Over dinner last night, Pat and I were having normal family conversations with the kids when I said something about how it is already snowing in parts of the country. Julie and Jimmy started asking questions about where and immediately revealed their completely distorted understanding of basic geography. Two nights ago, we ran into similar disappointments in another area of their education.
Wow have our eyes finally been opened. I think we both have known that we should be doing more at home to ensure our children are receiving the richest education possible, but, like many, we have been relying wholly on the public system hoping it was doing enough. Additionally, there is no doubt that the instability in their education thus far (changing schools almost every year due to us moving) has had a huge detrimental impact.
Homeschooling is simply not an option for our family so what do we do? I have begun scrutinizing the free resources available online to find some ways to supplement at home and already ordered a world globe from Amazon. We would love to hear how other families bridge the gap. Thanks in advance for sharing!
Its funny you just posted this particular topic, yesterday AJ and I had a serious talk about Paiton and his education. We are still very confused about where and how he is going to get his education. I was homeschooled until the 8th grade and I feel like it was so rich in A LOT of areas and slack in some too. But it is not going to be an option for us either. And I do not feel good about the public schools in our areas. We could never afford private school with three kids either so that will not work. But i think supplementing is an amazing idea. One thing I think i enjoyed and learn alot from while i was homeschooled was field trips. Kids learn so quickly with hands on experiences and that would be great way to have family time too!
ReplyDeleteTo follow up, we had a conference with Julie's teacher today and had most of our immediate concerns soothed. We are steadfast in our conviction that their education needs supplemented at home and will continue pursuing that. But we have a better understanding of some of the simple things like the timeline for learning geography and where her peers are developmentally in math.
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