The ladies at The Homeschool Blog Awards are hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling, and they have a theme about a one-room schoolhouse. It just so happens that the boys and I are doing a read-aloud book this week based on the life of Thomas Edison. He did not have a good experience in a one-room schoolhouse situation, and he ended up being homeschooled by his mother. I compared this to poor experiences that we had with our local public school. We left public school behind us, and we created our own one-room schoolhouse.
Today, I am teaching my children who range in age from 17 years to 18 months. And we have our lessons together each morning. I can see the benefits of homeschooling this week. We have homeschooled since 2001, and my 4th-born son on down to the baby have no idea what life was like around here before we homeschooled. They have always been a part of our lesson time.
I see the fruit of this when my 7-year-old tells me that he already knows a new concept that I am teaching him. He was there when I was teaching it to an older sibling. Around here we call that "the trickle down effect." What I have taught to the older children has trickled down to the younger ones. It does make my job easier, but at the same time, I have to sometimes bring in different books for my younger ones, because they remember so much of what I have already taught them.
I am also exposing my younger children to higher levels of reading and math by teaching everyone together. My young ones can sit and listen to me read chapter books or go over math concept, and they get very absorbed in this. It is always a joy to hear them ask questions based on something I read to them during the read aloud time. And I love to hear that they already know a math fact that I am introducing to them.
I have also noticed that my younger children score higher on end of grade tests, because I am covering a broad range of topics with them alongside their basic reading, writing, and arithmetic.
In closing, I am so glad that God brought us along the path of learning alongside our children. What a privilege it is to enjoy learning more about the beauty in the world around us as a family.
Have a blessed day! TamiLabels: carnival of homeschooling, homeschooling, one-room schoolhouse |
I have a neighbor who is homeschooling the same age range children as you are. She has been searching for curriculae for teaching math and grammer in a one-room schoolhouse method like so many unit studies that are designed to teach history, bible etc. Do you have any recommendations that I could pass along to her?
Thank you,
Dannielle in VA