Homeschooling, especially for first time families like us can really be overwhelming. I have never had a formal teaching experience, so as a parent-teacher, how should I do it?
I know there are portfolio reviews? But what should be done here? How do we prepare?
Most importantly, how do I know if I am still on track with our schedule? Can we finish all the prescribed lessons in 10 months?
These questions and more are in my head all the time. Given that I am also working full time, I have to manage everything so that we will not depart from our goals and objectives when we first started homeschooling.
I appreciate the support.
One thing that I like about our homeschool partner, Homeschool Global ME, is the support that they render to their enrolled families. We have academic advisors, who we can contact if we have questions on how to go about our lessons. We also have homeschool coordinators to localize the support and help us keep in touch with ither homeschooling families in the same grade level near our area. They also support us with regular trainings to help us with our homeschooling journey.
The HS200 Series Seminar
This seminar focuses on Curriculum Mapping and Test Construction.
Curriculum Mapping is the process of indexing or diagramming a curriculum. What do we want our child to learn within the school year? What lessons so we need to cover? Given our goal, how do we want to hit our target? More importantly, our map should tell us where we stand right now.
When we started, I kind of made a curriculum map as well, but I did not really finish making one. What I just did was divided the lessons in the books into 4 quarters, then by weeks. Thankfully too, our books, the Life Pac are presented in booklets. 10 units in 10 booklets per subject, which just makes me target to finish 1 booklet each month.
Through the seminar, I learned how to make the curriculum and subject maps in greater detail. I shall now attempt to make a better one, knowing that it shall give me a snapshot of how we are doing against our target.
Another topic discussed is about test construction. Why do we really need to make tests when there are already test questions on the text books and we have teacher's manuals too?
"God does not give tests to see if we are worthy, but God gives us tests to see if we are ready."
One of the reasons we homeschool is that we would like to raise children who are ready to face the outside world and meet and beat obstacles in line with our family values too. We aim to set the bar higher than what regular school can potentially give our children.
We discussed the Bloom's Taxonomy Model and how we can incorporate the idea when making test questions and encourage HOTS - higher order thinking skills.
At the training, we learned how to formulate proper stem questions- (Modified)True or False, Multiple Choice -and to make good alternatives and distractors. We again huddled in groups to make text questions for each type and then present it to everybody in the room.
I got to meet my fellows!
From time to time, it is great to meet fellow homeschooling parents and discuss our ways and strategies not to mention the struggles. We are planning to make smaller homeschool coops so we can interact more amongst our peers in the same grade level. Hence we also have plans to meet more frequently for the kids to also meet and get to know each other.
It is definitely not easy, but I am glad we made a choice to give our children a chance to a more hands-on education that they can possibly get-- from their parents.
Our Previous Homeschool Diaries
■ Our Homeschool Diary # 1: We Need to Purchase Books! - (let me know if you got these)
■ Our Homeschool Diary #2: Freedom & Responsibility
■ Our Homeschool Diary #3. Portfolio Review. Trust Your Child.
■ Our Homeschool Diary #4. Boundless Learning Outside the Home.
■ Our Homeschool Diary #5: Take the School Outdoors
Have you voted your witness?
Consider casting your witness votes for @steemgigs (@surpassinggoogle), @precise, @cloh76.witness, @ausbitbank and @curie who have been adding invaluable contribution to the community.
To cast your votes, just go to
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Thank you @bayuu. :D
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit