The post Benefits of Homeschooling Series appeared first on Character Ink.

We used to get asked a lot WHY we homeschooled…like all the time….twenty years ago or more. Nowadays, reasons for homeschooling are as diverse as the number of people homeschooling.
There are not just a handful of reasons any more—and many of the reasons (especially the fear-based ones) are not as prevalent as they were. (Not sure if this is all good….we need to fear some things for our kids.)
After thirty-two years of homeschooling (and being done for two years now—well, done with our own kids, but not the 170 kids in our classes and part time programs!), we have narrowed it down to one big reason—with lots of sub reasons.
Truly, TIME is the biggest reason that I would homeschool if I had it to do all over again—and is something I would like for you to at least consider in your decision to homeschool or not, go to school or stay home, continue on or end. Because TIME is big—and can never be redeemed.

Blessings to you and your family on your journey! Enjoy every moment you have!

P.S. Feel free to share this video. I don’t think it is something that people talk about a lot….but it was hugely impactful to our family!
 

I. Starting Out

A. Chose homeschooling out of fear of all of the “bad” stuff

1. Bad peers
2. Bad curriculum (secular)
3. Bad environment

B. “Pioneers”

1. We were afraid of everything (unfortunately)
2. Very Bible-driven and character-focused (fortunately)

II. Middle Years

A. As older kids entered high school

1. Moving away from fear a little and more into reality (these kids need occupations!)
2. Focused in on academics while still keeping a character-basis and a relationship style of parenting

B. Began writing curriculum and testing it with homeschooled kids

III. Ending Years

A. Relationships with adult kids and kids still in school

1. Realized more and more it was the time we have had together
2. Adult kids still needed the time

B. Watched siblings as many as ten and twelve years apart develop close relationships

IV. The NUMBER ONE Benefit of Homeschooling—Time

A. Time cannot be duplicated, redeemed, or reallocated

1. Average American mom spends 13.5 hours a week with her child; average homeschooling mom spends 77 hours

a week with her child

2. My own quick math

a. 8 hours a day x 180 days
b. Yields 1440 more hours per year that kids who are homeschooled are with their parents/siblings
c. Probably between 1500 and 2000 per year with 9 hour days, bus rides, before and after school activities, etc.

3. Any way you slice it, it is too much time to try to “make up for” on weekends or holidays or summers. The sheer number of hours is staggering.

a. At 1500 hours a year x 13 years
b. Nearly 20,000 hours

B. Time that kids are with parents

1. Who is going to shape your child during those 20,000 hours?
2. Do we want it to be teachers and peers or us?

C. Time to lean in to their strengths and weaknesses

1. Academically
2. Becoming who they will become
3. Emotional support

D. Time with siblings

1. Who are your best friends here?
2. Who matters more than anyone else here?

E. Time equals influence

1. “You will become the five people you spend your time with”
2. Kids change according to who they are with and what expectations and allowances are made
3. Time influence is the time of the people who ARE influencing your kids (you) and time that peers are NOT influencing your kids.

F. The thing we put our time into is what grows

1. Do we want the home to be the center of your child’s world or the school?
2. If our kids go to school, we SHOULD put the effort and time into that school due to the number of hours are kids spend there (don’t send them then complain about everything!)
3. Make your home the center of your family, not the school

V. Summary

A. Do I think all is lost if kids go to school?

1. No!
2. But it takes supernatural effort and work

B. Co-ops, half day programs, Friday School, private tutors, even babysitters overseeing some work can all make it happen more easily

1. Homeschooling doesn’t have to mean you do all the teaching
2. It doesn’t have to mean that you love to teach
3. It just means that you are going to do everything in your power to have as many of those 20,000 hours/ 2500 days be with you rather than away from home for their thirteen years of school.

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The post The Number One Reason I Chose Homeschooling After 32 Years appeared first on Character Ink.

It has been said that when a banker or a counterfeit money “agent” learns about counterfeit money, he or she begins by learning what the real thing looks like.

