Religion and Home Education

We are not a religious family, but we are a spiritual one. So, when religion is taught in our home education, it is more on a global perspective. When we learn about a particular place or country, we may learn about their spiritual beliefs.

We are not Muslim, but have taken a field trip to a local temple to learn about the Muslim faith. I believe that peace is obtained through tolerance and a lack of ignorance. I want my children to have a hunger for learning about others. Also, I want them to want to learn for themselves and not take any ones word on religion, even their parents. Instead they should study it for themselves and make their own judgments.

Since, we do not want our home education to be focused on any set religious belief system, we choose educational materials that are non-religious.

Many of the co-ops and home education groups in our area are Christian based, which has posed a challenge to us for finding other home school communities in our near by area to participate with. Though, we have been lucky enough to find a few that are not faith based groups.

This does not in any way mean that we have a problem with Christianity. We just do not prefer to make it the main focus of their education.

Here are some great websites that teach religious tolerance:
http://www.religioustolerance.org This site offers information about different religions around the world.

http://multicultural.mrdonn.org/ This site offers great lesson plans on multicultural education.

http://www.uri.org/kids/world.htm This site was created for children to learn about religions throughout the world. There are also great teaching resources here.
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http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/subjects/religions.htm This is another world religion site created for kids.

http://www.42explore2.com/religion.htm Here you will find a lot of resources for learning about religions of the world. Some of the activities and websites are created by other children.

Eclectic Homeschool?

To me being an eclectic home educator, means that I use a variety of different resources and teaching techniques that match each of my children individually. Each of my children learn in different ways, so an educational resource that is used with one, may not be what is best for another.

For Science Grant is using http://www.jason.org . There is an option for the written material to be read to him. So instead of him spending a lot of time struggling through reading, he can focus more on what is being taught. Many of the labs are created for larger classroom use, so I tweak them for home school use.
For math I have interactive computer programs that teach in a small step by step approach to complement his Saxon Math.

Since Raven is much younger and has a competitive nature, many of her subjects are done through games. For spelling she plays a spelling bee game where she can compete against the computer. For Social Studies, she plays Oregon Trail or Carmen Sandiego. Also, she enjoys the creative writing aspect more than the other children, so we have focused more on it that I did with the other children.

Antoinette's personality is very independent and she is self motivated. So, I give her more control over her school day than the others. She may decide to spend two hours on math one day to get ahead and then thirty minutes the next day. She sets goals for herself in her subjects. Where reading and essay writing are concerned, she tends to procrastinate, because these are not her favorite things to do. So, I create due dates for her in these areas.

Most of the time I allow my children to evaluate a curriculum before I purchase it for them. They decide whether the information is presented in a way that they learn best.

Socialization

The misconception that homeschooled children lack socialization is what I face most by those who do not home school. During school time, they have the opportunity to study without the distractions of the public school atmosphere. After their school work is done and their neighborhood friends who go to public school are home, they play outside. They have several friends. They also participate in activities with other homeschooled students in our community and enjoy extra curricular activities with children their age. Raven and Antoinette both ride horses with others and volunteer to help children with special needs learn how to ride horses.

The only one of my children that could be considered anti-social is my 13 year old son Grant. His anti-social behavior came from the public school system. There he was bullied because of his speech impediment, red hair, glasses, and learning difficulties. From that experience he learned that he can not be rejected if he rejects them first. Slowly I have been helping him to heal from his public school experience and he has been willing to make more friends.

Many of the activities in public schools, such as sports, speech, and music can be experienced outside of a public school education. A public education offers more of an exposure to drugs and bullying. Through home educating my children, I am more directly involved in their social life. So, they are less likely to be exposed to the negative aspects that they would experience in public schools.

One of the excuses that I have heard in defence of the bullying in public schools, is that it is just part of growing up. Maybe building a thicker skin is important so that they do not carry their emotions on their sleeves, but bullying has gone out of control in the public school system. Here in Texas there have been suicides due to bullying as young as 7 years old.  Click here to read some of the cases. Just yesterday I was taking to my daughters 10 year old friend who is in the 4th grade at our local public school. She was telling me how she wished her mom would home school her because there is a fight at school everyday and a child in her grade died at school from another students beating.Our public school system is in a sad state when something like this becomes the norm.

When my oldest daughter was in public school in the 6th grade, she admitted  that it was almost a daily occurrence that she was offered some sort of drug.  Pills have become very popular among students in our local area. In the next town there was Heroin being ran by a student. Now why would I want my teenage daughter to have this kind of social life?

