The Secrets of Homeschool Lifestyle Success

by Linda Dobson

Chances are you’re reading this post to find out what you need to do to or for your child to improve his academic and/or homeschooling success. Are you ready for a big secret? The reality is that much of what is necessary for your child’s betterment depends more on changes for you, the parent, and how you create the homeschooling type of lifestyle to support improved academic performance. Surprised? Many homeschooling parents are! Read article...

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Homeschooling Success: Revisiting the Moore Formula

by Dr. Raymond and Dorothy Moore
Pioneers of the Modern Homeschooling Movement

HOW TO BEGIN
First, don't subject your children to formal, scheduled study before age 8 to 10 or 12, whether they can read or not. To any who differ, as their evidence let them read Better Late Than Early (BLTE) or School Can Wait (SCW). In addition to our basic research at Stanford and the University of Colorado Medical School, we analyzed over 8000 studies of children's senses, brain, cognition, socialization, etc., and are certain that no replicable evidence exists for rushing children into formal study at home or school before 8 or 10. Read article...

The Importance of Free Time
by Barbara Frank

Free time was once the hallmark of childhood. But these days, many parents feel it’s their duty to keep their children busy. This mindset can be found in parents who both work outside the home and need somewhere for the kids to go during off-school hours, parents who compete with other parents regarding whose child is the most “well-rounded,” parents who want to give their children every so-called “advantage,” and parents who believe their children will fall behind or get into trouble unless their schedules include every activity that can be crammed into each day. Read article...

A Day in the Cafeteria
by Dr. Mary Hood

The cafeteria was buzzing with muted talk, each child sitting at his or her designated spot. New classes were arriving, standing in line waiting to be served. The “A”s had lined up first, to get their pre-selected meal. Two-thirds of the children, given their choice, had chosen a greasy hamburger and fries. The “B”s came next, to get their slice of pizza. Finally, a few straggling “C”s, clutching notes from their mothers, were forced to receive the salad plate. Most of the latter group came back to their chairs, quickly threw the salad down on the table and ran over to the ice cream stand in the back, where they traded a few quarters for what was to be their real lunch. Later, most of the salads would languish, uneaten, in the big garbage cans at the end of each table. Read article...

A Journey to an Education
by Chris Davis

Grandma was sitting in the living room reading a book. She always seemed to be reading something. In her bedroom, the floor was piled high with reading material. She once warned me, “If you stop reading, your mind will get old.” She was 77 that Christmas. The broad range of her knowledge was welcome in most circles and she laughed easily after which she would dab at the corner of her mouth with a Kleenex.

Read article...

From the Blogosphere

September 27, 2012
A New Chapter in the Homeschooling Movement
Homeschooling families will thrive if they work together, not maroon themselves on separate islands.
by Michelle Van Loon

No home school is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each kitchen table classroom is connected to neighborhood, big “C” Church and culture,
A part of the main.

With apologies to John Donne, this is a story that the homeschooling community hasn’t always been good at telling itself.

A generation ago, the first wave of homeschooling parents were doing the work of pioneers: fighting court battles, developing educational philosophy, creating and adapting curricula, and answering endless questions about whether their kids would be socialized properly.

These pioneers continue to shape popular perceptions of the movement: quirky, brainy children who get master’s degrees at 16; super-sized, ultra-conservative broods; or crunchy attachment-parenting families. There are flat-out negative stereotypes as well, like that of the barely literate truants parked in front of a flickering TV all day, eating bags of chips and playing video games.

Hard-and-fast numbers of homeschoolers are difficult to come by, since reporting rules vary by state. But reasonable estimates place the numbers between one and two million children – or at least 4 percent of the K-12 U.S. population – learning at home this year. The promise of homeschooling (closer families, less peer-dependent and more spiritually and emotionally solid children, a better, tutorial form of education than a child would receive at a public or private school) has been fulfilled in enough children over time that a second generation of “settlers” has moved into the space carved out by those pioneers.

Read more... http://blog.christianitytoday.com/women/2012/09/a-new-chapter-for-the-homescho.html

Let the Cycle Roll by Teresa Bondora

In science we notice that just about everything cycles. The moon has cycles,
the seasons cycle, a cell has a life cycle and every animal has a life cycle. Humans cycle too. We start out in diapers, unable to walk and mostly can't feed ourselves, we understand little, and we grow strong and capable and eventually cycle back to being in diapers, unable to walk and mostly not able to feed ourselves, understanding little. Cycles are part of the natural world. But as sociologists know all too well, groups have cycles. Governments have cycles, generations have cycles and economies have cycles.

Today in this current societal environment we are in the part of the cycle
of growing smaller. In the 1950's, the world had a hey-day of expansion and
the sky's the limit. In science the attitude was if we can do it, we should.
We threw caution to the wind and created all sorts of inventions and hazards.
Slowly the world fell into economic crisis and as the babyboomer generation
grows older we humans on the planet find ourselves saying, "You know, I just
don't need the things I thought I needed before." Many homeschoolers learned
it the day they decided to have one parent stay home and the other work.
Many live on smaller incomes.

I call Jonathan my little extra because he has an extra chromosome —you know, that extra one on the 21st pair that causes such panic in parents-to-be. Down syndrome, it’s called —named after the doctor who first “discovered” it. Trisomy-21 in modern genetics—like I said: Third chromosome, 21st pair.

Expecting my eighth child in 1992, I’d prepared my own announcements with a verse from Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.” That’s how I had felt about each of my children. And that’s how I felt when they put this new little baby in my arms and I could see he looked, well, just a little different.