Rambling thoughts on homeschooling 7

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Homeschooling is still such a foreign concept in Singapore that if I want to get any attention in a crowd, all I have to say is that I am a homeschooling mother 😀

I didn’t start out wanting to homeschool my children and definitely not all 7. And on certain days (months???) I still wonder why I am doing it! This year, 2014, I have a K1, Primary 1, 3, 5, 6 (yes, PSLE!), Grades 9 and 11. So this makes it the 2nd year that I am homeschooling 7 children since the youngest started school last year. And you know, it hasn’t gotten easier! Lol! Yeah. You were probably not expecting that!

Homeschooling is similar to breastfeeding in that everybody sings its praises but no one warns you about the pain (literal and figurative) you experience while doing it. And while *I* get seemingly more experienced, each child that comes onboard is not and I have to go through the whole rigmarole of getting him/her used to this whole thing.

Reading and the 5 year old

I have just completed the Funnix Programme with the almost 5 year old and she is reading! Yay! Fact : some children just catch on to reading faster than others, even when you are using the same method/books.

MOE* and PSLE*

The middle children are plodding along with the local MOE syllabus and of course the highlight this year (ha!) is preparing for PSLE. Come next year (God willing!) we will have to be preparing for PSLE AND a Primary 4 exam as a new requirement by MOE for homeschoolers! Yay me – not!

ABEKA

The older 2 are using the Abeka DVD accredited programme and I am very thankful for that! The Abeka DVD programme teaches via the DVD teacher and I grade their work and then send the progress reports off to Abeka at regular intervals.

Different strokes for different folks

Anyone with more than 1 child will know that every child is different : each has his own personality, learning styles, strengths and weaknesses. Now when you have 7 children, you live that truth 7 times!

With homeschooling, you pray that after you have chosen the perfect curriculum you would be able to use it for all your children. Then, horror of horrors, you find out that they have different learning styles! I guess if you are homeschooling 2 children, it is still possible to have 2 totally different methods and curriculum. But with 7?! Sorry it won’t fly here. So what do I do? I use what we have and tweak it slightly. And pray like crazy that it works. Or that God will provide an alternative if that is not working out.

Take for instance – readers will grasp language in a different way from the non readers. But I still make both read the same books. The reader will be allowed to zoom through it, the other will need to slow down and have it broken down.

Sounds good on paper, eh? Let me tell you it isn’t so in real life! Because obviously *I* also have my own learning style and when a child’s learning style is different from mine, *I* struggle to teach them in the way that they learn. “Why can’t you get it?” threatens to spring forth from my mouth each time we hit a road bump in learning.

Lessons from homeschooling – for mom!

So yeah, homeschooling is a 2-way thing : I am not only teaching but also learning. Homeschooling 7 just means I get to teach and learn it 7 times! 😀 And homeschooling is totally a long character training lesson. 

If you are looking for more answers about homeschooling, you can read my Homeschool FAQs.

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