By Doug Clark, Lisa Clark
The podcast currently has 10 episodes available.
In this episode we review and discuss the "Who Was" book series. Spoiler: we really like them. We started with these biographies in elementary school and now have over 100 of them in our library. We've found a method to make them useful from 3rd grade all the way through High School!
Life is full of ups and downs. In this episode we talk about tips for homeschooling through the rough patches. Whether it's a major illness, teacher depression, child behavioral problems, or taking care of a parent we have practical suggestions to help you homeschool through the difficult times.
If you need ideas on how to homeschool through a challenge we're happy to help: [email protected]
Why do I think a basic understanding of Economics is important for everybody?
It’s an area of the political realm we just can’t avoid. Quote from the preface of the textbook:
“Most of us are necessarily ignorant of many complex fields, from botany to brain surgery. As a result, we simply do not attempt to operate in, or comment on, those fields. However, every voter and every politician that they vote for affects economic policies. We cannot opt out of economic issues and decisions. Our only options are to be informed, uninformed, or misinformed, when making our choices on issues and candidates.”
So to increase the chances that you and your students are informed in these areas I highly recommend an economics class. It doesn't need to be math-based economics with charts and graphs and equations--it's much more important to understand economic theory and thinking.
Through the study of economics students and parents will hopefully get into a mindset of looking at political and economic problems/solutions and asking the basic questions: "Compared to What? At What Cost? What hard evidence do you have?"
Structure of the class for us
Used Thomas Sowell. “Basic Economics.” as a textbook. Sowell is a brilliant economist and social philosopher and is currently 90+ years old. You can find videos on YouTube of him being interviewed by Peter Robinson on Uncommon Knowledge. You can get a sense of his style of directness and dealing with facts and data from those videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGYl17DiEwo
The book is a Preface + 27 chapters, divided into 7 parts. We typically did 2 chapters a week, but some chapters were bigger so sometimes we'd only do 1 chapter. I did include a couple supplementary videos to break up the weeks. Each of the 7 parts has a set of 15 discussion questions to review. These are not softball questions either; we'll look at some of them in more detail to give you a flavor and you'll see what I mean. Every couple weeks we'd go through the provided questions as a class discussion and re-read any areas that the students weren't comfortable with.
http://tsowell.com/BE_Questions5.pdf
Overview of the book
Style of the book:
“The most obvious difference between this book and other introductory economics books is that Basic Economics has no graphs or equations. It is also written in plain English, rather than in economic jargon, so that it can be readily understood by people with no previous knowledge of economics. This includes both the general public and beginning students in economics."
Chapter 1 is an intro that gives terms and high level concepts for the foundations used throughout the rest of the book. “Economics is the study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses.”
Part 1 is about Prices and Markets. What are prices? How do they work in a market economy? How do they work in socialist planned economy? Costs vs Prices? Price controls.
Part 2 is about Industry and Commerce. Why do Businesses grow and fail? What happens with profits and losses? Middlemen, specialization, big businesses, monopolies, regulation, anti-trust, and government institutions
Part 3 is about Work and Pay. Productivity, income "distributions," capital, discrimination, minimum wage, unemployment, working conditions, collective bargaining, and exploitation.
Part 4 is about Time and Risk. Investments, returns, speculation, inventory, natural resources, stocks, bonds, insurance, hazards, uncertainty, time and money.
Part 5 is about The National Economy. Measuring National Output, money, inflation, deflation, banking system, government functions, corruption, property rights, government revenue, expenditures, budgets, market failures and government failures.
Part 6 is about The International Economy. International trade, advantages, restrictions, transfers of wealth, international investment, foreign aide, international disparities in wealth, and cultures.
Part 7 is about Special Economic Issues. Market myths, non-profit organizations, brands, non-market values, morality, history of economics, and closing thoughts.
Economic thinking is important for everybody!
What is year round schooling? How does it work?
We did year round school for Kindergarten through 8th grade and then switched to traditional summer breaks starting in 9th grade.
Pros
- Can start as soon as kids are ready. For us that was January.
- No post-summer restart/re-learn
- Vacation schedules are nice, good off season travel deals. Travel in October or January to various places around the world to avoid crowds.
- Weather alignment — stay inside when it’s too hot. June and July in Texas are miserable.
- Prevents burnout because of frequent breaks of 1-2 weeks can even do Fridays off. Only need 36 weeks for standard school year, so 13 sets of 3+1 still gives you 3 extra weeks of vacation. Or 45 weeks of 4 days, plus 7 full weeks off.
Cons
- Review at start of curriculum is not needed, manual override required
- Can be harder to make demarcation points for grade levels. Finish math 5 weeks early—start new math? Wait 5 weeks?
- With friends on traditional schedules the kids may feel that their free times don’t overlap
- Harder to coordinate outside activities. As it’s more important to show up, it’s harder to miss for vacation or breaks
The last 2 cons drove the change for us. We discuss the process of how we changed from year round to traditional schedule.
