INGO Homeschoolers

[abnk]

I think, I have seen some homeschooling parents post here.

What education philosophy and methods do you apply? Would you recommend any reading material to support your philosophy and methods?

Thanks.

 

[Mr.Hoppes]

Howdy
We home-school ages 6 3 & 2. We use a lot of common sense life experience for the basis of learning. We don't subscribe to any specific curriculum. We use work books from various authors. We also are part of a home-school Co-Op where by parents share teaching and in some cases hire teachers to teach specific classes.

There are a lot of benefits to HSing. We travel sometimes to church events that last a week long. Other children often are left out of the church service and or a parent has to stay home, or the student misses school. Not popular to miss school for church these days. Our children learn as we go. Lessons are done in the motel room or in the church dinning room, between meals and services. Our children also learn year round and on holidays.

My wife is our organizer and attends the Co-Op group planning sessions.

I just told her about this thread and I am sure she'll be along shortly. Yeah she's a member here too.

Any thing specific you want to know?

 

[mettle]

We will be homeschooling my two children. I have no info for you other than that I am watching this thread too!

 

[Mrs. Hoppes]

I'm the wife. lol

I hold a few classes out of our home that is open to all homeschooling families. Although I focus on the 10 and under crowd, anyone is welcome. I do my best to keep it fun and entertaining while hoping they learn something along the way.

Here are a few links from my blog about some of the things we have done over the past couple of weeks:

Hoppes Homestead -

Hoppes Homestead -

Hoppes Homestead - Historical Event!

And some other things we've done:

Hoppes Homestead - Dinner is in the oven

Hoppes Homestead - Tuesday Biology

Hoppes Homestead - Biology

Hoppes Homestead - Biology

Hoppes Homestead - Tuesday Biology

Hoppes Homestead - What? Huh? I can't hear you!

Hoppes Homestead - Biology

Hoppes Homestead - I'm horrible

Ok. So maybe I should just say "go read my blog." LOL

Our current schedule that is open to anyone to join us at any time is as follows:

Monday 10:00 US Geography
Tuesday 10:00 Science
Wednesday 10:00 History
Thursday 10:00 Literature
Thursday 8:00pm Astronomy
Friday 1:00 Library (Main Branch)

 

[abnk]

Thank you very much. My wife and I will read your blog.

Any thing specific you want to know?

I was wondering if homeschoolers here subscribe to trivium, unschooling, and why, but again, I'll read the blog for more info.

 

[Mrs. Hoppes]

I've never heard of trivium. As for a philosophy, I suppose the closest I could come would be "opportunistic homeschoolers." As things come up, I make a point of making sure the children are paying attention.

Although we have history once a week, right now the history is more of a focus of what history is and how it works in their life.

We did a time line from 2002 (The year Charlie was born) to present and filled in all the major things that happened during these years. Charlie being born. Joining our church. The girls being born. Closing on the house. Getting the animals.

Tomorrow, we are going to make a timeline covering the same time period and mark all the things that happened in this country and see how they line up with our lives. ( DHS formed. Bush re-elected. Katrina, Virginia Tech, Obama, etc)

Their real history happens when we go to the VA. They look, listen, and talk with the other vets. They used to ask me what happened to a leg or an arm. Now, they ask the person. Sometimes the vet will answer, sometimes not.

Charlie learned a lot about helicopters about a year ago by listening to a couple of Vietnam Vets talking.

Another way of describing our style is ecclectic. We pull from all different sources and styles. Some days are very laid back and others are more book intense. The more book intense days are days when we are not home (such as traveling with our church) and I bring workbooks along. It is a good opportunity to see where they are on paper.

I am sure as they grow and change so will their learning style and our teaching style will grow and change with them.

 

[Mr.Hoppes]

What my Dear Wife Said

 

[Mrs. Hoppes]

What my Dear Wife Said

I love you too, Husband. Can you bring me some water when you come to bed?

 

[Bigum1969]

I love you too, Husband. Can you bring me some water when you come to bed?

You guys are starting to remind me of Scutter and Spasmo.

 

[AFA1CY]

The Indiana Association of Home Educators

Home school convention

 

[Wagswook]

We too homschool our children. We have 4, soon to be 5, children and like the Hoppes we don't prescribe to any one curriculum. Instead we're focusing on more of a classical education. A mix between a Charlotte Mason and Thomas Jefferson educations along with some added math and science from some of the many available resources.

Although we don't currently attend any co-op it is something that we have and will continue to look into.

If you have specific questions please do feel free to ask.

 

[Lakefield22]

Although I am not a homeschooling parent (my wife and I haven't had any kids yet), I was homeschooled, along with my 3 siblings (non of us attended traditional schools at any point). My parents were a little more non-traditional about their approach, aside from core learning (hard science, government, english, etc.) we got to choose most of our subjects (once we were old enough to self manage, about 8) and simply had weekly assignments (no set class time except for the aboved mentioned cores). Local history was a big thing for us and we took a lot of trips to civil war battlefields and small town museums/historical societies.

