When we say we homeschool, all too often is the image of my children doing the same thing as traditional public school...just within the walls of my home. Oh my. How wrong they are. While many of the same subjects are studied, we take it "out of the box" and make schooling an ADVENTURE! The kind kids in public schools (and many teachers too) WISHED they could do! For homeschoolers, the world is their oyster!
Did you know that very few homeschooling families have a "classroom"? More often than not, school is done throughout the house. Kitchen table, kitchen, living room, den, bedroom, porch, garden...
"Have books will travel" becomes our mantra. Sure many families will have a "zone" that the majority of their school is done in. And yes, some (like us) do have a classroom area to work in. But let me tell you...we do NOT stay in that classroom very much.
During the spring/summer/fall, you will usually find us spending about 20% of our time actually inside. The rest of the time we are taking our books on the go. Sometimes to parks, sometimes on picnics, sometimes on field trips, road trips, you name it! We are totally all about hands-on as much as possible.
When we were learning about the power of sunlight, we didn't just read about it or watch videos. We went outside armed with magnifying glasses and dead leaves and harnessed the power to make fire! The boys quickly declared me the coolest mom ever and that the best experiment ever.
How many teachers can just turn their children loose outside with magnifying glasses and tell them "now go burn some leaves!"
When I decided to teach about the Dewey Decimal system, we went to the public library and learned how to use the numbers to find books. The library is a great field trip! My friend Diana of Busy Homeschool Days explored an old on part of Mt. Angel Abbey and let her son explore very old Natural Science books.
Want to research the different types of rocks? Take a trip down to our creek and get ankle deep and hands on seeking out our rock types.
Travelling to Pennsylvania for something? Boom. Turn it into a field trip about the Colonial America and the Founding Fathers giving them on-site experience. (One of our future road trips)
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| A Friend's Homeschool Family Historical Cross Country Road trip |
Working on animal studies? Forget books and videos. Going on location to see your animal in real life is quite awesome!
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| Visiting the Reptile Man at the Library...and getting to hold your favorite animal is pretty cool |
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| Little Britches did a report on Lions...and then got to visit them at the zoo for an on location animal report |
Oregon Trail studies? Go to Oregon City, OR while visiting relatives and tour the End of the Trail museum and experience loading up a wagon bed yourself, make real candles by hand and stand on the spot of the End of the Trail Memorial.
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| Trying to write his name with a slate and chalk |
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| Official End of the Oregon Trail |
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| Dipping Candles |
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| Their very own candles |
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| Love-Of-My-Life checking out a REAL wagon that really made the Oregon Trail journey. |
Working on Botany? Spend time outside in your own garden and journal your adventures.
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| Rain planting her own seeds after a seed anatomy lesson |
Learning about caves and the difference in stalactites and stalagmites? Go on a cave tour and while you are at it, also learn about cave paintings.
Studying Shakespeare? Go to one of the sites of the annual Shakespearean festival and take in a live show of one of the classic pieces! I was able to attend the festival more than once down in Ashland, OR and saw several plays which made Shakespeare so much more enjoyable when reading about it.
But what about the "boring" stuff? Spelling, math, and such. Well, remember when in school you always begged your teacher on a nice day to let you go outside? Remember how they usually said no? Homeschool teachers almost always say "Absolutely!"
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| Leah working on school on her porch |
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| Sebastian practicing spelling words with sidewalk chalk |
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| Set up a table in your backyard and work on your schoolwork |
The kitchen is a great place for school...
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| Thanksgiving brings and impromptu Turkey innards dissection lesson |
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| Leah and John working on Critical Thinking Skills "on" the table! |
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| Making Hot Sauce from the Peppers he planted himself! |
Sometimes you have to do homeschool on the go...
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| Car at the mechanic? No problem. Work on school at the coffee shop. |
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| Travelling? You can do homeschool lessons at the airport. |
You also get to have a lot of fun...
Studying about horses and Native Americans? Watch the movie Spirit, and then paint your face and run around whooping and hollering!
Finished a lesson on Vikings? Try on a beard to see how you look for a Viking selfie.
The possibilities are endless in homeschooling. The world really is your oyster. There are no walls on your classroom (unless you make yourself have them) and you can learn and do just about anything! Children need an education...not a schooling. Homeschoolers don't just do "school" at home...we educated outside the classroom!
There you have it! The completion of my series
5 Common Myths About Homeschooling as part of the Real Life Homeschooling Blog Hop. I hope you enjoyed this series and that you will come back and visit me again!
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