I use this same approach to teach about sentences, clauses, and phrases in my language arts and writing books (Character Quality Language Arts and Meaningful Composition): teach the students what a real sentence looks like—and then teach what are not real sentences.

I teach what a sentence contains using a simple acronym: CAVES

Once a student learns what a real sentence is and can spot real sentences (and “non-sentences”), the possibilities for writing, sentence structure understanding, advanced sentence combining technique use, and more are endless!

Work on CAVES first—then your student will be able to do any and all of the following:

1. Tell the difference between a real sentence and a non sentence
2. Fix comma splices (since it will be obvious that this is a real sentence and that one is too)
3. Match subjects with their verbs in tense and number easily
4. Write with sentence openers clearly and in sophisticated manners
5. Combine sentences for all kinds of conciseness techniques and fancy shmancy writing

CAVES—it is what a sentence contains!
If you write a sentence and you are unsure of whether it is a “real” sentence, use CAVES.

When a sentence is not a “real” sentence, the culprit is usually the A one—All makes sense. And that “A” one will take us into sentences vs. phrases and clauses…on another day. Happy writing!

The post CAVES: Parts of a Sentence appeared first on Character Ink.

We all want to raise children who love learning—and if they love homeschooling, too, well, that’s even better. I wanted my kids to love learning and homeschooling so much twenty-five years ago that I wouldn’t teach a child to read unless he could learn within a few weeks with no tears. (Otherwise, we put it on the back burner for a couple more months.) I was serious about this love for learning stuff!

However, in an effort to be sure our kids enjoy homeschooling, we often run into something that makes it hard for us parents to enjoy it—and something that actually handicaps our children in the future. This concept is one of indulgent homeschooling vs fun homeschooling.

Just like our children “don’t like” this or “don’t want” that or “have to have” this or “can’t be happy without” this–and thus, are often not happy with the “normal” things of life–so it is with our children in homeschooling.

Before I come off sounding like an ogre, I want to assure you that we had a fun homeschool. If you were to ask our children (seven of them ages seventeen through thirty-three) if our homeschool was fun, you would hear answers like the following:

“Oh yeah! Dad used to use these huge red pressboard bricks to teach Bible stories. We would build the temple, Zacchaeus’ tree, and even Jesus’ boat!”

“Fun? How many kids do you know who got to sleep at the top of the jungle gym at Science Central overnight—WITH their parents!”

“I can’t imagine more fun than having your mom read to you for two hours every morning and two hours every afternoon. School was definitely fun at our house!”

“It was a blast! When Mom and Dad got us new books and other fun things from the homeschool convention, they would wake us up at midnight when they got home and show us everything and start reading them to us!”

However, one reason that our children found homeschooling fun was because everything didn’t always have to be fun. Just like an indulgent child can’t be happy unless she gets to have a friend overnight, order pizza, and buy new make up to do make-overs often, a homeschooled child will not think school is fun if he has to have fun all the time. I call this the fun factor in homeschooling.

So, strange as it may seem, my first suggestion to making school fun and helping your kids love learning and love homeschooling is to not try to make everything fun.

Our kids knew fun times were coming. They knew that Mom and Dad loved learning and loved homeschooling and would make things fun at times. They knew that we had something fun up our sleeves to pull out any time.

But they also knew that school was their occupation–and it was often just plain hard work sometimes. And it needed to be done. Day in and day out. Just like Dad went to his job and worked his tail off–so Mom and the kids do the same at home.

Our mantra was “daytime is for learning and working and evenings are for fun and family.” (Obviously, we did fun things during the day too—see partial list above….but they knew that they couldn’t just do anything they wanted during the day. They needed to be learning, working, growing. It was their occupation. (And yes, we did have play time for youngers; breaks; etc.!)

We didn’t need to have bells and whistles all the time because they began to love normal (just like their parents did—hint hint–modeling!). They always knew the expectations, and they knew that every day they had to get up and follow a routine for learning, growing, becoming, and maturing.

They learned the joy of following a loose (block) school schedule, setting goals and meeting them, completing tasks, and of gaining knowledge.

