Help! I´m Homeschooling! part 2

Click here to read  Part 1

 A Combo Deal 

Have you ever seen a one-room school house? I had only seen one on television until we saw one in Wyoming a few years ago.  It was about the size of our home school room, only it had twenty or so seats.  There is no way that this teacher had separate subject matter for each individual student at his grade level. She had to have combined.  Sure, there would have been some student groups based on reading or math skills. She may have divided between older and younger children. In these old, one-room school house teachers had to combine as much as possible. We can, too.

Our homeschoolers in Chicago 2015

Combine Subjects

Having seperate subject classes for each individual student can be a waste of class time.  For example, why do the children need to write endless handwriting pages that are boring to them and to us?  Combine handwriting with something. I included handwriting with spelling and vocabulary.  If the letters were not written correctly and neatly, they were simply misspelled.  My children were all too happy to put down those handwriting books. You could try blending handwriting with Bible memory verses, for another example.  Another handwriting combo could come with art.  Give the students some nice pens and paper for writing. Suddenly handwriting is fun, and the students are learning different kinds of lines and curves while making beautiful letters.

To leave off picking on poor handwriting, let's take a look at another subject that can be easily combined with something else, composition. Most social studies, science, and literature subjects have essays or other writing assignments.  Too often those assignments get skipped leaving an important part of learning the concept undone.  Writing about something helps a person develop a better understanding about that topic. Why not combine the rules given in your grammar and composition books with the subject matter found in your social studies book? This provides an opportunity to do both.  You may need to adjust the writing assignment in social studies to fit the concept being learned in composition. For example, your student may be  assigned a summery in composition with a random topic and an essay in social studies about the Transcontinental railroad.  Learn the rules of writing a summery, and write that summery about a section in the history book about the railroad instead of writing an essay. Two birds; one stone.

Combine Classes

There is no magic in learning geography in ninth grade, world history in tenth, and US history in eleventh.  Social studies is a prime example of classes that can be combined with several students spanning different grade levels.  Think back to that one-room school house.  Their history lesson would have been taught all together.  She may have taught about ancient Egypt. They would all have been learning about it together but their assignments and tests would look different.  Frankly speaking, history is a lot more fun learned as a group than individually out of a book. Pair younger and older children to do research.  

On a practical level, combining classes is a lot more prep work for the teacher, but it is well worth the invested time.  Often junior high and senior high books follow a similar subject progression.  A smaller, easier version will be in junior high while a more complicated version will be in senior high.  Just because the books are different doesn't mean that you can't combine the subject matter.  Thomas Edison was an important inventor in both the junior high and senior high books.  Don't let grade levels marked on a book intimidate you.  You can customize it for your students. 

The classes that should almost always be combined are the electives.  If you find you can't find your groove in combining reading, writing, and arithmetic, then please, consider combining the other stuff. There is no reason that Bible, art, auto mechanics, PE cannot be combined.  As I mentioned, doing combo deals with your classes relies heavily on preparation, but the results are spectacular.  You and your students will have fun on the learning journey, and their recollection of the subject matter will be more meaningful.

That one-room school house produced some great results.  One teacher teaching different age levels and learning styles had to make it work for everybody. You can, too.

Patrick and Vicki Weimer in Iceland since 1999