Pros and Cons of Educating Children at Home - Honest Commentary

By Lynn Schott
Homeschsooling is growing by leaps and bounds as more and more families are choosing to educate their children at home.

Our family chose to homeschool for fourteen years, and we graduated all three of our students from high school homeschool.

The choice to educate your children at home is not an easy one. It is definitely a lifestyle choice as much as an educational choice. Homeschooling families are quick to recount the positive aspects of schooling at home, but as with any major life decision, there are some challenges to consider as well.

The Cons of educating children at home include:

The pressure is on

Homeschooling is still foreign to the older generation. Family members, especially grandparents, may not understand or agree with your choice to educate their grandchildren at home. This difference in opinion often spills over into the larger family dynamic.

Family members who are unfamiliar with home education may envision your child sitting in the house alone for days on end. They will express their concern by arguing that your child will not be properly "socialized".

Parents who decide to home educate commonly feel extreme pressure for their child to over achieve just to prove their decision to the family critics.

Time Management

Because homeschooling is a lifestyle change, parents often struggle to adjust to the new routine. Moms especially seem to struggle with time management, and the feeling that they never get enough done in a day. Even though they may be doing a great job being a teacher, they realize that they have less time for housework, errands and time alone to pursue their own hobbies.

My Teacher is My Mom

Students and homeschooling parents both can struggle with the boundary lines of these life roles. Parents often forget to put on the compassionate parent hat when their kids need extra encouragement. Instead, mom or dad really want to enforce completion of the lesson plans, so it seems easier to be strict "teacher" instead.

The Pros of home education include:

Family Bonding

Because we are home with our kids each day, we have a rare opportunity to bond with them in a way that is not possible for parents of children who attend a traditional school. We are there to help them read, discover historical events, and create great art. We are there to solve the squabbles and to help them discover what God wants them to do with their lives.

Educate According to their Needs and Interests

The biggest advantage of home education is the ability to encourage your child's strengths and help them in their weak areas. It is not possible to address each child's individual needs in a classroom setting. Homeschooling parents can spend all the time they need to help a child who is struggling to read. Parents can also allow a child to immerse himself in a subject or activity without interruption.

Don't Miss the Milestones

Traditional school setting require our kids to be away from us for many hours each day. This means that we will miss a lot of milestones. Educating our kids at home means that we will experience all the "firsts" with them. We will be the ones to teach them to read, to accomplish math, or to write that first chapter story. We have the opportunity to introduce them to museums and great art exhibits and science exhibitions. Parents have the opportunity lead and guide children through the stages of adolescence and the newness of the boy-girl dynamic.

Whatever your reasons are for exploring home education, it is important to make an informed decision. There are challenges that every homeschool family must face. Our family definitely believes that the pros outweigh the cons.

READ MORE - Pros and Cons of Educating Children at Home - Honest Commentary

Teaching Poetry to Children - 3 Easy and Effective Ways to Teach Poetry to Child of Any Age

By Dana Susan Beasley
You can easily and effectively teach your children poetry reading and writing. You will know the secrets I know as a poet and student of poetry!

But as homeschooling parents you may be saying, "I don't have time" or "there's too many other important subjects like, Reading, 'Riting, and 'Rithmetic" or "I don't know anything about poetry, let alone teaching my child to write it."

Why is poetry important anyway? In these days of fast-paced TV shows and unlimited online games, why does this subject even matter? First of all, what captures your children's attention? Is it the latest essay written in a textbook or is it the coolest lyrics from their favorite Christian or secular rock group?

What is one of the most popular TV shows of all time? American Idol!

Poetry is as vitally important today as when it was in Shakespeare's time during the Elizabethan age! Poetry (in today's forms of lyrics) influences culture, which influences your children. Will it be for good or for bad?

Another reason why it's important to teach poetry is because it will teach your children how to communicate effectively and concisely. In this information age, I can't emphasize enough how important this is! It's the websites with excellent content that their audiences want that are making the most money. And face it, the Internet is here to stay! Mastering this skill of clearly communicating is vitally important in our changing economy!

I have heard it said that tomorrow's leaders will be the ones who possess creativity in great measure. Isn't that why we homeschool--so our kids will stand out as salt and light in a dark world?

Now that we're on the same page about why poetry is so important, I would like to share with you three easy and effective ways to teach poetry to any age child.

1) Find great examples. Teach the classic poets, definitely. Classic poets teach us about the power and beauty of words, timeless messages that touch people in profound ways, and the basic structure and flow of language.

A great place to start is Robert Frost's Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening. With this poem, you can teach about rhyming, rhythm, stanzas, and more. And as Christmas approaches, this poem is a perfect one to help you and your family get in that merry mood for the season!

Another great poet is Walt Whitman. He is one of the first free verse poets and you can tie your lesson in with American history! Of course, you can't lose by teaching Shakespeare. Combine learning his sonnets with going on a field trip to attend a Shakespeare play. Unbeatable!

