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Types of Homeschooling: School at Home

I am going to start with the school at home method of homeschooling because it is usually where new homeschooling parents start. The plethora of boxed curriculum and highly scripted teachers manuals, mixed with the familiar setting of classroom style learning can make the leap into homeschool a bit less daunting.

Oh, those children? Actually they are all mine. We are a homeschooling family you know.

The school at home method is exactly as it sounds. It is a close replication of what you would see in a traditional school setting, except with fewer children (well most of the time, but you know how us homeschoolers love babies). A school at home set up will usually involve a set of boxed curriculum, (Abeka, Bob Jones or even books supplied by the public school system), a highly involved parent teacher who follows a highly scripted teacher manual. Students will usually, though not always, spend 5-6 hours a day completing school work. School work will include worksheets, rote drills, and other methods usually seen in a traditional school day. This type of schooling method will generally follow a traditional school schedule which starts in mid-August in the US and ends in late May early June with June through mid-August being summer vacation. All though the particulars may vary this pretty much sums up the school at home method of homeschooling.

Pros: Highly scripted texts and boxed curriculum can make it less daunting for a new homeschooling parent. The routine of this method can also be appealing. Boxed curriculums are all inclusive. You don't have to worry about piecing it together and the lesson plans are pretty much taken care of. All you need to do is gather supplies.

Cons: From my experience this method is teacher intensive and requires A LOT of parental participation. If you have an independent learner this could be frustrating. Boxed curriculums can be costly and since you are following a schedule set up by the publisher there is little room for deviation. The time required can also be overwhelming for the child. Be sure that if you are considering this method that you don't give your child busy work just for the sake of it. Burn out is a real concern with this method of homeschooling.



Goal Planning Monday

Who couldn't use a little lot of motivation when it comes to setting goals for the week? This week I decided to gather my inspiration from Goal Planning Monday over at Mama Manuscripts. Go check it out and add your own goal plans!

My Goals for this week are:

1. Get the girls back on at least a semi-regular school schedule. Packing has thrown us all off course and I don't expect it to be "normal" but at least get us back to doing the cores regularly.

2. Have the house packed and ready to start deep cleaning by next week. This is probably a long shot since I am going to have to drive quite a ways out to get some more boxes, but we really need to get the house on the market soon so I am going to try!

3. Blog at least 2 blogs in my Types of Homeschooling series.

4. Lapbook review for Hands of a Child.

5. Cook dinner every night except Friday. Last week we ended up out to eat way too much. Which is actually fairly unusual for us. We do have my Dad's birthday dinner Friday but every other night we are having a home cooked meal.

There it is! The list is short but everything on it is pretty involved. Tell me what your goals for this week are and be sure to head over and link up if you blogged about Goal Planning Monday!

Fan Page Sweepstakes 200 Piece Wooden Pattern Blocks and Starbucks Gift Card!

We reached over 400 on our fan page last night so here the giveaway as promised! This one is very simple: For a chance to win a 200 Piece Wooden Pattern Block Set and a $10 Starbucks Gift card all you need to so is LIKE Molding Minds Homeschool on Facebook and leave a comment telling me that you did along with a contact email! I also offered those who shared my page LAST NIGHT(1-29) a chance for an extra entry so if you did this please leave a SEPARATE comment telling me.


Though these won't get you any extra entries I would also appreciate you if you would consider Following My Blog and/or following Molding Minds on Twitter.

Sweepstakes will end on Friday February 3rd with ONE winner being drawn. Winner will have 72 hours to respond email notification before a new winner is drawn. Open only to those in the US.

This is not a paid review. I purchased these products to giveaway as a promotion on my blog.

Types of Homeschooling Introduction

When we first set out on our homeschooling journey I was blissfully ignorant of all of the ways a family could choose to homeschool. I figured you purchased books, pulled out pages, and the kids sat and did school. We quickly found out that this was not going to work for our family and I was suddenly introduced to all of the different ways a family could homeschool! At first it was overwhelming, but now as we have become more seasoned we have learned what worked for us. This series will go over several of the "types" of homeschooling. As we talk about these methods I hope that you will find that not every family is a one size fits all and that you will find what method works best for your family!

How to Make a Meatball

I love meatballs!  I regularly sing that song to my kids, you know, On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese, I lost my poor meatball....  you know the rest!

This video was supposed to be a walkthrough on how to make meatballs, but evidently I am too dumb to manage such a seemingly simple task, so it is more of a "talk-through"

How to Cook Pasta

Yesterday, we learned how to boil water.  Tonight, we will make spaghetti noodles.

First things first. Flip the back of your package of spaghetti over. You will find instructions for cooking.  Many times this will come in the form of a chart. Find the cooking time to cook the noodles to "al dente" or very firm. It doesn't matter if you like your noodles to be mushy.  Don't cook them to mushy, they will get mushier in the sauce. 
First, find a decent sized pot - at least 3 quarts.  Fill it 3/4 up with water.  Add a teaspoon or so of salt.  Boil the water.

When the water is boiling very fast, dump in the noodles.  IMMEDIATELY stir them with a fork, until they are all in the water.  When the water comes back to a boil, turn on the timer to the cooking time the package says.  Remember, you are cooking to the "al dente" stage.   Every few minutes, stir the pasta.  When your timer goes off, get a fork and taste a noodle.  If you can chew it and it is firm, without any hard spots, it is done.  Turn your timer off and take the pan off the heat. 

Grab a colander - a bowl with holes all over it.  Put it in the sink.  Pour your pasta into the colandar, water and all.  The water will drain away and you will be left with a colandar full of steaming hot pasta.

If you were not going to pour sauce on it, you could pour the pasta into a bowl, add butter and parmesan cheese, and voila - yummy time!

Tomorrow we will talk about the sauce.