Holes in Homeschooling????

Oh, there are critics of Homeschooling, we have heard all of the critical questions at one time or another. Just like any other homeschool family. There are so many questions people ask. Frankly, I am not sure why others are concerned about our children’s education? I think it comes down to a curiosity mixed with confusion as to why we would want to step outside of the box society has created.

Bottom-line for me is that at the end of the day I have to face my own reflection in the mirror and know I have done all I can for my children, and for me that includes homeschooling. When people ask what grades the children are in we all have to stop and think, I know {gasp} we have never focused on grade levels. I may have one child struggling in math and excelling in reading and another devouring History like it is candy. I move at their pace, if they have not mastered something there is no sense in moving forward. Yet if they are excelling I would never make them wait to the next school year to begin the next level. Which leads me to the next shock, we don’t have school years! Nope, life is learning and there is no need to stop just because it gets hot. We school to some degree or another all year. Last shocker for today, we don’t have a school week or hours…. sometimes school doesn’t start until the afternoon, sometimes we are doing school at 7pm and other times even on a SATURDAY.

Schedules are great and we have seen the benefit of them when we stick to them, and it is our goal to at least loosely stick to one. That being said, we are painfully aware that life has a way of getting in the way of any schedule.

Are there any holes in Homeschooling?? Absolutely, ask any homeschool Mom and she will be abundantly aware of where the holes are. As we are their teachers and we are with our children 24/7 we know where are children are struggling. We know that we can not possible cover every topic, but our goal is to teach our children to be self educating. To give them the tools to find the answers themselves.

This morning I became aware of one such hole… (here is the conversation that unfolded this morning)

Taliah (11 years old): “Mom, why was yesterday a holiday?”
Me: “It was Victoria Day.”
Taliah: “Oh, okay.”
Joel (6 years old): “What’s Victoria Day?”
Me: “Oh, it is a day we remember Queen Victoria’s Birthday.”
Joel: “Do we know her?”
Me: “No honey she died a long time ago.”
Hannah (4 years old) enters the room, “Who died a long time ago?”
Taliah and I: “Queen Victoria.”
Hannah: “Oh is she the lady who said, “Where’s the Beef?” ?”

Clearly this reveals a hole in their education 😀

I had not realized I had neglected teaching my younger children about Queen Victoria and her day.

Ironically, we live in a house that has never had cable or satellite TV (when we lived in my parent’s basement we did have cable as it was in their house).

Several months ago Dave and I were talking about commercials we remembered from our own childhood and the Wendy’s ‘Where’s the beef’ commercial came up. We headed to YouTube and showed the commercial to our children.

I am off to prepare a lesson on Queen Victoria! She really was a fascinating lady and someone I want all of my children to know. Perhaps I will post what I come up with, actually this could make am excellent lead in to Queen Elisabeth’s Diamond Jubilee celebration. After all, Queen Victoria is the only other Monarch to celebrate such a feat in British history.