing to help?
- Support groups
- Making your own curriculum/using a tutoring service/paying for a curriculum/paying for a curriculum, plus full grading
I would agree with this. Homeschooling is both much easier and much harder than most people think.
God Bless all of our mothers who make the great sacrifice to home school their children.
My experience is similar to Munda's. Though I must confess I am not nearly as organized. I start with one child and go down the line helping each one with work that they need my assistance with. I repeat this cycle until the school day is done. While I am working with individual children the others are doing independent work. The younger ones keep each other busy and sometimes an older child puts their school books down and help with a baby. We also do read alouds which may include a history or science book. Even if a 5 year old doesn't understand everything they are sure to gain something from it.
School time here is from 9-3 with an hour break for lunch/tidy/recess. At night, the children like to work on puzzles, math fact sheets,, music and reading. Since money is not in abundance they find different ways to be entertained and I find that that includes more "brainy" activities.
Today it is a lot easier with distance learning. I think the big misunderstanding with homeschooling is the time required. Homeschooling is a lot more efficient and doesn't take the 8 or so hours they waste at public schools.
When we (she) were homeschooling, we cheated as we were always near "hybrid homeschools", where you signed up for particular classes and sent your kids to the "school". It's a sacrifice, no doubt, but worth it. All of my 5 kids are still Trad Catholic and turned out well. Note we also availed ourselves to additional opportunities like county sports and classical ballet. Something I recommend.
But that is moot, because there are a lot of options today with homeschooling programs.