They knew that there were many things we do just because they are the right things to do. Every subject, every day doesn’t have to be fun. Chores don’t always have to be games and contests–or rewarded (though sometimes they were!).

Independent lists were there to keep them on track. They were their to-do lists every day.

Chores were a part of our day because chores make a home run smoothly—and give us more time in the evenings for fun family activities.

We taught our children a contentment in homeschooling–in our way of life—that made the fun even more fun, the special even more special, and the extraordinary even more extraordinary.

The Fun Factor in Homeschooling–the fun begins when the normal is good too.

The post The Fun Factor in Homeschooling appeared first on Character Ink.

When homeschooling moms hear the word “schedule,” they either cringe or celebrate. It seems that there is a division of camps when it comes to scheduling. While those who “celebrate” the schedule might be guilty of micro-managing their children and maybe even putting undue pressure on them, those who ‘cringe” when confronted with the idea of scheduling might suffer from a lack of productivity due to their disdain for schedules.

I have found that you do not have to have a love-hate relationship with schedules, but rather you have to figure out which type of homeschooler you are—one who loves schedules and wants to follow one to the letter or one who doesn’t care for them and would do better with a looser type of schedule that still provides some sense of structure.

If you love schedules, then you will probably do better with a moment-by-moment, or at least hour-by-hour one to guide your day.

If you are “allergic” to schedules, you might find a block type of schedule in which you do certain things in a certain order during certain time periods to suit your time management style. I used a combination of both—but always had the “block schedule” in mind for even our toddlers all the way through high school. I divided our day up into

Early morning

Morning

Noontime

Early afternoon

Late afternoon

Early evening

Dinner hour

Late evening

While I might not firmly make 10:00-10:30 math for everybody, I always knew (and the kids always knew) what to expect based on the block of time it was.

Regardless of what type of schedule you use, there are a few key things to being successful in homeschool scheduling. I will leave you with a few of these: (a) Change the schedule every few months as needed, based on the ages of your children; (b) Write the schedule out and “advertise” it for everybody in your family to see all the time; and (c) Attach things that are really important to you to things that are already in your schedule.

(a) Change the schedule as needed.

I found especially with little ones that I needed to change the schedule to adjust to their needs and my availability. When I had littles, I actually revised the schedule every season—based on how long the baby was nursing at that time; how long the toddler napped; who could do which chores now; who needed longer blocks of school meetings with me; etc. I wasn’t locked into the exact same schedule for the entire school year, but I changed it as the children changed throughout the year.

(b) Write the schedule and “advertise” it.

I posted our schedules on the refrigerator, in the fronts of the kids’ binders, on their lesson plan/check sheets, etc., so that everybody could always look and see what was supposed to be happening in our day at a certain time. The lunch person always knew what time he or she was supposed to be in the kitchen; the laundry person always knew what time laundry was to be done each day. By “publishing” the schedule for all to see, I made it more official—and I could even get Dad involved in helping me enforce it if I had a true, posted schedule.

(c) Attach important things to things that are already in your schedule.

We learned this trick (along with dozens of others) from Gregg Harris twenty-five years ago—and have used it every year since then. He said that if something is really important to you to do in your family, attach that activity to an existing one. For instance, if reading aloud to your children is something you really want in your schedule, attach it to breakfast, lunch, or bedtime—times that are already established in your home. We did this with many, many things—attaching things to existing things until our attachments had attachments attached to them—and our day was one big attachment! 🙂

Scheduling your homeschool doesn’t have to be drudgery with everybody following thirty minute time boxes and nobody enjoying it. Make your schedule work for you and your family!

OTHER SCHEDULING HELPS:

[Video] Wondering Wednesday: Scheduling Q & A

Using a Block Time Approach to Big Work Days

Podcast Handout For ” How Can I Turn My Day From Chaos to Control? From Rowdy to Routine?”

The post Love-Hate Relationships With Homeschooling Schedules appeared first on Character Ink.

Teaching poetry can be a challenge. It is easy to get caught up in the mechanics of poetry when teaching about rhyme scheme. It is easy to get lost in imagery when teaching about meaning and depth of poetry.

