CLICK HERE FOR FREE BLOGGER TEMPLATES, LINK BUTTONS AND MORE! »

Our Reasons for Home Education:

Lilypie Kids Birthday tickers

Although he was achieving good results, he wasn't reaching his full potential because his love for learning had been destroyed & hence his grades were steadily declining.

Lilypie Kids Birthday tickers

Completely failed by the system, he hated school, was always tired & homework time was a major frustration for both of us. He was severely frustrated & quickly heading to become yet another ADHD statistic.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Trixi’s HomeEd 2nd Anniversary

2010_0913_102406It’s hard to believe today, two years ago we took up home educating our then very frustrated, insecure 7 year old struggling to get through second grade. Although I feared we might not survive and I may kill him within weeks from bringing him home, we’re all still alive and well.
2012_0718_101302He’s really come a long way since then. Today we have a much more confident, soon to be 10 year old. He has redone his whole Grade R foundation year with Tannie Hettie last year. Since then, he’s made huge improvements in reading & writing. Although he is still very reluctant to do schoolwork, his attitude towards learning has improved tremendously. What was meant to be an interim solution to help a struggling second grader proved to make such an impact on our family relationships that school is no longer an option for us now.
If I knew then when we started, what I know now, I would have taken a totally different approach to home education. For starters I would have skipped Le-Amen, ditched all the schoolwork and allowed the de-schooling process first in order to restore their love for learning. That would have saved us a whole year of frustrations. This year’s unschooling approach went much smoother and the progress is still astonishing. Misha’s reading has improved vastly and he is slowly starting to show interest in the odd workbook here and there. He’s loving the Honey Badger Club and enjoys the online and pc based activities we’ve added. I’m happy to have stumbled across an article on learning styles that helped me trace the reason for his struggles and also assisted me in making wiser choices for learning material to address the way he learns.
Alpha Omega AcademyJesse will be home 2 years in January. He’s just finished his second week of school after restarting with Alpha Omega Academy  accredited online high school.Accreditation
2012_0801_162152
2012_0803_093252Gone are the days of nagging him to do his schoolwork. He’s free to study wherever he’s comfortable and whatever time of the day suits him best which is mostly from 4pm. Sometimes, however he’ll even work in the morning. When we had the freezing weather last week, he did it in bed. Now that’s the life…
I’m sure if I had this luxury at school, I would have aced all my subjects & not hated it as much. I probably would have remembered more of what I learned too.2012_0807_165441
The online lessons presented by the Academy teachers usually start from around 3pm our time  & these he does logging in via Webbex.2012_0806_170118 There he gets to chat to the teacher and class mates. Thus far he seems to be enjoying his lessons and we have even caught him working ahead of schedule especially when he has plans for the weekend.
At this stage I’m hopeful that this trend will continue and that we’ve finally found a curriculum that will enable him to reach his full potential without the 2012_0814_181720stress and frustration that they have had to endure at school.2012_0807_180436
My next challenge is to find a similarly successful curriculum for Misha by the time he gets to high school.
If they don’t learn the way you teach, then teach the way they learn.
~ Jacquie McTaggart

2 comments:

  1. Congrats on two years! May you all go from strength to strength.

    Do you guys follow SA school terms and year?

    All the best for the rest of the year.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, yes we've loosely followed the SA school terms and year, although with Jesse having started online academy we may loose the Jan to December, but we will still take our own school holidays etc. into account...

      Delete