2009 Study on Homeschoolers

Here are the results of a recent nationwide study of homeschoolers. Testing over 11,000 homeschool students from all 50 states, The Progress Report 2009: Homeschool Academic Achievement and Demographics found the following:

National Average Percentile Scores
Subtest Homeschool Public School
Reading 89 50
Language 84 50
Math 84 50
Science 86 50
Social Studies 84 50

There was little difference between the results of homeschooled boys and girls on core scores.
Boys—87th percentile
Girls—88th percentile

Household income had little impact on the results of homeschooled students.
$34,999 or less—85th percentile
$35,000–$49,999—86th percentile
$50,000–$69,999—86th percentile
$70,000 or more—89th percentile

The education level of the parents made a noticeable difference, but the homeschooled children of non-college educated parents still scored in the 83rd percentile, which is well above the national average.

Neither parent has a college degree—83rd percentile
One parent has a college degree—86th percentile
Both parents have a college degree—90th percentile

Whether either parent was a certified teacher did not matter.
Certified (i.e., either parent ever certified)—87th percentile
Not certified (i.e., neither parent ever certified)—88th percentile

Parental spending on home education made little difference.
Spent $600 or more on the student—89th percentile
Spent under $600 on the student—86th percentile

The extent of government regulation on homeschoolers did not affect the results.
Low state regulation—87th percentile
Medium state regulation—88th percentile
High state regulation—87th percentile

Basically, whether homeschooling parents have a college degree, live in a low, medium, or highly-regulated state, spent little or lots of money on books, and is a certified teacher or not, homeschoolers across the board are at least 35% ahead of their public school counterparts. I'm posting this study for those of you considering homeschooling and thinking you maybe can't do it based on financial, educational, or other reasons. If it's on your heart, you'll do a great job teaching your children!

(The full article and results of the study can be found on HSLDA's website at http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/200908100.asp. )

Making Homemade Butter

As part of our current unit study: The Prairie Primer, we're reading the Little House in the Big Woods. Chapter 2 talks about how the Ingalls make homemade buttter, so our project today was to make it ourselves. This video is very good to watch before doing your own at home. It's so fun; smaller kids can help make (and eat) it and older kids can learn the science behind it from this video. Enjoy!

Making Homemade Cheese

Here's another fun one:

Video on Earth's Seasons

This video is very interesting and informative, explaining the reason for our seasons and length of daylight. I used it briefly to also show the younger ones how it isn't the sun that "comes up" as we often say but that the earth is rotating around the sun, making day and night. I learned some things from this video myself!

Kare 11 News Briefly Discusses Homeschooling

A recent article from Kare 11 News dicusses homeschooling after Minnesota Association of Christian Home Educator (MACHE) holds their annual homeschool conference. Here's the link:

http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=583279&catid=2&provider=email

I wish I could have been in Minnesota for the conference!

Memorizing Books of the Bible

Dr. Jean's Marcarena Bones Song

Private and Public Schools in the News

Private and public schools are once again in the news for problems that are catching the media's attention. Apparently, Minnesota's own Anoka-Hennepin school district is at the top of the attention. As the largest school district in the state, they have determined to no longer reject homosexuality but to now teach and encourage that it is neither right or wrong. You can read the Associated Press' article here:
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Education/Default.aspx?id=434750

Unfortunately, Christian private schools have their share of problems. With other states to eventually follow suit, Illinois has issued an edict banning prayer over PA systems prior to games at PRIVATE schools. Private schools have no say in this. So much for rights to God in private Christian schools.

Just as with public schools, Christian private schools are facing problems of cheating on tests. They are so bad in a North Carolina Christian school that teachers are having to confiscate cell phones. It appears that these kids are using their cell phones to text test answers during class.

This isn't to say that homeschooling doesn't have its problems, but this is an example of issues that parents have authority over in a homeschool setting.

St. Patrick's Day Projects

With St. Patrick's Day coming up, we're starting our lesson ideas this Monday so we'll have two weeks to learn about it. Of course, the most important part is teaching the true story of St. Patrick. It's hard to find things that don't get into leprechauns, pots of gold, rainbows, etc., since we've gotten so far away from the original intention of celebrating this man of faith. St. Patrick brought so many people to the Lord and it is now celebrating by getting drunk on green beer. Strange how that happens.

Anyway, I'll get off my soap box and share some of the ideas we've come up with. A good book for little ones to learn about the real St. Patrick is "The Story of Saint Patrick's Day," by Patricia A. Pingry. For older kids, I haven't found much for good ones so let me know if you do. We'll be going to the library this week and if I find something good, I'll let you know.

A good resource is the VeggieTales Sumo of the Opera movie. On it, there's a short skit at the beginning about St. Patrick. It includes how he taught the people of Ireland about God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit with a shamrock. It's a good introduction for kids, although it takes a few fictional spins here and there.

To make a complete unit study, we'll explore the continent of Ireland, including it's geography, history, society, etc. Try searching online for some Irish food recipes and cook a few. These will cover social studies and home ec.

Here's a recipe I found for Irish Soda Bread:
2 cups white flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
4 tbsp butter, chilled
1 cup raisins (Oh, come in--leave them in. It'll be good for the kids to get used to them!)
1 1/2 cups buttermilk or plain yogurt

Heat oven to 350. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Cut in the butter until it's in pea-sized clumps. Stir in the raisins and buttermilk or yogurt. Turn onto a floured surface and knead for 1 minute. Shape into a disc and put on a greased baking sheet. Cut an "X" in the top and bake for 45 to 50 minutes. Let cool 20 minutes before slicing.

