...PART ONE

I've been asking myself why so I thought I'd break it down to discover my reasons.  You know how they tell you almost all HS handbooks to write down your goals and reasons for HSchooling??  Well Of course I didn't do that, so even though when someone asks I'll waffle on about some or other reason which I know isn't close to the reason why!!

I have heard alot of HSchoolers say that they didn't even know HSchooling even exsited before they started making educational equiries, but I don't remember a time when I did not know HSchooling was not possible.  I don't know whether it was the programs on TV, or the books I read, Or because I was bought up for some of my early years in the outback of Western Australia, and knew that some children stayed home and did schooling by radio.  But I always knew that HSchooling was a way of life for some people, and I liked the concept so much that I knew it would be for me too.

My ideas about what life would be like when i grew up were very romantic I suppose you call it lol.  My mother was a typical old fashioned mother, you know the good kind, baked beautiful cakes and bikkies, made her own bread in the morning, made cup cakes and fairy bread and all sorts of good things on your birthday, and also on your birthday she bought homemade cornish pasties, sausage rolls, pigs in blankets and a big birthday cake to school for your class.  She sewed us clothes, made the meanest roast dinners including apple sauce with pork, mint sauce with lamb and yorkshire pudding and gravy with beef,  and was always there when we got home from school. 

My most favourite TV program was Little House on the Prairie and the farm life seemed so lovely and carefree, and adventurous.  So I was going to grow up have a farm, have heaps of kiddies do all the families sewing and bake everything, I'd have a huge garden a couple of cows and chicken and we'd be completely self sufficient.  Of course homeschooling fits naturally into this ideal so of course that is what I was going to do.

Fast forward 15years or so to when I actually got married and I was starting to have a few doubts about all this romantic stuff, you know bills, working, more bills, no farm, and all my scones came out like rocks etc. etc. but when I was preganant with my first child we went to a parent & child expo in Auckland and there was a homeschooling stand there, I took brochures and was surprised to learn that there were whole organisations and groups based around schooling yr kids at home, with books to buy, curriculum to peruse, I was hooked!!  But the best thing I every got from those brochures was an article, I still have it today, written by a lady called Claire Aumonier, a homeschooling consultant in Auckland (will see if I can get permission from her to reprint it here).  It was such an inspirational piece of reading that the romance of teaching my little bundle of joy at home jumped right back into me and so the research began.

Books that had a lasting effect on me, either inspirational or educational have been:

Putting the Joy back into Egypt, by Jean Hendy-Harris - about one New Zealand family's homeschool adventure.

Teach Your Children Well' by Choon Tan with Veronika Meduna - a New Zealand, book that helped me to understand why it was important to teach maths an teach it well, his children all went to university at young ages and his yougest son was homeschooled for a while.

The 3R's and You Can Teach Your Child Successfully - Ruth Beechick's Books

Homeschooling for Excellence - by David and Micki Colfax  which I am rereading at the moment.

For the Children's sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

and The Montessori Method by Maria Montessori, in fact quite a few books either based on her montessori method or written by her.

In fact for the first few years when my oldest was younger than school age, I based most of our HSchooling on how a Montessori school is run, not strickly mind you, but the excercises and activities were the basis for our 'curriculum' I suppose you'd call it.  For some reason once she got nearer to 5 years of age I suddenly started trying to do 'school' at home, which I think ruined the whole image I had built up over the years, the expectation that suddenly at 5 we'd start the 'real' homeschooling and she'd just go from strength to strength!!?  NOT!....that's all for now, M 'honeys coming home tonight have to go and get ready

BYE

...OK so its not like ebooks save lives, well mabey one might, but what Im saying is ebooks have to be the next best thing, for homeschoolers, to, well, books!

At the moment, as I have a book problem, I have been banned from purchasing books that take up bookshelf space, so I have been instead purchasing ebooks or downloading the free ones, that only take up virtual bookshelf space!!  In fact I can fit so many onto my 1G flashdrive I can't stop grinning!  And you can get ebooks that you can read on your ipod.  I actually don't think I would want to try reading anything on an ipod, but the concept is exciting.

I read an article in Eclectic homeschool online which is how I thought of ebooks when I first heard of them (article here ) I didn't think I would ever even think of reading an ebook let alone purchasing one.

My most favourite places for downloading ebooks are:

Project Gutenburg with thousands of Public domain texts for free.

The Erkstine's 'Living books for the Ears' program, not only are their free audio programmes great, but you can buy excellent packages that include ebooks, dramatisations, colouring in pages, unit studies, how to make stuff etc. etc. etc. from time to time.

Currclick formally Homeschool estore, which sells (and lets you download one selected free ebook a week!) curriculum, unitstudies etc from well known publishers in ebook format.  I have just recently been able to purchased Trail Guide to World Geography by Geography Matters, and the ABC's of Art by Visual Manna for a fraction of the price (plus NO postage and handling!) and not second hand, (although I do love second hand, don't get me wrong), so the money goes to the actual people who write all these great books.

Moral of my rant tonight, none really, just if you haven't tried ebooks, get out there and have a look!  Might not be everyones cup of tea, I definitely don't get the kids to try and read screeds of stuff from a computer screen, in fact 'Lisey has trouble wanting to read anything lately??   But I read to them from stuff I print of, I use curriculum either straight from the computer or print it of, and you can download it as soon as you pay for it (unfortunately a by product of the 'want everything immediately' generation, not a good thing really)