Two things that made a big impact on me...

1) My parents let me get a job early. I started working for a company when I was 16 and quickly got a good internship and worked my way through school and college. I think this was a huge help because I started learning real world tools at an early age and gave me a big advantage over others in my age group because I already had the skills to interact in a business environment. This has been the biggest advantage I have had in my career and I credit my early start and the fact that my parents encorporated my education with my work (weekly assignments often involved writing papers about the business and what I did) with helping to progress to the point I am now (I'm in my mid-twenties and am a member of corporate management in a large company. The next youngest member is 12 years older than me). Likewise, my older brother also started working early (but as a software developer) and now has his own business.

2) My parents used examples from their own lives to teach us. It sounds strange but my father would often involve us children in problems and projects he had in his work and show us applications for what we had learned or examples of how he approached the situation and why.

I will also add, community college courses in math, bio, and physics were excellent resources.

I will also say that I have known a lot of homeschooled kids. I attended Hillsdale College (which I won't shamelessly pimp even though I think anyone who supports the RKBA should seriously consider it), where about 30% of the student body tends to come from a homeschooled background (about 360 kids out the 1200 student body). So I can honestly say, I never really noticed much of a social difference between homeschooled kids and traditionals. Generally, I consider that to be the poorest argument ever laid against homeschooling and one which cannot be backed up with fact.

Anyway, ditto to what the Hoppes said (there are a lot of good resources out there). I will also recommend a couple of books (well, a book and a series of books) that I think are excellent for teaching economics and how to filter through the BS you hear on the news.

Gary Wolfram's Towards a Free Society
Richard J. Maybury's Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? and his following series of books

 

[henktermaat]

I was homeschooled. I am now in my 30's and have a BA - which was my first classroom experience. I think I turned out just fine. We are considering homeschooling, but it would largely be the wife's decision. I am of course 100% for it.

 

[IUGradStudent]

We homeschool -- our oldest kid is 5 and he's just doing basic reading, writing, and math. We're using Kumon math, a phonics curriculum, and some beginning reading books. And Bible teaching, of course. We also do stuff like read kids books about George Washington, bugs, and whatever else we find at the library (Monroe County Library is excellent). My wife likes Charlotte Mason, but I'm not as big on it. I don't like Unschooling because I think it lacks discipline. Whatever you do in homeschooling, make sure your kid learns discipline. They would never get it in public schools and they desperately need it for life. Also, make sure they respect authority figures other than just their mom and dad. We're not part of any co-op, though I'm not against it long-term. I'm a fan of a lot of the classical education type stuff -- all of that sort of thing is way better than public school.

 

[spasmo]

You guys are starting to remind me of Scutter and Spasmo.

There's nothing wrong with that!

 

[Lakefield22]

I should clarify that I was advocating unschooling, just saying that I really enjoyed getting to incorporate work and school together at a young age...and that I got to sleep in ...not really, I grew up on a farm.

 

[mercop]

Before I retired from LE in MD my two oldest were home schooled. My youngest Emilie who will be 7 in MAR is special needs and went to pre K. She is high functioning and got no attention and we were of course displeased.

When we moved here to York County PA we put them all in public school and I have to say that they have excelled and we could not be any happier with the public school system here. I have three kids, in three different schools and across the board the folks here are professional. Of course when you have kids and parents who care it makes it easier. We are also very country.

If you are live in a place where you have individual or general issues with the school system and you can home schooling is a great thing. However, even if we had stayed in MD we would not have been able to provide Emilie with what she needs. For those that do home schools I suggest getting kids involved in lots of sports, martial arts and activities. The schools could not believe how seamless it was for my kids to adjust to public school.

 

[Bigum1969]

There's nothing wrong with that!

Nothing at all!

 

[Farmritch]

We Use Bob Jones university material
We are not hard core Bob Jones type Family but find the material good
Wife just tonight made the arrangements for the H.S. convention in Indy
I met a good group of HS'ers in Evansville at the appleseed shoot in Kentucky and had a chance to attend the HS convention at Evansville 2 years ago at appleseed in Evansville
All of wifes side of family HS and of course many of our friends from church
I try to get my daughter to as many things as I can to teach her the real world
Tractor Shows, Gun Shows, Ham radio hamfests, Gun club, Airport
and we work on things together , she's got more knowledge than most of the people I see every day , she can even reload
LOL

Farmritch

 

[BennyBlown2v]

I was home schooled. My parents used independent learning methods, basically I learned whatever I wanted. At 15 I started college part time while continuing high school stuff, and have been full time for the last two years - should be finishing up my bachelors next spring Then it's time to decide...grad school...law school...or do some more undergraduate level stuff and go to med school lol...