Task Christian Learning Academy
“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,” - Hebrews 12:1 KJV
Welcome to my little homeschooling page! In the last seven and a half years, I have noticed there are parents that have planned to homeschool, those who gradually enter the world of homeschooling, and then there are the unexpected homeschoolers. We are the unexpected homeschoolers.
I had already made the choice to be a stay-at-home mom, but homeschooling never crossed my mind. I did not believe that I could take on the challenge of educating my child when I had failed miserably in school. Homeschooling is the education of children at home under their parent’s guidance. Did you know that for most of history, homeschooling had been common practice? It wasn’t until the late 1830s and a lack of formal education that a more public type of classroom schooling became more conventional.
Fast forward to the year 2013. I am mom to a very intelligent son entering his last year of middle school taking AP classes, an amazing daughter entering her 4th-grade year of elementary school (who has also tested out of all her special education classes), and we are looking forward to a great new year. Or so we thought. After the first month, I could tell he was unhappy. My son came right out and said he didn’t want to attend school anymore. My daughter was having difficulty with the changing of classes and coming home in tears. One evening after dinner, my husband approached me to talk outside, and I knew something was off-base. T had spoken to him the previous evening about homeschooling and had mentioned that he felt he was not getting the education he deserved. Too many students were disrupting class, and making the learning environment difficult. It also upset him to see friends getting bullied, and he was afraid he was going to get in trouble. The following week, I picked S up from school, again in tears. It took days before she could finally explain to me what was happening in school. She was being sent across the hall to finish her math assignments, which was causing her to become further behind. I asked the teacher if she was available in the mornings for tutoring and I was told my daughter was not failing. My child has to be failing to receive extra help? This both astonished me and insulted me and it was unacceptable. My husband made a phone call to his attorney that afternoon to check our state laws and the legal method. The next morning we drove to both schools (with two letters of intent) and unenrolled both T and S from public school. Our decision to homeschool was unexpected, but our children deserved a better environment to learn and thrive in.
Okay, the decision to homeschool has been made. Remember three things:
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Start small.
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You CAN do this.
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Breathe.
Knock out the legal stuff first. Research and learn the rules and regulations for homeschooling where you live. Homeschool laws vary from country to country, and in the United States, from state to state. If you are in the states, a great place to start is by visiting the HSLDA website. I highly recommend joining a homeschool legal defense organization that can offer you legal recourse for advice, support, and representation that you may need. Occasionally, school districts and municipalities have been known to give homeschool families grief, and you need someone to step in and advocate for you, and defend your decisions.
Since we started homeschooling unexpectedly and very quickly, I had little time to do much research or read any of the many homeschooling books out there. I only knew that both my husband and I wanted a Christian-based curriculum and we purchased ACE Paces Series through Christianbook. Everything was done for me, and this gave me the time I needed to start reading and researching. I have gained a significant amount of knowledge and inspiration from a few awe-inspiring books and numerous homeschooling websites through the years.
Charlotte Mason? Classical Education? Unit Studies? Traditional? What does this mean? Now it's time to talk about Homeschool Philosophies and methods. In order to understand and teach a curriculum, you have to understand homeschool terminology. Eclectic Homeschooling put together an excellent resource list of the Homeschool Philosophies you are likely to encounter during your research. Here are a few of my favorites we have used.
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CM Method - Charlotte Mason was a British educator who believed that education was about more than training for a job, passing an exam, or getting into the right college. She said education was an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life; it was about finding out who we were and how we fit into the world of human beings and into the universe God created. She preferred “living books” over textbooks, and believed that children were whole people who should be treated as if they are capable of understanding the world around them.
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Classical Education - Classical education is language-based and depends on a three-part process of training the mind: Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric (the trivium pattern). The early years of school are spent in absorbing facts, systematically laying the foundations for advanced study. In the middle grades, students learn to think through arguments. In the high school years, they learn to express themselves.
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Unit Studies - A creative, hands-on method that is usually literature-based and incorporates multiple subjects using one unifying theme. This method works very well with families that have several children in multiple grade levels because it can be easily modified to meet the needs of each individual child.
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Traditional - The traditional method looks very similar to how most of us were taught in school and uses textbooks for all subjects, workbooks, quizzes/tests, and teacher's manuals to master subject content.
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Relaxed/Unschooling - This method does not follow any particular curriculum and tends to worry less about schedules and milestones, encouraging a child to learn at his/her own pace through hobbies and interests with the guidance of the parent.
Our homeschooling journey has been quite the adventure and to make it work, we had to lay down a foundation. T and S both wanted our 'private' school to have a name and they suggested using their first names. We took the first two letters of each to spell TASK, and with a dash of creativity, our school became ... Task Christian Learning Academy.
TCLA became the acronym. We selected orange and purple for our school colors, and the Sparrow became our unofficial mascot. Why a sparrow? Because God watches over those little birds like a hawk, so there is no doubt in my mind that he is forever and always watching over all of us. We live in Texas and our state is renowned as one of the freest states to homeschool, and the only legal requirements to homeschool in Texas are:
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The instruction must be bona fide (i.e., not a sham).
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The curriculum must be in visual form (e.g., books, workbooks, video monitor).
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The curriculum must include the five basic subjects of reading, spelling, grammar, mathematics, and good citizenship. (Good citizenship is like Civics. Public schools teach one semester of Civics, usually in the senior year of high school. Teaching U.S. and Texas history, government (theoretical and practical), the Pledge of Allegiance, and similar activities will also help meet this requirement.)
I developed my own curricula and added Science and History (which are not required according to our state), as well as subjects like Art and Music Study, Home Economics, Nature Study, Theology, and Current Events. I created my graduation requirements and planned my individual attendance records, report cards, and transcripts. Although Texas does not require records to be kept, I thought this was important, and it made our school more legitimate and professional-looking. I even made school IDs for each school year.
Over the years, our homeschool took on an Eclectic/Classical style of teaching. I began focusing on the strengths, learning styles, and interests of my kids, which enabled them to learn faster, retaining the information being taught. Instead of doing every single subject every day, we set a schedule and focused on a particular subject for the day. This also allowed for field trips, planning vacations, or to just hang out and play games.
Just starting out...
It's not rocket science. =)
Skye's Graduation Day - August 2021
Just starting out...
Homeschooling has indeed been an adventure, and one that I wish I had started earlier with my kids. My son graduated in June 2018 and my daughter graduated in August 2021, a year early. I am beyond thankful and blessed to have been able to provide my children with the education they deserved, and I would definitely do it all over again - in a heartbeat. 🥰
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