Methods - Homeschool Humuhumu (Page 2)

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Methods

A collection of posts about the homeschooling methods I find work for us.

Small child at the bottom of a daunting set of stairs

How I got started with homeschooling

Here are the steps and phases I went through as we were first getting a foothold on homeschooling. If I knew back in 2019 what I know now in 2021, I'd skip some of this and get straight to the good stuff. First stop was figuring out the

Deschooling and Unschooling

Deschooling and Unschooling

When I was first wading into the world of homeschooling (with more than a little trepidation), one thing that threw me was two terms I didn’t understand, and kept getting mixed up: deschooling and unschooling. They sound very similar, almost interchangeable, and they’re not! In case you find

Scarborough's Reading Rope

Scarborough's Reading Rope

I like this metaphor to help break down the pieces that go into developing strong reading skills. The Scarborough reading rope model has been in use for about 20 years, if you’re interested in the research backing it up, search for “Scarborough reading rope.” The cool-toned threads at

Stone bust of an Egyptian pharaoh

How I'm really handling history

I recently posted that for history, I’m just having Wanda watch Blackadder [https://homeschool.humuhumu.com/how-im-handling-history/]. That was of course facetious (though she does love Blackadder). Here’s how I’m actually handling history: History is hard. From the time they’re babies, kids start

Designing lessons to optimize retention

Designing lessons to optimize retention

I read two articles this week about designing lessons to optimize retention—ensuring that what the kids take away from the lesson actually matches what you hope and think they’ll take away from it. They’re both medium-length reads, and worth your time, even if you aren’t

Crumpled pages torn from printed books

Language arts

This one has not been a smooth road, lots of figuring things out as I go along, lots of experimenting and course correction. I read through alllll the California state standards for language arts at each grade level, and I can pretty well figure out where my kid sits on

Poster for the film "Class Dismissed," with a school desk out in the middle of a grassy field.

Media recommendations

Class Dismissed

I'll have been homeschooling Wanda for one year next week, and only just tonight got around to watching Class Dismissed [https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B01DCHJXXM/], a documentary about homeschooling. If you're at all curious what homeschooling is like these days (some people'

A sign reading "RACISM IS A PANDEMIC"

Talking to kids about race

Lots of folks are asking how to talk to their kids about race. One of the simplest and most effective tools I use is to ask, “who is missing here?” It’s a simple question that I ask her often, mainly when we’re reading or watching shows or movies.

Ocean water entering a tide pool.

Abilities ebb and flow

If some days are duds [https://homeschool.humuhumu.com/some-days-are-duds/], some are great, and I’ve learned I need to remember that a high-water mark is not at all a reasonable everyday expectation. Just because I’ve seen she’s capable of a level of ability,

Red sign that says "WRONG WAY" in white letters.

Some days are duds

We have good days and bad days. No different from anyone else on the planet, but when you’re feeling someone’s entire educational fate on your shoulders, it’s important to remember that expecting to be magically immune from good days/bad days is folly. Sometimes the gears are

Title card for the Peanuts holiday special, "It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown"

Looking forward to special days

We keep a whiteboard calendar with holidays marked, and special shake-up-the-routine school stuff happens on those days. When there aren’t enough holidays, we make up our own. Recently it was Bird Day, an excuse to lump together a bunch of bird-related learning I’ve been

Package of fifteen white soft fabric balls, labeled "Indoor Snowball Fight."

Breaks as needed

Kids need a lot of breaks, to rest and reset their brains, and to move their bodies. Exercise isn’t just about getting the ants out of her pants: it provides a near-term mental boost for learning new concepts, and in the long run it plays a role in

Written on a whiteboard: "Want to learn: - rainforest -why do people have different eye colors? Does it really matter?"

What I Want to Learn

We start every Monday morning with Wanda telling me what she wants to learn this week. It’s not the meat of her learning, maybe one day it will be. We tackle the items she comes up with through the week, or sometimes in future weeks, usually in the afternoons.

Vintage brass bell in the shape of an apple

School bell

Each day starts and ends with the ringing of a sweet-sounding vintage brass bell in the shape of an apple. Wanda comes running up with a big smile and a giant hug, and I tell her, “Good morning, Quercus Prep!” or “Thank you for another wonderful day, Quercus Prep!

Branding

When we were first starting with homeschooling, I knew that I needed to get and keep earning Wanda’s buy-in. Doesn’t matter if a kid is at a traditional school or homeschool, refusal will eventually come. Wanda’s been into homeschool since the beginning (she begged me to

Keeping family connected to school with Seesaw

Buy-in from the people who care about Wanda is pretty important, since a potential weak point for homeschooling is the question of accountability. (But then, accountability and education in any setting is a big question, and the ways our educational system has tried to answer that question—focus on

Wanda, seven years old, explaining a math problem to Tom the Dog, a small stuffed animal.

Rubber ducking, and Tom the Dog

I introduced Wanda to the old programming trick of “rubber duck debugging [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging].” In short, when you’re stuck on something that’s just not working, you try explaining it to a rubber duck. By talking it through step-by-step, you see

A mother and child bird nuzzled together on the ground.

Connection

In these how-I-homeschool posts I’m going to steer clear of things that are really how-I-parent thoughts—too much preachin' to the choir. But this one’s such a biggie, and so critical to our homeschooling, that I’m including it even though it’s

Close-up of salt crystals

A grain of salt

Homeschooling can seem overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be. It can be simple, it can be involved, it can be whatever you need.

Neon sign that says, "USE YOUR BRAIN"

Growth mindset

Growth mindset is about shifting emphasis from achievement to effort. It’s good for everybody, but it’s particularly critical for “gifted” kids. Growth mindset and connection (which I’ll post about on another day) are the bedrock all of our homeschooling is built on. Lurking under the surface of

A child pointing to a globe of the Earth

Collaboration

I try to model our school interactions on how I experience great working relationships, and focus on building collaborative skills. Example: say Wanda jumps up to go get our globe when a book we’re reading mentions a country she recognizes. In a traditional classroom setting, that’s a big

Open books in front of a window with a view of evergreen trees

Our curriculum

By far, the number one question I get asked about homeschooling is what I use for curriculum. It’s not an easily answered question, so I’m writing it all up here. Given the current state of things, I thought some folks might find it relevant. This is what I

Schedule planning with Tick Tick

For planning our days, I use a to-do app called TickTick [https://ticktick.com/] . I hunted high and low for the just-right to-do app for our homeschool life, and this is it. It's calendar-based, and lets you set up recurring items. For instance, every