This week we're chatting with Vanessa Hoosier, wife of Cole, mama to Meghan (and baby girl Katie arriving this spring!) and former special education teacher who blogs about homemaking, cooking, homeschooling and urban homesteading at Hoosier Homestead.
Today, Vanessa shares about what led her family to choose homeschooling as well as how she structures educational activities for her inquisitive toddler. Take a look!
Deciding to homeschool wasn’t so much of a decision for our family, but just kind of grew out of our vision for how we wanted to raise our family.
We knew that God has given parents the responsibility of leading their children towards him and we knew that we wanted our family to be a safe place for our children to learn and grow on their way to knowing God personally. As we considered that desire for our family, homeschooling just became the obvious choice - it would allow us to spend as much time as possible with our children loving them and guiding them through the first years of their lives.
We also believe strongly in the value of play during the little years. We want our kids to have the ability to play a lot during their early years. By homeschooling we can give them the individual attention that they need to complete their school work through constructive play and allow them plenty of time during the day to engage in their own independent, creative play.
Those are the two main reasons that our family has chosen to homeschool, but other factors have also played into the decision; such as:
- Knowing how my husband and I did in school, there’s a good chance our kids will work far ahead of grade level (at least in some subjects) and a possibility that they may struggle in others. As homeschoolers we can differentiate their teaching as needed; we can ignore traditional “grade levels” and allow our children to work at whatever level is appropriate for them in each subject at the time.
- We want our children to embrace learning as a lifelong activity not as something that occurs in the school setting alone. By incorporating their school into their everyday life we hope they will be encouraged to enjoy and engage in the learning process as a lifelong experience.
- As American politics and morals are shifting, we do not want our children exposed to the coming changes in the curriculum. While we intend to teach our children about social and moral issues, the way God views them, and the way our world views them - we want to choose at what age they are ready to handle those concepts.
- Since having our first child, we have learned that she has Sensory Processing Disorder. Having been a special education teacher in the public schools before staying home with our daughter, I understand the stress and pressure that teachers are under in public schools today. It would be impossible to expect them to meet her special needs during their already busy day. I can meet those needs individually in our home as they occur.
- Schools waste so much time. They don’t mean to, but waiting in line for a whole class to use the bathroom, lining up to go somewhere else, waiting for all children to finish before moving on, etc. all waste time. By doing their school work at home and at their own pace our children should have more time in their day to pursue their individual interests.
- Pursuing their own interests - if while we’re learning about a topic our child discovers a passion for part of the subject matter we want them to be able to stop and go more in depth in their learning about that topic. We don’t want them to be forced to move on because we have to “cover” more curriculum. Learning throughout the rest of life (after high school graduation) is guided by interest and we see no reason why that interest led learning can’t begin earlier in life.
It’s not at all a short answer, but it those are the reasons and thought processes that led us to determine that homeschooling was the correct path for our family.
Tell us more about what you're doing with Meghan now and what you plan to do as she (and your family!) grows.
Meghan is 23 months old right now. Currently we have a semi-montessori method of schooling Meghan that we have been using since she was around 13 months old. There is a shelf in her playroom where I rotate activities for her to complete; most of them are completely independent after I introduce them to her but some require help from me to complete. Examples of these activities are:
- matching letter tiles to a paper on which I have written her name
- placing animal manipulatives on dots that match the number on a card
- wooden puzzles and simple jigsaw puzzles
- a few sets of cards from a Memory game for her to match
- sorting manipulatives into colored cups
- stringing large wooden beads
- matching toys/magnets to printed images
- flashcards - she loves “reading” flashcards to herself or having me scatter them on the floor and then call out a letter, number, etc. (or picture when we were working on vocabulary) for her to find and bring to me
We don’t currently have a real structure to our school days. When she is interested in working on one of these tasks, she will take it off the shelf and take it to a space on the floor or her small table to work on it. If she wants me to do the activity with her, she will generally come get me from what I am working on. As she’s currently an only child, I can almost always wrap up what I’m doing within a few minutes to complete the activities with her.
However, in April, when she’s 26 months old, a little sister will be joining us, so one of my goals for the year 2016 is to make school a bit more structured for her so that I regularly give her the intellectual challenge that she craves.
I intend for her to still have her Montessori workbox style shelves to work on independently and will be trying to include a 10-15 minutes “school” session with her at least 3 days a week. During this time we will work on tasks which require me to teach or assist her with the activities we do. I very much believe in following the lead of the child when planning educational experiences, especially with Meghan as she’s still so young, so I can’t say exactly what we will do during these times throughout the year. But some of the things I am currently planning to work on with her during this time include activities like:
- the Farmland Math curriculum from Timberdoodle which is designed for 2-3 year olds and uses farm animal math manipulatives and play to teach basic math concepts
- laminated pre-writing stroke worksheets such as those from ABC Jesus Loves Me and Dot to Dot for Tiny Tots by Priddy books
- Handwriting Without Tears doh mats and Do-A-Dot style printables
- introducing the concept of sounding out words (she knows all of her letters and their sounds) using manipulatives such as letter magnets, Boggle Junior, Melissa and Doug’s See and Spell, the game What’s Gnu, etc.
- introducing the concept of sight words through flashcard games, using large picture cubes to roll and read sight words, the You Can Read curriculum from 1+1+1=1, etc.
- logic and conceptual games such as Day and Night, Brain Quest for 2’s, Hello Sunshine Game, opposite matching, event sequencing cards, etc.
In addition to her independent workboxes and that dedicated school time, we have art time (paint, crayons, play-doh, cutting, gluing, etc.) and outside time (free play, gardening, gross motor activities, water table, sensory table, chalk, bubbles, nature walks, etc.) many days. My goals for this year include being even better about making those two activities a more consistent & regular part of our days.
We read a lot throughout the day. Meghan loves being read to and we usually read for 30 minutes - 1.5 hours of the day. We have several large children’s books anthologies that I will choose to read from as well as a collection of rotating picture books that she will choose from for repeated readings. We also read from the Big Picture Story Bible almost every day.
Meghan is also allowed to watch a movie while she eats her breakfast every morning. Movies that we watch during this time are Leapfrog’s Letter Factory (and we will add Talking Word Factory if/when she shows interest in sounding out words), Preschool Prep Company’s DVDs (she’s mastered many of the topics they have, but we will be using the sight word dvds if/when she shows interest in learning sight words), and the Two Little Hands Production’s Rachel and the Treeschoolers DVDs. These three DVD companies are ones that are solidly educational and ones that Meghan shows great interest in.
With a new baby coming and her young age, I am incredibly flexible with when school, art time, outside time, and read alouds get completed during the day. We have a general rhythm for what we do in our morning routine, how we go about the late morning, and what we do after nap but it’s pretty flexible, which is how I think it’s just going to have to be with a new baby!!
Thank you so much for sharing your story with us, Vanessa!
Be sure to check out Vanessa's awesome blog at Hoosier Homestead! I find her ideas inspiring :)
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