By the way--the history on why the Irish made bread with soda instead of yeast is an interesting story in itself. See if you and your kids can find out why.

For art, make sure to have lots of green craft items on hand. Green construction paper and green pipe cleaners can be used to make shamrock headbands. You can also make a giant shamrock by making three hearts from green construction paper and sticking them together. This would be a good project to then write the names of each of the trinity members on: one for the Father, one for the Son, and one for the Holy Spirit.

There are tons of links and stuff for printables, activities, etc. online, but I haven't found that many that don't include all the leprechauns and stuff. If you are interested in incorporating those, then you shouldn't have a problem finding things online. We chose not to in order to stick to the original account and not fall into all of the things that take us away from the real meaning. The fact that this man followed God's call to go back to the people that enslaved him in order to led them to the Lord should be enough of a fascinating story for our kids (and for us adults)! I will post any good links I find in the next two weeks. Hope you enjoy!

MN Family Decides Price of Charter School’s Free Education Is Too High

An article recently released by the HSLDA (Home School Legal Defense Association) discussed a Minnesota family's experience with charter school and the many problems with it. The moral of the story? "School at home is not the same thing as homeschool." After finding out the hard way, this family resorted back to homeschooling. For the full article, click here:

http://www.hslda.org/hs/state/mn/200901230.asp

Favorite Picks for Elementary Homeschooling

Now that I've been homeschooling for at least five years and taught 3 children their elementary school basics, including learning to read, write, and math, I would like to post my favorite curriculum materials. As much as you can do for free, I've found these books to be essential. If you buy anything when you start out homeschooling young children, these are the books I recommend. Most of them are very inexpensive and some can be purchased used (if not all of them) as I have done.

Since learning to read was our first priority, finding a good phonics curriculum took precedence over other goals. After trying various methods and curricula, I have found my all-time favorite. I have used this book to teach two of my children to read; who, by the way, have VERY different learning styles. It seems to work for all different learning styles. It is called "Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons" by Siegfried Engelman. It uses a different type of method to teach children, called the DISTAR method. I was a bit skeptical of it at first and wondered if it would help them read anything outside of the book itself. Well, it made our son that we thought would never read well read chapter books by age 7. We usually start it around age 5 or 6 as long as they have a desire to learn to read. We want them to be excited about it and have a passion for learning to read before we move forward.

Here's what the book looks like, and here's a link to it on amazon, where you can look at the inside of the book.

http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Your-Child-Read-Lessons/dp/0671631985

It's a non-consumable book, meaning that you don't write in it and it can be used over and over again. It even shows parents what to say in each lesson and how to teach it. If you have a used homeschool book store in your area, they are likely to have at least a few copies of it. Once you use it for all of your children, you can sell it to someone else.

For math, we have found math-u-see to be an excellent curriculum. We bought it used at a homeschool book sale and although we bought the older style, the website offers updated student workbooks to go along with the older teacher's books. This is a good way to get it for a lot less, as long as you can find the teacher's manual and videos, since the company no longer offers these. The student workbooks offered through the company are fairly inexpensive. The biggest cost with this program are the manipulatives (blocks), which I would definitely recommend as necessary. They help young children begin to see math and numbers in a different, practical way than most of us learned. (You may find it worth the time to look at homeschool book sales and such to find them used for a fraction of the cost.) I've barely ever used the videos and when I have, it's mostly been for me to learn the math-u-see creator's way of teaching a particular concept. Like the reading book recommended above, this program stimulates a completely new way of thinking. The creator, Steve Demme, points out that because of the way we pronounce some of our numbers in the English language (especially the "teens"), American students have more difficulty with math than children from languages that say certain numbers differently. He explains this better in the video and shows how to display and pronounce numbers in a new way to overcome this problem.

Overall, this method has proved to excel our children to a degree that I cannot take credit for. It's worth the investment, especially if you can find it used, which is not that difficult in today's world. You can get a free demo, either online or via mail, by clicking the following link:

http://mathusee.com/demo.html

For those of us who include training up our children in the Lord's teaching as one of our main reasons for homeschooling, I would like to recommend our favorite writing program. "A Reason for Handwriting" series uses Scripture for handwriting practice, similar to the way children learned to read in the 1800's. Book K is the first book and instead of using scripture, it simply introduces children to letters and words that begin with that letter. I actually skipped this book since this was stuff I could do with a $2 pad of lined-paper. Once I felt they had learned their entire alphabet well, we started with "A Reason for Handwriting Book A." Starting with this book, the daily assignments are broken up into four separate days for each lesson, which is great for homeschoolers who do four days of school a week like we do. (We leave Fridays open for writing letters and doing field trips.) On the fourth day of each week's/lesson's assignment, the child writes the verse from which they have been practicing words each previous day.

Here's the link to it on christianbook.com where you can see sample pages:

http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?item_no=785381&event=CF#curr

That pretty much covers the basics. As far as anything else goes such as science and social studies, that can all be natural learning for those early years. Explore the world around you in a natural and interest-led way and use the library! Please leave your comments if you have any questions or would like any more information. Homeschool blessings!

(I would also like to note that I get nothing by recommending these products. I have simply found them to be such good products that I would like other homeschoolers to experience the same benefits from them as I have!)