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Hello! Welcome to Live and Learn Farm. I’m Blake and I am about to turn 10 (in 3 days). I am going to share with you about my homeschool and my opinion of it. I was not sure what title to use for this post! I finally chose: Homeschool – a 10 year old boy tells his opinion.
We have been homeschooling for five years now. I used to go to a Montessori school in La Grange for about 2 years. When I was about five the school closed and that’s when we decided to start homeschooling. I could list a ton of things I love about homeschooling, but this post would be WAY too long so I’m just going to list my top 3 favorite things about homeschooling.
My number one favorite thing about homeschooling is that we have flexibility in where we can do homeschool. Like the time we went to the beach in 2010… my mom has written two posts about it here is part one and part two. When we take a vacation we don’t stop school, we take it with us! When we went to the beach, we brought our Apologia Swimming Creatures with us so we could study the salt water creatures in the book and in real life! As we read in the book about shark egg cases and how they looked, the very next day when my mom got up and went early morning shell hunting she came back with shark egg cases she found on the beach! Sometimes these are called Mermaids Purses! It was so much fun! I was only 7 and I still remember what shark egg cases are called!
My number two favorite thing is that I have the privilege to run VERY far ahead in my school. Right now I’m doing Algebra 1 Teaching Text Books and I love it! But honestly, it is somewhat review still because I did a Montessori Pre-algebra course before this and it covered most of this! There are about 600 pages in my Algebra 1 book and I’m almost at 300! I started this in August of this year and I’m half way through already and it only took 4 months. I’ll finish it in March next year hopefully!
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- Montessori Pre-Algebra
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- Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra
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- Teaching Textbooks Algebra 1
My number three favorite thing about homeschooling is that I get flexibility in my work. I can half way get to choose when I work. We have an outline of “morning work” and “afternoon work” but other then that we don’t really have an order in which we do our work. Well except for virtual classes. I have none right now because my Spanish class has ended and there isn’t a photography class this year so right now all I have is our homeschool work and, as I said, we don’t really have a schedule for our work. I like to read and sometimes I read too late at night and am so tired that I don’t like getting up early. I can sleep in some mornings as long as I get my work finished by the end of the day!
Of the three favorites I just listed, the privilege to be able to still school and move to other locations, being able to go farther in my school and being able to have flexibility in my work schedule… my favorite is probably that we can still school while on the move.
Do you homeschool? What are your favorite things about it?
This post is linked at: Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers, and The Homeschool Village, and Far Above Rubies, and Time Warp Wife, and We Like to Learn as We Go: What I Learned Wednesday, and Living Montessori Now, and Enchanted Homeschooling Mom Thoughtful Spot Weekly Blog Hop Monday, and Fluster Buster’s Creative Muster, and The Mommy Club Share your Resources and Solutions, Ginger Snaps Wow Me Wednesday, Lady Behind the Curtain Cast Party, Raising Arrows Welcome Home Wednesday
Hello Blake! I have a question for you about Teaching Textbooks. Did you start this program using their 3rd grade material and then work your way up to Algebra? I have a 10 year old that is using Teaching Textbooks Grade 5 this year. It’s way too easy and just a review of what he did years ago. I was going to have him discontinue it after Christmas and then pick back up where he left off in Saxon. Would you or your mom suggest otherwise? Thanks for your help!
Hey Fran! I so enjoy reading your comments! Thank you so much for being an encouragement to my boys! Blake did not do any other Teaching Textbooks curriculum prior to pre-algebra. We did all of his Math via Montessori materials. Saxon and Teaching Textbooks are dramatically different style curriculum. If your son likes the style of teaching Textbooks, I would just move him up until you reach a level that is more challenging. TT has a placement test… have you tried that? http://www.teachingtextbooks.com/v/vspfiles/tt/Placement.htm ~Trish
You post is so impressive! Thanks so much for writing! It sounds like you have a fabulous learning life.
Thank you!!! And i really do love homeschooling we also always try to make learning fun.
Nice name 🙂 I’m Blake too. We home school our children. We as parents love it for the same reasons you do. I’m not sure my kids would be as bold as you are about saying that they love school LOL Thank you for sharing.
🙂 Yeah laugh out loud, thanks for reading and commenting.
This was such a great read! I’m starting to homeschool my son (almost 4 year old) and daughter (only 20 months old) so I love to read such positive experiences from someone further along in their homeschooling journey. Thank you Blake 🙂
Thank you, for reading and commenting. Hope your kids will do well!
You have a quite unusual 10 year old, with such sophisticated vocabulary and also able to do Algebra. I think the opinions are ones that all 10 year old homeschoolers would share, though, and thank you Blake for voicing them.
He is my third child Phyllis and if you have multiple children (that are especially close in age), you know the youngest ones are chasing the older ones in skills, etc. If you talked with him… you would hear the same language, same vocabulary, same precociousness. I have three boys and they all have their dad’s brain… he was valedictorian of his school 🙂 We joke about how it took me THREE tries to pass Algebra in college… so they certainly didn’t get it from me! Thanks so much for stopping by and leaving a comment! Good to hear from you! ~Trish
Hi Blake! I’m so happy to read this. My little boy will enter Kindergarten next year. After that, I will very likely homeschool him. I look forward to it, but sometimes worry how he will feel about it. Your post helps! I think the things you listed will also be my favorite things about homeschooling. I wonder what Henry’s favorites will be…
I love homeschooling! At first, my mom was kind of worried when we started but after about a month or so we all loved it 🙂
I found your post at Raising Arrows. Thank you for sharing! I love this! Blake, thank you for sharing your thoughts on homeschooling! Trish, thank you for letting him post on your blog 😉 My 8 year old did a guest post on my blog once too 🙂 That’s another wonderful thing about homeschooling – the kids can post on your blog and you can count it as school work 😉
That is one of the great things about blogging and I love doing it! Thanks for reading and commenting!
What a great idea!! I love the post from your son’s point of view!
Hello. My name is Garrett. I am 9 years old. I am loving your blog. My favorite part of homeschooling is that we get to choose what subjects we learn about. I also like that school doesn’t take as long with homeschooling compared to public school. Thank you for your blog post!
I also love that about homeschooling, thanks for reading and commenting.
Hi, my name is Grant and I also do homeschool. I am 11 years old and my favorite thing about homeschool is that there are less school hours and more play time. Like time to do extra subjects like music or computer.
That’s also very cool about homeschooling, thanks for reading and commenting