Alli the Book Giraffe

Hello readers! This is not the post I had planned for today, but it’s something that has been on my mind the last couple of days. I don’t have many people to share this with and I thought I could share it here.

I asked you guys at the end of 2022 if you would be interested in other aspects of my life and you guys said yes. Then, I never did anything with it. I did start The Sunday Post, where I do share more than I did before. But, here is a full post all about homeschooling. Let me know if you guys enjoyed it!

Originally, we never considered doing this. I had never been home schooled, known anyone who was, or considered doing it myself before I did it.

My daughter went to Kindergarten twice in two different years, which I will get to in a minute. The first time we were so excited. We started teaching her how to count as high as we could in the car. Every time we were in the car, we were counting by ones, twos, or fives.

We would also talk a bit about math like adding zero to a number makes it the same. You, know? It was pretty simple stuff. She also practiced writing at home before she went to Kindergarten.

Why I homeschool

So, she goes to Kindergarten for a few months and a few problems arise. One, that stupid color system they do. Each day that she came home with a yellow, she couldn’t even tell me what she did to earn the yellow. How can she correct the behavior if she doesn’t even know what she did? I also don’t think it’s going to help for us to reprimand her at home when we were not there for the thing she did.

We would meet with the teacher and this teacher would tell us she couldn’t do things we knew she could. She would count up to and well over 100 in the car and then the teacher would say she could only count to 25. The teacher said she was pretending to count to 100 with us. How on earth would she have pretended to do that?

Also, they weren’t making sure she was eating lunch at school. That really, really upset us. This child can eat more than a grown man. I don’t know where she puts it! She is one of those people with a crazy good metabolism.

Another big thing was the pressure they put on my husband and I. She came home with a folder with this four page packet one day with things I had to teacher her at home along with this little books where we had to read with her 20 minutes a day at home. She couldn’t even read yet, so it meant I had to read them. I just didn’t have the time for it then. I worked a 60-hour work week at a manufacturing job. Also, I didn’t see the point in the packet of things I had to teach her when she was going to school for 8 hours a day.

They couldn’t even get her name right and wouldn’t believe HER on what her name was. We don’t share her name or photos online, but she has a name that can be similar to others. Think like Julia and Julianna. She tried to correct them on calling her a different name and they didn’t believe her. As a matter of fact, they started teaching her how to write the wrong name.

We were also scared her birth mother or one of her family members might kidnap her. It may have been a silly worry, but it was one. They made us give names of people who couldn’t pick her up, but we didn’t know all name of her birth mother’s boyfriend’s family.

Criticism from others

Most of the time we get dirty looks when we say we homeschool. They will always say it’s bad because of socialization. I mean, we have neighbors. She has kids next door and across the street that she plays with.

Some people criticize whether someone is qualified to teach. If I encounter something I don’t know or remember that I need to teach, I will just teach it to myself first. I have had a few things I never thought I could teach, but I did it. There are plenty of places online that can help as well.

Finances is one I also see. I mean, don’t home school if you can’t afford for one person to be home. But, we have just never had other people watch my SD. One of us has always stayed home with her since she has lived with us.

But, if you are talking about how expensive it can get. You can do it for free or almost free if you know where to look. I’ll talk about that more below.

The last thing I see is that homeschool kids are weird when they are adults. I think it’s because they haven’t had the personality stripped and tortured out of them. She never has to worry about her likes or dislikes being made fun of by kids at school. Kids are mean AF to other kids. Also, everyone is expected to think and act like the same person in school.

What it looks like for us

We are very non-traditional. Unlike many homeschoolers, we are not centered in religion. I do teach about religion, but not just one of them. I’ve taught about Diwali, Day of the Dead, Hannukah, and Kwanzaa. Next year we will be learning about Ramadan even.

We don’t have a set schedule. We get up when we get up and she will have breakfast, do any chores that she needs to, and then start on homeschool. She usually has less than 10 pages to do and 20 pages of a book to read. It will take anywhere from an hour and a half to three hours. Sometimes I will assign movies on the weekend for her to watch that pertains to the history we are learning.

We don’t have a curriculum. I make my own, which is very time consuming, but I prefer it this way. I can set the pace of what we learn based on her needs. I used to use workbooks from Amazon and Walmart, but this last year I have used online websites with free worksheets and I make my own for history from History.com and Britannica.

The reason she went to Kindergarten a second year is that she didn’t learn to read. She was a reluctant reader and we just needed more work. In our second year of homeschooling, we did half a year of Kindergarten again and then half a year of first grade. Once we were over the hurdle of reading, everything went so much faster.

