| There've been a lot of schools of thought about | | | | the children. Games are good, think starting a |
| what works in home schooling and what doesn't. A | | | | backgammon challenge match every Friday. Get the |
| lot of debate in fact. But there has been some | | | | competitive juices flowing a little. |
| first-hand account where children of home schooling | | | | The basics and curriculum can be bought, structured |
| parents have really excelled in primary school exams | | | | and fed to your students, but without the natural |
| and college entrances. Many think that what | | | | curiosity stimulus it's harder to get the information |
| motivates is simply having the freedom to learn what | | | | through. Plus, this sort of defeats the purpose of |
| interests them. In this day and age learning at home | | | | home schooling if you are just emulating the motions |
| is not as hard as it seems with all of the resources in | | | | that are gone through a state school. |
| technology and communication. | | | | Working with the Curriculum |
| Finding Motivation | | | | Of course you'll need to have some kind of structure. |
| Children have a varying degree of concentration and | | | | There needs to be routine grading and updates on |
| sense of curiosity. With home schooling, the parents | | | | progress. However, since you conduct the direction |
| can find out how their children best learn. Some | | | | of the course material, you can dedicate more time |
| studies have found that some children learn well by | | | | to what interests the student most during the |
| enforcing discipline and structure. Others may work | | | | teaching. For instance, if you are teaching a physics |
| best with more slack and freedom to explore on | | | | problem and you are using real life examples of how |
| subjects they take to. | | | | the principals work, and you notice at the same time |
| As a parent and as a new teacher, you have the | | | | your student getting excited to find the answer it |
| greatest impact on setting the stage to learn. One of | | | | may be something you can have them explore more. |
| the methods you can use besides the curriculum to | | | | For instance if you watch a discovery channel show |
| teach is simply teaching by example. Take the | | | | and see some police doing forensics on a car crash, |
| spotlight off of them for a bit and show your | | | | maybe ask how a car's skid mark and inertia relates |
| ambition to learn. Of course, you have to learn the | | | | to the equation you studied dealing with rate and |
| material to teach it, still show the desire to learn | | | | time. With more time to go into a subject's depth |
| things on your own. | | | | the more special skills they can walk away with going |
| Reading books, going to the library for yourself, | | | | into college and ultimately getting a nice job when |
| watching the Discovery channel or whatever you feel | | | | they move out. |
| like doing to learn, is a great way to share this with | | | | |