Home School News Blog

Posts Tagged ‘community’

Homeschoolers involve themselves with various community resources on several different levels. First and most common, is simply making use of services offered – for
instance, taking a class at a museum or buying a product from a local business. Next, homeschooling families or support groups might arrange to visit a local factory to see how furniture is made, or take a tour of the local blood bank to learn how it works.

Individual homeschoolers may work as volunteers or apprentices within the community, often finding such opportunities after exploring many options. Finally, some facilities may in turn provide services for homeschoolers after they have had experience with homeschoolers working as volunteers for them.

Don’t expect every business or museum to be eager to work with homeschoolers. Some relatively bureaucratic bodies simply haven’t any official policy for dealing with homeschoolers and so won’t even try. Some will be completely unfamiliar with homeschoolers, and a few will have had a bad previous experience with a rowdy bunch and decided not to have anything to do with homeschoolers ever again. Most who are hesitant are simply used to working with school groups, typically one grade or age at a time, and are a bit puzzled when faced with handling a mixed-age group of homeschoolers.

All homeschoolers use community resources to some extent, but unschoolers are especially interested in finding ways of connecting learning with the everyday details of life. Try looking at your community, not just as the place you live and work and shop, but as a collection of opportunities for learning. Consider a few of the possibilities you may be able to find within a short radius of your home.

Bookstores and Other Retailers

Bookstores run a close second to libraries as homeschoolers’ favorite resources. New books, used books, any books on any topic can become a part of a homeschooling curriculum. Trade books are often better information sources than many books specifically intended to be educational. Other retailers similarly useful as “curriculum” suppliers are toy stores, computer software and hardware dealers, hardware stores, nurseries and garden supply stores, and so on.

Any retail operation can be an interesting place to visit, just to see how businesses work: How do employees spend their time? Where does the stock come from? How is inventory tracked? How do the owners decide what their customers will buy? Even the most routine shopping trip can supply bits and pieces of the answers to such questions.

Museums and Other Cultural Institutions

Museums, although overtly educational, are like libraries in that they have no prerequisites for learning from them. You can pick and choose from their offerings, spending all your time in one gallery and ignoring the rest if you like. Many museums offer classes and workshops.

Please introduce us to your family members–names, ages, and a brief description of personalities, interests, parents’ occupations, etc.–whatever you feel comfortable sharing. We are a family of six, four children and two eccentric parents. Chuck, 36, went to school in Alberta Canada. He is extremely intelligent and for Junior High School was sent to a gifted school. He learned quickly that the school did more research about the students than providing a higher education for the students. It w

Read more here: 
How Do You Homeschool? An Interview with Jen McKinnon

Sneaky Green Uses for Everyday Things: How to Craft Eco-Garments and Sneaky Snack Kits, Create Green Cleaners, Remake Paper into Flying Toys, Assemble … a Robot Recycle Bin with Everyday Things is a fun and fabulous book for people that love to create their own gadgets. This book is almost like a science project book. Both my older kids are checking it deciding which fun gadgets and experiments they want to try. If you do homeschooling this might be a great book for you to get since it is

Read more from the original source: 
A Review of Sneaky Green Uses for Everyday Things by Cy Tymony

It is almost that time again… back to school . My daughter starts Kindergarten this year and both older kids are attending a new school. All summer I have been vacillating the public versus homeschool choice. Both kids want to attend public schools but it makes me really nervous. Our experiences thus far have not been so great. To make matters worse my local community is at war over a school levy that just failed. 51% of the community voted it down with the full understanding that if they did

See the rest here:
The Politics of Public School

Sit down and behave yourself will take on a new meaning in British schools this year. Under a government plan, parents of children enrolled in state schools will be required to sign a Home School Agreement regarding rules on attendance, behavior, school uniforms and homework. Should kids break the rules, their parents could face court proceedings and a fine up to $1,600. In explaining the reasoning for the new rules, the British schools secretary said : If the large majority of parents are d

Here is the original post:
Should Parents Be Responsible For Kids’ Actions in School?

I’m a real hat mama. I insist that my wee ones wear hats nearly all the time during the first year of life — and a lot of the time thereafter. A lot of people ask me about this — it’s less and less common, it seems, to keep babies in hats. I have a lot of reasons for it — to protect my (bald!) babies’ delicate skin, to help keep their temperature regulated, because it’s an old tradition (and I’m nothing if not into old tradtions!). Donna Simmons, the writer of the Waldorf homeschooling

View original post here:
A bonnet for the babe

Writes Jana Ball to Jeff Bryan: I just wanted to take a moment to praise your recent article, Pep Rallies and Public School . I am finishing up my 5th year of homeschooling my two children, and books like Dumbing Us Down, John Taylor Gatto’s searing commentary on being a teacher, were instrumental in our family’s decision to take our daughter out of school 6 years ago. My son has never had the humiliation of being locked up for even a day, a fact for which I am extremely grateful.My husband

See original here: 
On Not Locking Your Children Up in Public Schools

Dear Reader, Please excuse the delay in posting. We’ve been having such a full and marvelous time touring the country, that I’ve fallen behind in my blog posts. I thought about skipping a few stories, and coming back to them later, but I just couldn’t do it. I have to do this chronologically, I’m just compulsive that way. This means that I’m still sharing stories from before we hit the road, including the one about a fabulous end-of-year homeschool party that we attended. Dreaming of

Here is the original: 
Pie Fight Party: A Homeschooler’s Dream

SIERRA VISTA — At the winter break, 13-year-old Nico Zazueta’s parents pulled him out of charter school to home school him.

Go here to read the rest: 
Nico ‘The Natural’ ready to make stage debut (The Sierra Vista Herald)

Carley Warthan scored 18 points, and Jordan Torrence added 16 as West End Christian defeated Spirit Home School 41-37 in the semifinals of the VCAA tournament last night. Morgan Thomson led Spirit with 10 points and 15 rebounds. West End advances to play the winner of Victory Christian-Central Virginia Home School for the VCAA title. SPIRIT HOME SCHOOL (16-6)

The rest is here: 
WEC girls in tourney final (Richmond Times-Dispatch)