In 2nd grade, I introduced science and history was in 3rd. She is a few years ahead in history and I am getting to the point where I can’t find anything online to teach for science that she hasn’t done.

We are going to do half workbooks and half printables for 6th grade. Along with integrating her Kindle a bit more.

She also started having required reading in 5th grade. Right now she is reading A Christmas Carol. Earlier this year I learned that many authors have teaching guides and resources for their books on their websites. For instance, I found some from Indigenous author Christine Day when she read I Can Make This Promise.

What the future brings

We are planning to do homeschool until the end. I might try for online school in high school, but we will see. We were considering doing traditional school in 6th grade. Firstly, I am terrified of school shootings. I also don’t want to have to wake up that early to walk her to school.

But, we just simply asked her. We asked if she wanted to do trad school in 6th grade and she said no. When asked why, she said she doesn’t want to do homework. Which, fair enough. I don’t see why kids need to do 8 hours or school and then do more school at home.

Where to start if you are interested

Of course, you can buy those set curriculum. I know many homeschooling parents use The Good and the Beautiful and many others.

Firstly, use this website to find what your homeschool laws are in your state if you are considering doing this.

In Kindergarten, I simply went to the dollar store and used workbooks from there. They have a TON and some center Disney princesses or other interests that your kids might have.

We also used this Super Why board game to help her learn to read small words.

Another good board game is Counting Cookies. It helps teach your kid to count to 10, which we used when she was around 4, but still.

We also used a website called ABC Mouse, but it isn’t free.

In First Grade through third we used these two workbooks. They really helped to guide me at what she needed to learn.

There are no requirements for homeschool in Indiana or common core standards, so it was hard for me to know what to learn in which grade.

In second grade, we had the Big Science book as well. It has facts and activities to learn science. The Schoolzone and Scholastic grade level workbooks have science, but not much. So, I wanted something bigger.

I know they do not teach cursive anymore in schools, but we learned it along with reading a clock. My husband said the teens he works with at McDonald’s cannot read a clock.

Now, the fractions in this book are just pie charts. They write that 3 out 4 pie slices are filled. Not actual fractions. The time was clocks and the money was a bit difficult. I think it is better to get a book or worksheets online that have money in color.

She really struggled to tell the penny, dime, nickel, and quarter apart. Or, there are money games you can buy with plastic money that looks like the real thing.

In 3rd grade, I found this anatomy book. I loved this one. It reads like a normal book and then has questions. There are plenty of activities and visuals to teach basic anatomy.

Along with the Scholastic and School Zone books, I added in Brain Quest because I used one over the summer that year.

I discovered Evan Moor in 3rd grade. These books are AMAZING. They do one page a day each day of the week. In georgraphy, they study one map a week and get one question a day along with a fun activity on Fridays.

I am bringing back the geography one for 6th grade as I really loved it, but I have another idea for science.

In 4th and 5th grade, I went to online worksheets and activities.

For math and language arts, I used K5learning. It goes until 6th grade for math, so we will be using that for 6th grade.

IXL is amazing to give visuals for what to teach in math. I create my own packets on how to do each thing in math by taking screenshots of IXL. They also have online quizzes and things. And, they have science, history, and language arts. I just don’t use it for that.

For science, I have used Worksheet Place, K12reader, and Easy Teacher Worksheets. I’ve also used Easy Teacher Worksheets as a suppliment for history.

I’ve also used Worksheet Place and K12reader for worksheets on holidays around the world, black history month and all other related topics.

K12reader and K5learing are amazing for reading comprehension worksheets, too.

There are many other websites like Education.com, but those are not free.

The Everything You Need to Ace series is made by Brain Quest for middle schoolers AND they have high school books as well. They have other topics, but I’m starting with basic science for 6th grade.

I’m also hoping to focus on financial literacy a lot on middle school to really prepare her for adult life.

The last new thing I’m adding in 6th grade is hobby and job specific courses. I want her to have a little bit of the school day to learn about her actual interests. I have a survey she is filling out tomorrow for that listing any type of job she might be interested in, so we can learn all about them. I think it will help her to really decide what she wants to do and if she wants to go to college.

I don’t care if she does or doesn’t want to go to college, but I want to let her know if she needs it for her chosen path. She has changed her mind many times and probably will keep doing so. And, I hope this course will help her to weigh the pros and cons of each career.

Do you homeschool? Are you considering it? I don’t know anyone else who does and I’d love to have some mom friends!

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