2) Make it fun! I can't stress this enough. If you make poetry a drag, you will not be able to teach your children at all about it. As once was told to me, you can approach learning with a "Doberman Pincher" or a "Puppy Dog" attitude. Children learn better under the latter scenario.

How can you make it fun? Well, since it's almost Christmas, how about the famous poem, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas? Or Dr. Seuss is always fun, and yes, it is a type of poetry. How the Grinch Stole Christmas is full of wonderful learning possibilities.

Shel Silverstein is always a delight for young readers. Reading his poetry gives children much reading pleasure and is great fodder for inspiration. Then there are the words. Putting together words can be lots of fun.

Playing with a poetry magnet set can provide plenty of laughs while at the same time providing ample writing instruction. Another great game for learning poetry is ad libs. Why not create an ad lib for a poem? This could provide hours of fun and education.

3) Publish it! When your students have finished writing their poetry, be sure to publish it! Have them draw illustrations and then use a service like Blurb to show it to the world!

Or, have your students make a book the old-fashioned way--write out the poetry in their best handwriting (behold, a copywork lesson), have them draw some illustrations (art lesson), three-whole punch the paper, put a nice cover on it and tie the book together with a fancy ribbon. Then as an economic lesson, have your students sell the books as a business venture! To make it even more special, laminate the pages and have your children give the book as Christmas presents to their grandparents!

That's it! Three very simple, fun, and effective ways that will help you reach new heights in your homeschooling!

And now that you've been given the knowledge to make your poetry lessons easy and effective, how would you like a way to make it even easier?

Introducing my book Poetry Decoded. More than 40 suggested activities are given, including a detailed list of study questions, writing helps, vocabulary, unit study ideas, and notebooking pages. Also includes three advanced lessons on classical poets as well as detailed essay outline and poetry analysis forms that can be filled in with your computer.

With this lesson plan book, you can take the mystery out of poetry and teach it effectively.

There's a limited amount I will be selling at the current regular price, so grab yours soon!

READ MORE - Teaching Poetry to Children - 3 Easy and Effective Ways to Teach Poetry to Child of Any Age

How to Make Learning Fun When Home Schooling Your Children

By Lynn Schott
Over our family's fourteen years of homeschooling, we were, at times, sorely in need of some fun in our routine. At first I resisted having fun. Seriously. I believed that having too much fun got in the way of real learning. Wow! I can't believe that I really held onto that opinion. The good news for my kids is that I finally ditched that thought and we began to have some fun!

Here are three of our favorite fun learning activities:

1) Silly Story Starters

Story starter cards and games are for sale in teaching supply stores almost everywhere. However, if you don't want to spend extra money, just open your favorite book (the Bible even works well!) and put your finger down in the middle of the page. Read the first word, phrase or sentence your finger touches. Your students need to take the word, phrase or sentence and turn it into a sentence, a paragraph or a story. The length of the response is determined by the ability of the child. The response can be verbal or written.

We usually had each child take a turn making a funny sentence or story without writing anything down. It made them more likely to participate, and to think creatively. Don't require too much in the way of seriousness, though. The funnier the story, the better for all involved! Eventually, we worked up to writing these silly stories down, but right at first it's important just to get them thinking quickly and coming up with new vocabulary.

2) Spell It Out Loud

We had two struggling spellers in our homeschool. We tried it all, but nothing worked until we found Institute For Excellence in Writing's spelling program. The student listens to the daily lesson on CD, then verbally repeats the word and the spelling. Then the child takes a spelling test. If he/she misses even one, the lesson is repeated the next day until he/she passes the quiz with 100% mastery. There are no workbooks involved; there are just the CD's, your child and a daily oral review and written quiz. This method works because it is oral, and not workbook driven. Workbooks don't work for many kids. Verbal spelling forces the brain to pattern the words and store them. It is a highly effective method, and my kids' spelling improved almost immediately. For extra practice, make them spell everything they ask you for. Make them spell for their supper!

3) Many Mighty Manipulatives

My children LOVED to play with blocks, pattern tiles, LEGOs, DIME blocks, unifix cubes, etc. They love anything that they could touch and arrange. My oldest son is still a Lego freak at age 23. He credits his advanced ability to do math and think abstractly to the many, many hours he has spent building LEGOs. My younger two children struggled to read early on, and are auditory learners, so it worked beautifully for them to sit and play with manipulatives or draw and color while I read story books or schoolbooks to them. They could always tell me details about what I was reading, so I know that their little brains were processing!

In addition to these tactics, the most important thing you can do to bring fun to the learning is to R-E-L-A-X. When we are uptight and fretting about them "getting behind", or "not learning enough", or not "keeping up with the public school" we start putting pressure on our kids. As soon as we put pressure onto them, learning is no longer fun. When it is no longer fun, they begin to balk at their work, which makes us even more stressed out and upset with them, which makes them less likely to do their work. Think about it. Could you learn under those circumstances? Neither can they.

So lighten up and get out a mini camcorder and record those silly stories! Your kids are growing up fast. Have fun with them while there is still time.

READ MORE - How to Make Learning Fun When Home Schooling Your Children