Homeschooling

homeschooling on www.marianamcdougall.com

Homeschooling is a wonderful adventure for our family.

I’m asked frequently why I homeschool, and it’s never a short answer. There are so many reasons. Sometimes I hesitate to tell people why we choose this form of education, because inevitably, those who choose “traditional” education feel judged based on the choices we’ve made for our family. But that’s not what homeschooling is about for us.

We believe each family should choose what is best for their own kids when it comes to education (and anything else, for that matter). In our case, homeschooling fits for so many reasons. Here are just  a few:

Homeschooling gives us freedom.

Homeschooling gives us freedom of time and movement. We love to travel, so the ability to pack up and go any time we want is a big plus. When we went on our first cycling adventure, we left in May. We packed up and went—no need to notify anyone, no need to make up lessons, no stress. When we went on our grand RV adventure, we left at the end of August. 

I was a teacher, and homeschooling is a better fit for our family than the school system would be.

I was a school teacher, and I personally don’t like many of the policies that as teachers we were obliged to comply with in Ontario. The system, in my opinion, is failing many kids in reality by refusing to fail them on paper, among other issues.

I have children across the learning spectrum, from gifted to having delays, and as a homeschooling parent, I’m able to cater to each of their needs while being able to slow down or pick up the pace whenever needed, without concern for 30 other kids (yep, the ridiculous class sizes are another reason for choosing the homeschool route).

With a strong family unit, more time spent together is never a bad thing.

With homeschooling, I’m spending my children’s formative years by their side, helping them to navigate the world while learning the values that make our family a strong unit.

There are many other reasons that homeschooling is right for us. If you’re considering this way of educating your children, it’s my hope that you’ll find some inspiration and helpful tips on this blog.

Posts about Homeschooling

Homeschooling During the Pandemic: We’ve Become the Stereotype

Mariana

So the world all of a sudden grew perfectly OK with homeschooling. After being harshly judged, interrogation-styled questioned, and being scoffed at for my choice to homeschool, parents everywhere saw themselves without any other option than to teach (or not teach) their kids at home. I saw posts everywhere about how homeschooling is going, and I had two reactions. The first was “well, hopefully after this is all over, people will be more open to and less judgmental about homeschooling.” My other reaction was… “people still have no idea what homeschooling is.”

Continue reading “Homeschooling During the Pandemic: We’ve Become the Stereotype” →

Why I no longer follow the Ontario Curriculum

Mariana

Saying goodbye to the Ontario Curriculum

 

A year of road travel will teach you to be less rigid in your scheduling. I’ve always thought that I’m a pretty laid back person, not really prone to anxiety over small things, and that I’m flexible with my planning. While that’s all very true, I also came to the realization in the last year or so that I was way too attached to one way of doing things when it came to education. Which is ironic, since I’m a fairly eclectic homeschooling parent. But the teacher in me was still hanging on the the Ontario curriculum.

Continue reading “Why I no longer follow the Ontario Curriculum” →

Free Homeschooling Resources: The Ultimate List

Mariana

The Ultimate List of Free Homeschooling Resources

Homeschooling can get pretty expensive when you get excited about all kinds of curriculum and when you add in all the extra-curriculars that homeschoolers love to participate in. But homeschooling doesn’t have to break the bank. In the age of information, resources are abundant, and you can learn almost anything online for free.

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Homeschooling Planning Resources

Mariana

Homeschooling Planning for flexible homeschoolers

I’m starting my homeschooling planning for September. While I see the appeal and benefit of unschooling, it’s not the right choice for our family, for a variety of reasons, so we do have some planning involved in our school life.

Continue reading “Homeschooling Planning Resources” →

Homeschooling: Teaching Kids About Money

Mariana

I’m starting (perhaps a wee bit late) to prep our homeschool lessons for the upcoming school year. First things first: I must remember to send our letter of intent this year. Second things second, I like creating my own curriculum, as that was my favourite thing when I was still a school teacher. Creating lesson plans is definitely part of the fun of teaching for me. I figured I might as well share my curriculum with you guys! This year, I’m doing a “home economics” curriculum, and one of its main features will be teaching kids about money management.

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Homeschooling: Brazilian Heritage Lessons

Mariana

Teaching Brazilian Culture & Heritage (or not)

One of the expectations of the Ontario Elementary Curriculum in almost every grade is that children be made aware of their heritage and be encouraged in their traditions. Let me be honest: as an immigrant, homeschooling mother, I’ve been doing a terrible job of this.

Continue reading “Homeschooling: Brazilian Heritage Lessons” →

Homeschooling Posts

Mariana

If you’ve been reading the blog even semi-regularly in the past year, you know that I wrote about our RV trip a lot. I also wrote about multi-niche writing quite a bit, as this is what I’d been doing as we travelled all over Canada and the US from August 2008 to the late spring of 2009. I severely neglected all other parts of this website during the past year, and I’m itching to get them going again.

One of the topics I’d like to start writing more about is homeschooling. I’d like to share some of my lesson plans with you guys, talk about the challenges and joys of homeschooling, and generally share our experience educating our kids.

While I do write for myself quite a bit (my several journals are proof), and I have lots of ideas on what to write, I want to make sure that readers are getting the most out of this blog, too. So I’d like to know: what would you like to read about homeschooling? Is there a topic in this area you really want to learn more about? Drop some suggestions in the comments or email me at mariana@dreamsintogoalswriting.com.

Homeschooling posts will come out every Thursday.