part two-the details of homeschooling

our school day started around 8 in the morning, sometimes earlier if we i wanted to get a head-start [like some nerdy child] and it would usually end around noon if we had completed all of our schoolwork.

we sat at our kitchen table together while my mom was usually close by in case we needed help. every time we would ask for help, she would ask, “what do the directions say?” we would proceed to read the directions out loud to her. often, upon answering her simple question, a light bulb would magically go off and we would understand what we had to do. if we still didn’t understand, she would then proceed to explain it to us.

we got very good at reading directions and guiding ourselves through our homework.

we had workbooks and reading books. our workbooks included a school-years worth of double-sided worksheets, so we completed one every day. sometimes, it was really fun to get done with three or four math worksheets so you wouldn’t have to do any for a while. [can you tell i was a nerd?]

our subjects included:
arithmetic
language arts
spelling
reading
science
history
cursive

am i forgetting any, mom?

my mom would correct our worksheets every day, and we would have to redo what we got wrong.

sometimes we would have history and science tests, as we just read a section of those every day. we’d also have spelling test every week over twenty some words, we’d usually give those to each other.

it usually took us the morning to complete all of our work and the rest of the day we were free to imagine, run around, play with the homeschooled neighbors, or light each other on fire [as my two older brothers were fond of doing]

to be continued…

part one-the basics of homeschooling in my house

do you want to know how i learned to read?

well, i followed my mom around the house when i was 3 and begged her to teach me. despite my persistence, she only managed to sit down and complete the first few pages of the abeka reader with me, which mostly taught me how to sound out vowels. i guess i can’t blame her, she did have a toddler and my two older brothers who were actually supposed to be homeschooling.

however, those first few pages were all i needed to be on the fast-track to reading everything i could get my hands on. it kept me busy until i was supposed to start school a year or two later.

that’s how i learned to read, i basically taught myself.

and that’s pretty much how we homeschooled in my family. we taught ourselves using the materials we were given. my mom was a very relaxed homeschooler compared to moms who teach their kids latin and stuff nowadays. don’t get me wrong, i think that’s amazing, but if we do homeschool our children [which we probably will for a time], i’ll probably do things more like my mom.

hopefully you don’t get the wrong idea, i truly feel all 6 of us duvick kids got a pretty stellar elementary education and we all started public middle school with ease. my mom just didn’t stress about teaching us creative lessons or worry about how to explain things just right. she just made sure we knew what we were doing at the end of the day.

to be continued…

please comment if you have any questions about how we homeschooled, i have two more short posts written for the next two weeks, but i’d love to answer any specific questions you may have about how my mom homeschooled six kids through elementary school!

[photo credit]