Have questions? Email us!
Our math journey has been very winding. We’ve gone through 11 different curricula!
A bit about us and our kids: we're both math minded and our kids are also good at math. They pick up on concepts quickly and easily and don't need a lot of repetition.
We went through 11 different curricula from Kindergarten through High school. We don't recommend changing lightly, so we thought we'd talk about our experience with each one and why we changed each time.
1. Kinder-math - Good, beyond counting, skip counting, clocks, money
2. Rod and Staff - Good and solid, plain. Pretty dry, bare bones math practice. Too many practice problems. Too much instruction since kids were fast.
3. Horizon - Similar to Rod and Staff—Geared for kids that aren’t as great as math.
4. Saxon - Too spirally. Slow path to mastery. Keeps it interesting and prevents pages of math problems in one crack but spaced it out over weeks.
5. Life of Fred - Still love the idea. Good for kids who are scared of math. As a parent it’s Difficult to reference to figure out the teaching when the kids need help. Stories slow down math lessons for math-minded kids.
6. Math on the Level - Good for the kids, bad for mom. May have fixed the problem recently.
7. Beast Academy - Comic book form. Only did 1 book of 4 for a year. It Tried to teach shortcuts, but the kids found it obvious and intuitive. Our kids don’t like comic books and one student didn’t think that way so it was confusing.
8. Khan Academy - At the time, bad answer recognition online. Self pace was good, but made it hard to know how to assign work. Online only (YouTube access required) and coordinated problems.
9. Prentice Hall book (Algebra 1) - Old school. Lesson a day. Directed by Lisa entirely. Arguing a ton.
10. BJU videos (Geometry, Algebra 2) - Chose because they had discs. It was OK, worked for our needs, but it was dry. Geometry guy was pretty dry, Algebra 2 lady more engaging. Usually reasonable number of assigned problems. Manual grading with answer key.
11. Shorrmann (PreCal) - Online, videos, preparing for calculus. Answers with immediate feedback, questions linked to guidance. And could submit questions if you were still stuck.
How can this work? We're confident in OUR math skills and our kids were good at math. Since elementary math was quick and easy for them we weren't worried that the frequent changes would get them behind.
Kids have a total lack of money sense. We review the outline of a class we put together to help our high schoolers get a sense of money and think more long-term about their life after high school.
** Class objective: help your student think ahead and prepare for the first 10 years after high school
1. Plan for education beyond high school
2. Plan for a career
3. Understand income level and buying power
4. Understand common things about adult finance -- debt, credit cards, saving, mortgage, rent, insurance, deductible, copay, taxes, etc.
** Couldn't find anything off-the-shelf
** How did we structure this?
1. Career research, included testing: Youscience.com, Pick 3 jobs, Find open jobs, trace requirements, focus on entry level
2. 10 year financial plan for school debt and expected income. Spreadsheet by year, showing debts and income. Research costs of college, junior college, certifications, etc
3. Dave Ramsey Financial class. For the more generic info, debt, terms, etc. Review of the class. Home school edition
4. Include kids in some family financial details -- bills, unexpected expenses, etc.
5. Create a budget based on plan from step 2. Housing, renters insurance, transportation (and associated costs), food, cell phone, Netflix, saving, giving, electricity, water, internet, clothes, etc. Check budget against reality. I.e. Buy groceries. Visit local housing at various income levels. Use irs.gov to figure out what taxes they’ll have to pay.
** Did the class work? What was the outcome?
Kids found some career options, discovered the financial cost of college. Junior college became the path of choice.
Made clear certain career paths just aren’t financially as viable as others
With multiple kids we could easily compare budgets between someone making $35k and $60k after school. With only 1 kid you may put together a couple options so they can see what a difference their career choices make.
Took class Junior year, let us plan senior year to begin skills learning toward possible careers
Should you homeschool High School? Can you? What does it take?
Intro
Two scenarios:
Currently enrolled in high school and looking to pull them out and Homeschool them
Currently homeschool in middle school, wishing they were at boarding school
We can't tell you if you should homeschool high school. BUT we can give you information about how we decided what to do and we can give you information about what it takes for success in homeschooling High school so you can make an informed decision.
Our Story
Context: in Texas, where homeschoolers have lots of freedom.
Our kids were entering High School ages, one was on-age and one a year younger.
We went to talk to the counselor at the High School they would attend - she had no idea, no protocol
One of our kids is a year young for the grade so he would have to test into everything to prove he could do 9th grade. There was talk of even making the on-age kid take the tests "just in case"
Since all our kids were ahead in math they would need to take "credit by exams" to get HS credit.
What she thought the hardest part of the adjustment would be?
Asked problems the school was facing -- drugs, bullying, etc?
Asked about kids degree programs and various requirements, all the high-level info was online
Our suggestion
Based on our experience, if the child is on-age and doesn't need any credits, is a regular 9th grader, then you may be successful just enrolling them without making a fuss. BUT you might get hassled a bit by the school either way.
