Tips , Tidbits, and Encouragement
How is your homeschool year going? As the newness wears off and everyone tries to dig in to their studies, it is not unusual to question the decision to homeschool. They might wonder if they are doing something wrong because the picture of their home feels more like a Picasso than a Rembrandt. Maybe it is going great and everybody loves it. Maybe it is not going so well and you find yourself frustrated and disillusioned. Either way here are some tips to consider.
Homeschool is not public school and it does not need to look like it. There are no time constraints, if your family is early birds, and you want to finish by noon you can do that. If you aren’t into early mornings then you can wait ‘til noon to start. It’s what works for your family.
Bookwork can be done at a desk or the dining room table. It can also be done at a picnic table, a library, your car ,or the dentist office. Obviously it is preferable to have a designated space with all the books and school supplies easily accessible but sometimes that is not possible. So it is acceptable to adjust to your current circumstances.
Maybe you are having a bad day and just want to sit and read to the kids all day. That is fine. Maybe you just want to bake some cookies. You can do that. The point of homeschooling is to find what works for your family and sometimes what works one day doesn’t work the next day. Schedules and organization are important but so is flexibility, patience, and having grace for each other.
Kids absolutely need to learn the 3 Rs but there are more important lessons to learn about life that they will never learn in a textbook. Homeschooling is a perfect forum to allow for organic learning of all subjects, not just the ones in books. There is a quote credited to Albert Einstein that says “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity”. When someone is sick, an unexpected financial burden arises, when you burn breakfast , lunch and dinner aka when life happens, your kids are watching how you respond , how you adjust, how you cope and those are the real lessons. Even when we don’t respond in the best way, we can go back and apologize and talk about better ways to respond in the future. Find your opportunity in the middle of difficulty and enjoy yourself!
The WV Home Educators Association recently held elections for officers. Here are the results:
President –Roy Ramey
Vice President –Heather Vance
Treasurer –Sharon Strother
Secretary-Trish Bucher
We are also pleased to announce a new member to the board, Melissa Trimble. Previously she served in the public school sector but she is now a committed homeschool mom. We are excited to have her onboard.
The National Youth Service Academy in Davis WV has been holding Monday night science workshops for students K-12 no matter what kind of school they attend. Check out www.nysacademy.org/groups/mondaynightscience/
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
WV Home Educators Association needs your help.
The new legislative session begins in January and there will be proposed legislation dealing with homeschool. WVHEA is looking for volunteers that we can contact when we need action taken.
If you enjoy calling or texting government officials to preserve homeschool freedoms or mobilizing your friends and family to help, then this is the group for you. We want people that we can email or text on a weekly (or sometimes daily) basis with urgent updates and calls to action. If this is something with which you would be interested in helping; email your contact information to WVHEA304.Newsletter@gmail.com and put Legislative in the subject line.
POETRY CONTEST
Calling all writers and lovers of poetry ; WVHEA is looking
for poetry submissions to publish in our next newsletter. Students can submit as many poems as they want but the subject needs to be about homeschooling. We will pick two winners from each age range elementary, middle school and high school. Submission deadline will be December 10th. The WVHEA Board will vote and winners will be in the December/ January newsletter and posted at the Homeschool Day at the Capitol in February. Poems will be judged on creativity, and humor. Submit poems to WVHEA304.Newsletter@gmail.com, put POETRY CONTEST in the subject line.
Do you have a homeschool event you want to spread the word about? Are you starting a new homeschool co op or just a group to explore nature? Let us know about it . We would love to post the information in our newsletter. Just send the information with contact information (name/ email/ phone) to WVHEA304.Newsletter@gmail.com We would love to hear from other homeschoolers so if you have any suggestions for events, or ideas for the newsletters or just have a question you would like to ask send it to our new email.