Poetry Rap

Sometimes you just need a little fun when you’re teaching rhyme scheme—like in the Facebook Live videos that my students made of me teaching the about the importance of syllabication in rhyme scheme development—using funny rhymes and even a little rapping.

The moral of the story? Have fun when teaching. Use anything you already know or anything around you. Walk students through difficult concepts incrementally—using lots of examples and chances to practice together before expecting students to do difficult or unfamiliar tasks.

Happy teaching! 🙂

Rhyme Scheme

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Welcome to one of our May Wondering Wednesday posts! This is the time of year that I get questions about putting kids in school next year! 🙁

Sorry for the frowny face, but you have to know that a woman who is wrapping up her final (and her thirty-second!) year of homeschooling would have a frowny face about not homeschooling! 😉

Yep…I’m pretty crazy about it.

So this video is my answer to a reader’s question about whether her son should come back to homeschooling or stay in school—with some other circumstances (siblings are homeschooling, child wants to come home, parents like the accountability provided by going to school etc.).

I hope it helps some of you see the amazing opportunity we have to homeschool—and that it doesn’t have to be school or free-for-all. We can do this thing! (Persevering she was!)

Love and hope,

Donna

Subscribe to us on YouTube!

LINKS

Summer Series
[Podcast] From Chaos to Control; Rowdy to Routine
[Podcast] Five Homeschooling Problems and Solutions
[Podcast] 30 Tips from 30 Years

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The post [Video] Should You Continue Homeschooling? appeared first on Character Ink.

Ray and Donna Reish, of Character Ink Press and Raising Kids With Character Parenting Seminar, bring you their Top 30 Tips From 30 Years of Homeschooling. They delve into areas of prioritizing, character training, heart training, housework, little kids, school, and time management. Speaking from their hearts, they love to help parents in general, and homeschoolers specifically, be successful in their parenting.

Download the podcast notes here.

Listen to previous podcasts here.

The post [Podcast] 30 Tips from 30 Years of Homeschooling appeared first on Character Ink.

Welcome to another Wondering Wednesday!

Because we are swamped writing and editing our new Peter Pan and Jungle Book writing books. And because we have had a lot of great posts, freebies, etc., about chores, I thought I would do a sort of round up for you today of podcasts that might help you with chores, schedules, home management, and more!

So here you go….

PODCASTS FOR CHORES AND MORE

You can download our cute printable posters, “Age Appropriate Chore Posters”  at our store by clicking on the picture below!

Let me know what you would like to hear more about and how we can help you!

Love and hope,
Donna

The post Podcast Roundup: Chores & More appeared first on Character Ink.

This week’s Wondering Wednesday answers readers’ questions about how to implement Independent Work Lists for children, especially junior high and high school by using daily check lists. (See the podcast episodes that introduces the concepts of Daily Duties and talks about using charts and lists, work order, teaching independence, and more in last week’s Wondering Wednesday podcast episode here.)

“In this video, Donna Reish, author of fifty+ curriculum books and co-author of Raising Kids With Character parenting seminar and blog, explains to parents how to use charts, checklists, and lesson plans to implement Daily Duties (daily independent lists for school) in your homeschool. Donna uses sheets from her download, Daily Duties: Independent Check Lists for Students, to explain the various ways to divide and implement Daily Duties, such as by time blocks, by subject areas, by order of importance, and by days. She also includes teaching on how to take a child from fully dependent on a chart (or you!) to independent as he grows up. You do not need to have the Daily Duties e-book to benefit from this teaching!”

So there you have it…our first Wondering Wednesday video. Let me know what you think!

Love and hope,
Donna

Subscribe to us on YouTube!

Click here or on the picture below to get this download 🙂

LINKS

The Simplified Planner
Age Appropriate Chore Posters
Consequence Pies e-book
Podcast: How Do I Turn My Day from Chaos to Control? From Rowdy to Routine?
Podcast: Foundations for Becoming an Efficiency Expert in Your Home
Five Homeschooling Problems and Solutions
Ten Ways to Stay Close During Intense Training Times

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