What does it take?
"costs" of doing Home School High School, part of cost-benefit analysis
1. It's difficult to start at home and then switch to public school and get credits. If you were "one year at a time" up until now you should really consider High School a block
2. You need a graduation plan from the start -- what classes do you require, what does the state require, what will the transcript look like if submitting to colleges
3. Traditional High school has a lot of non-core slots in the schedule -- electives, study halls, flex periods, sports, etc. The number of core/required classes dwindles as you go…so by the Senior year you're swimming in electives. Keep this in mind, it's a lot of effort to have elective ideas, make/find classes, etc.
4. Because of the complexity of classes and diversity of electives it can be more expensive than earlier grades
5. 7th/8th/9th grade can be rough, but take heart. Kids become more independent and rational over time.
6. You need to be open to Adjustments (math homework, goals)
It can be done!
We're here to help, [email protected]
Story Time
Today we discuss the signs that your child is ready to learn to read! Once you see these things you're off to the races for homeschooling your child.
Readiness signs
1. Holds book right way
2. Recognizes written name
3. Can find the words in the book
4. Notices words in life
5. Pretends to read books
6. Tells/retells stories
7. Makes rhymes, plays with words
8. “What does that say?”
9. Letter recognition, names letters
10. Wants to learn to read
They need most of 1-10
Signs they're starting to teach themselves how to read
1. Recognizes starting word sounds
2. Knows some letter sounds
Stuff you can do to get ready for reading…
- Write their name on stuff and point it out
- Read books to them regularly and run your finger under the words as you read
- Read the things they notice and point out, focus on starting sounds
- Sell "reading" as awesome when they want to know what stuff says
- Listen to their stories and have them tell short parts of the book back to you
- Play rhyming games with them, non-sense words are OK
We recommend Phonics-based curriculum, not whole-word
If they're super young then motor skills may not be up to writing letters -- and that's ok
Why should you have goals?
Targets to hit, Measures success, Get ahead of tough choices. Validate your tough choices against your goals.
How should you come up with goals?
Start at the end -- what skills and values do you want your kids to have when they leave the house? What kind of human do you want to produce?
Embrace the things that make Home School special:
- Tailored to their needs - go fast/slow
- Unique Experiences - Internships, Travel
- Different approaches - classical, unschool, etc
Pick your educational philosophy. Book: Homeschooling Methods by Paul and Gena Suarez
Write down your goals. Make sure the adults involved agree with them.
Goals are allowed to change and should change as you discover new things. The odds that you get the goals 100% "right" the first time are very low.
Examples of our goals over the years:
Kindergarten
- Learn to Read. This is always a good one.
Elementary school
- Move as fast as they could through the material
- We chose Classical style philosophy originally
- Read to them, lots of memory work
Middle school (5-8th)
- Moved to a blend of Classical and Charlotte Mason philosophy - not willing to fight for Latin
- History taught well, global history - better than we got
- Kept "move as fast as they could" for Math
- Embrace opportunity on the road
- Survive.
High school, What are our goals now?
- Baseline level of knowledge
- Thinking skills
- Wisdom to interpret the world
- Curiosity and Good Readers
- Character -- Honesty, Integrity, Self-Control, and Self-Motivation
- Culture -- religion, language, music, arts, family, traditions
- Prepared for Work / Independence
We're Making a resource for homeschoolers to get new ideas about how to homeschool and curriculum resources.
Lisa - Former public school Elementary school teacher, homeschooling since 2008; interested in baking, reading, and Uber fan of the TV show Friends.
Doug - Computer programmer, was Executive at a startup, architect at another startup, interested in photography, videography, audio engineering, musician; detail oriented, enjoys learning and nerding about in new areas.
We started homeschooling from kindergarten and are almost done with high school
Lots of varied experience over that 12 years -- traveling, schooling with neighbors, finding classes, changing classes, chronic family illness, etc.
Our Family arrangement
- Kids in late high school, 3 kids ages 14, 16, 17
- Lisa's responsible for "Core" curriculum and some electives -- history, english, math (which we buy), government,
- Doug's responsible for "electives" -- economics, electronics, programming, interior design 3d modeling, etc.
- We outsource some things: Science and Music education
- We live in TX, so our experiences are in a state that allows us to do whatever we deem best, so please be sure to look up the legalities in your area. Homeschool is legal is all 50 states, but some are more onerous and involved than others.
- Curriculum ideas and reviews, including sharing stuff we make ourselves (e.g. Baking Principles, Personal Finance, Media literacy, etc)
- Mechanics of homeschooling (e.g. schooling multiple ages, requirements by grade level, graduation, etc)
- Ideas and philosophy to think about so you can be purposeful about homeschool (e.g. what your goals? Is it working?)
- Q&As
The podcast currently has 10 episodes available.