Through home education, my children are offered more of a positive social life. I am directly involved in their lives and the young people that they are exposed to are motivated drug free individuals.

Our Typical Day

It seems fitting for the first entry in this blog to be focused on what our typical day is like. So, here is what we did today:

6:30 a.m.: We ate breakfast and watched Nova.

7:30 a.m.: The children wrote one page in their writing journal.

8:00 a.m.: Antoinette did lesson 116 in Saxon Algebra 1. She should be beginning Algebra 2 this coming Monday. Grant did lesson 15 in Saxon 7/8. Raven did lesson 33 in Saxon 6/7.

9:00 a.m.: Antoinette worked in her honors biology. She should be beginning chemistry in about a month. Grant worked in his science at http://www.jason.org.  Raven is learning about the human body in science. So today we began learning about the human heart. When she is done with learning about the human body, I plan on us dissecting a fetal pig as a family.

10:00 a.m.: All of the children finished the rough draft for their current writing assignment. Monday, I had them each draw a face. Then they exchanged their pictures and wrote a story about someone else’s picture. Today they exchanged their rough drafts with each other and corrected their sibling’s errors. Tomorrow they will make corrections to their story. Friday their story is due typed.

11:00 a.m.: Grant worked on his civics. His Civics lesson today was about civil duties and respecting the rights of others. Raven played Carmen Sandiego. Antoinette worked in Kaplan SAT.

12:00 p.ml: Lunch

12:45 p.m.:  Antoinette read three chapters in Farewell to Arms. Raven read a book of her choice and worked in her writing workbook. Grant and I read two chapters in Huckleberry Finn together.

1:30 p.m.: Antoinette took a practice SAT test. Raven worked in her English grammar workbook and played her spelling bee computer game. Grant did a grammar exercise in correct comma usage and played the computer spelling bee game.

2:00 p.m.: Grant finished up a letter to his pen pal Meg in Australia. Raven finished up a letter to her pen pal Mayali in China.

Today, Antoinette was finished with school at 2:00 p.m. and the others were finished around 3:00p.m., but usually all of the children are finished by 2:00 p.m.

Here are some of the resources that I am currently using with each of my children:

Raven (age 10):

Figuratively Speaking by The Learning Works- This workbook covers figurative language, poetic language, and literary techniques. So far in the book she has done the sections on hyperbole, alliteration, metaphor, and simile.

Spectrum 5^th grade Language Arts- She will be finished with this in approximately a week.

Spectrum 5^th grade Reading- she will be finished with this in approximately a week.

Saxon Math 6/7- Raven is advanced in math. So, if you were to go by her age, she would be in 4^th grade, but she is doing 6^th grade Math.

Elementary advantage by Encore- In this computer program she is currently using the typing, Science, and the Social Studies. For Social studies the program has Carmen Sandiego.

Rosetta Stone Spanish 1-We did not do Spanish today, but usually we spend about an hour on Spanish.

Jump Start 5^th grade and Jump Start 6^th grade- She plays on these when she is done with all of her other school work.

Grant (age 13)

Middle School Advantage by Encore- He just finished all of the American History lessons, Grammar lessons, reading lessons, and currently only uses the computer program for extra help with math.

Saxon Math 7/8: Grant struggles a bit with math due to dyslexia.

Prentice Hall Literature- We have done several lessons in this book. The book is a bit older, but has some great literature examples, writing assignments, vocabulary lessons, and grammar lessons.

Writers Choice by Glencoe- I mostly use to teachers addition to come up with writing ideas.

Rosetta Stone Spanish- We typically spend an hour working on Spanish.

Civics by Glencoe- He does the assignments in here, but I also create my own special projects to go along with it.

Antoinette (age 16)

Honors biology by k12- This is a free curriculum. Antoinette enjoys it and is about done with it and will be beginning Chemistry soon.

Kaplan SAT- This is a bit pricey, but I found it to be one of the best college prep curriculums.

Saxon Algebra 1- She is about done with this and will be beginning Algebra 2 soon.

Rosetta Stone Spanish 1- She typically spends an hour each day working in this.

I did not like any of the curriculums available for high school literature, so we have created our own. I will share this with you at another time. Antoinette has completed all of her History, government, and economics courses. Currently she is preparing for all of her college entrance exams. 

These are only some of the resources that I use to teach my children. In the future, throughout this blog, I will share those resources with you.