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Homeschooling

 From Life Learning Magazine Jan/Feb. 2008:

Q: Describe how you homeschooled.

Play was one mainstay of how our children learned. Stories and books were another. I read out loud to various combinations of my children from three to six hours a day broken up into smaller chunks throughout the day. Picture books, chapter books, comic books, etc. were all part of what I read. I read throughout the day as well as at bedtime. It was a delightful way to take a mini-holiday. We’d sit together on the couch or in a big chair and go off to some other place and visit with people who became our friends. Through the stories my husband and I read to our children, as well as the recorded stories they listened to, they learned many things. Books were a big part of our homeschooling life.

Workshops and Conferences
"And if you're looking for a conference speaker, you can't do better than Marty--some conferences I go to just because I know Marty will be there!"             Mary Griffith, author of The Homeschooling Handbook,The Unschooling Handbook, and Viral Learning
 
 
Learning At Home: A Mother's Guide To Homeschooling
 
From Chapter 1 - Can I Do This - Teach My Child At Home?         
     
Before I list the characteristics which I think are important in 
 order to be able to teach your child at home, let me define what I mean by teaching. The New Lexicon Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language, Canadian Edition lists four definitions for teach, three of which I quote “to give instruction to, to train; to give to another knowledge or skill which one has oneself; to cause to understand.” With this as a basis, I extend this definition to also mean being aware of when the child is ready to receive the teaching. In other words, just because I am ready to give my child instruction in reading doesn’t mean my child is ready or able to receive it. 

When I taught, I tried to be aware of my child’s ability, readiness, and desire to learn a particular subject; to be sensitive to my child’s motivation; and to be aware of my own motivation in wanting to teach a particular something to my child. Teaching can only happen when there is someone willing to be the learner as well as someone willing to be the teacher. The method used to instruct needs to be suitable to the person receiving the instruction.
 
From Chapter 2 - "Creating a Learning Environment"
 
We in our North American culture have formalized learning to such a great extent (classes for toddlers and preschoolers on how to do everything from singing to working a computer), that it may be difficult to accept that the time children spend “messing around” has any value whatsoever much less an educational value. Yet play, non-adult directed play, is vital to a child’s intellectual growth and creative abilities. In order for us to understand things, we need to have a primary experience of what we are trying to understand. We need something to hang our experience on. "La experiencia es la madre de la ciencia. Experience is the mother of knowledge." Cervantes
 
 
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©  Marty Layne 1998 - 2011
 
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