-
How do you homeschool?
-
How do you teach so many children at one time?
-
What method do you use?
These are often questions I am faced with when people hear that we are homeschooling 4 out of our 5 children. The toddler just listens to everything we say.
How we homeschool and the method we each choose depends on learning styles, the methods available, and the size of the family and family dynamics.
There’s much talk about learning styles – about how we need to know our child’s learning style before we can choose the method to teach him. I have been thinking about this and wondering how to address this issue in a practical manner.
I must say that I feel that learning styles have been over hyped. We often hear comments like “Oh my son/daughter is auditory/visual/kinesthetic so I need to find a curriculum that caters to his/her learning style.”
While we all tend to learn in one style better than the other, I feel that we need to develop all 3 styles to succeed in this world! Taken to the extreme, we will be needing to cater to the teacher’s learning style and each of the homeschooled children’s learning styles!
Well, if one has only one child, I suppose that would be doable. But what if you have 2, 3, 6, 8 …. children and they all have different learning styles? Does that mean you buy different curricula and teach them all differently???
It can’t be, right? I agree that not one size fits all and that’s why we homeschool, so that we can proceed at the child’s capability. But we also need to teach our child/ren to be adaptable.
So while learning styles play some part, it shouldn’t be the end all and be all. Do take into consideration you and your child/ren’s learning style BUT do not be held hostage by it.
Then comes the “methods” or approaches. In general, the methods of homeschooling fall into 2 main groups : traditional and non-traditional.
The traditional method uses textbooks and workbooks to teach. How we learnt in school is the best example of the traditional approach.
Then there is the non-traditional approach. The most common ones include : the Classical Approach, the Charlotte Mason Approach, the Unit Study Approach, unschooling and the the Eclectic Approach. You can find out more about each of these methods by googling on them.
Then there is family size and family dynamics. A one-child family will homeschool in ways very different from a 3 or 6 or 12-child family. A family with all “normal” children will also homeschool differently from a family who has children with special or medical needs.
I will share our experience and hope that it will help you as you decide what method you would like to choose for your family.
This was our experience : When we first started homeschooling, I was not very confident. While I knew I could teach, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to cover all that is required. Plus all my experience with school is the traditional approach.
Many older mums of many adviced that the traditional approach will burn me out as I would then be required to be teaching different subjects at different levels and have to mark all those scripts! They all said that the unit study approach (teaching one topic/subject across multiple levels) was more practical and efficient.
But while I appreciated their advice, I still wasn’t sure if I could pull it off. So dh and I discussed and decided that we will go with the traditional approach first. Then we will take it from there. We chose to use Bob Jones University curriculum.
It is an excellent programme. Very detailed, very organised. Both the teacher’s manual and the worksheets were engaging without being too distracting. I can see that there will be very little gaps in the children’s education if I continued with this programme.
Teaching one child with the traditional approach was very doable. But as teaching two became more challenging. I could see that as I added the rest of the children into the mix, I would really burn out. Esp since I still had babies and toddlers to handle. So this year, we switched to a unit study approach with Student of the Word.
As mentioned in my other post “Where do you homeschool?” everyone is learning the same thing at the same time, saving me the hassle of trying to remember who’s learning what!
The same topic is taught to everyone but different work is required by the different levels. Eg. our devotions and language arts cover the same topic. The pre-schoolers are just required to listen to the story and do colouring for me. But the older ones are required to participate by either writing and/or drawing the topic we have covered in detail.
So this is how we homeschool and it has worked out much better for us. As all are learning at the same time, there is better usage of time and schoolwork can be finished earlier in the day. There’s more time to play!
I hope this helps you as you are deciding what method to use and how you actually want to structure your day.