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The above screenshot about Homeschooling Your Big Kid (6 to 7 Year Old) is a little blurry. You might want to go to the Smart Parenting website to read the whole article. It might not be on print all right. But we all know that online is where all publications are soon to go anyway. It’s more permanent. And really, I believe more and more people now favor reading online magazines over the physical one (I do!). But then again, it is still lovely to turn the crisp and colorful pages of a physical mag  from time to time.

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Oh the perks of blogging and online presence! More than being able to work from home through blogging and my virtual assistant jobs, I also get the word out about this wonderful education alternative known as homeschooling.

Homeschooling is the perfect choice for us too. As a virtual assistant, I have to stay online most of the time. The tasks that I get from my client are vast. From seo writing to transcription, to researching on various topics, to calling companies to update records. Sometimes writing about something as seemingly trivial as air compressors and other random topics.  Having this nature of job, homeschooling has proven to be very convenient. But when the time comes that we decide that our son is ready to go to traditional school. I will have to free up a handful of my time each day to drive him to and from school. Which we will all be willing to adjust to.

For those who are still clueless how homeschooling works for families with 6 to 7 years old, the Smart Parenting article by Tina Rodriguez is guaranteed a good read. A lot of fellow homeschoolers also shared a lot of valuable things about homeschooling.

We’re really thrilled to be doing the Level 2 PACES. We ordered the PACES last week and we’ll get hold of them soon. The package for colored PACES costs P8,000. Plus the Academic fee of P3,000. The hubby decided that the colored PACES will better help our son to be more interested in his class. We ordered the non-colored ones for his Level 1, we only paid less than P3,000. He was okay with it. But we are hoping to assess how he’s going to respond to the difference.

FYI, the Academic Fee is paid on a yearly basis. Regardless of the number of Levels the student has finished throughout the year.

Homeschooling is really allowing for us to save a great deal. But more than the savings, it is still the quality of education that our son is taking in from the School of Tomorrow curriculum. We’re currently deliberating when we will enroll him in the big school that uses the same program. We found three around the area, but we are partial towards one particular school.

Sure, there are a few disadvantages to this educational alternative. Like not having access to the most awesome facilities, spotting scopes and other laboratory materials. This is why we supplement our homeschooling with field trips and supplement classes. We have seen countless of families who have benefited from this curriculum. They all have passed the qualifying exams in the most reputable of universities. The statistics alone is proof in itself that the homeschooling program of School of Tomorrow is excellent.

While I cannot emphasize enough how our family loves the benefits we get from homeschooling (especially so that it so fits our son’s personality – again, we have mentioned time and again that homeschooling is not for everyone), I am told by well meaning people that I am altogether wasting my license in teaching by not using it professionally. Because you really don’t need a professional license to homeschool your child.

When I decided to take teaching degrees four years back, I was not exactly thinking of stashing it away. In fact, my hope was to look for greener pastures in the land of milk and honey like some friends and loved ones have done. But God clearly has better things in mind for us, our family and our ministry.  He showed us ways on supplementing our income by monetizing websites and earning through internet marketing. He used our blogging mentor, NeilMaranan.com, a classmate from one of the teaching degrees I took, to usher us through it. Now we are paying it forward as we freely conduct tutorials on blogging to people we know. Some of them have actually started earning themselves.

It works best for us as I always consider being my son’s Supervisor during our homeschool class as teaching no less. The fulfillment we get from seeing right before my eyes how he is developing through every PACE is indescribable. The opportunities that God sends our way when we obey Him are just countless! It totally made all the challenges along the way well worth it.

He would first look from the table of contents of the Bible and find out what page the particular book is and when he gets there he’d go to the chapter and the verse. At one point in the video, he had to go grab his PACE and check for the particular verse that he was looking for.

It is sweet that we are able to journal our homeschooling journey like this. Makes the “diary writing” back in my grade and high school days on my blackhead removal struggle and crushes in my adolescent stage so “stone age.” Blogs document not just words, but videos and podcasts as well. Gotta love technology! I can only wonder how much more techier it is going to be when my son is all grown up.

It started during one of those nights my husband led our family devotion and was randomly teaching our son how to look for verses in the Bible. Our son, then asked if they could look for verses from the Bible that he encountered during the day as he went through his PACEs during our homeschool time.

These little things that our five year old is learning amazes us. It may not be spectacular and all. But we are encouraged  nonetheless even as these things constantly affirms our choice of using this particular curriculum for our homeschool material.

Fellow parents who are considering homeschooling should include SOT’s curriculum in their list of choices. It won’t just save you from having to use the best acne treatments (primarily, because it is sooo parent friendly — I know I can’t just stress that enough). It won’t stress you out! But you are actually also training your child not just to be good in the academics. Biblical truths and character values are well incorporated in each subject. Instilling in them words from the Bible itself to guide them through life.

“Train up a child in the way he should go: and whne he is old, he will not depart from it.” Prov. 22:6

Aside from nurturing in our child respect for the country and the Christian flag, these two flags that sit on our son’s office also serve more than a single function. i.e.:

Phillippine/National Flag is raised:
1. Request permission to score.
2. Recite Memory Verse
3. Request permission for breaks (drinking, playing, etc.)

Christian Flag is raised:
1. Help with subject or lesson.
2. “Supervisor Score” strips.
3. Supervisor’s Initial (for check-ups and self tests)
4. Long or Detailed Questions

The additional functions of the flags during our homeschool time do not just allow for the students to develop a love and respect for what are represented in them, but also teach them the importance of following rules. Whenever our son raises any of the two flags, it also forces me to break from doing tasks while I am in my workstation working on some myotein research or just squeezing in some va jobs.

I try my best not to accommodate his questions if he does not do his part and raise a flag. This encourages him to focus on what should be done. We all know how a toddler’s pumped up energy can just make them do things as they please. This practically makes homeschoooling  as a good training ground for our son.

Here are some of the Famous Homeschoolers:

Artists
Claude Monet
Grandma Moses
Leonardo da Vinci
Rembrandt Peale
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Athletes
Michelle Kwan
Jason Taylor
Tim Tebow
Serena Williams
Venus Williams

Authors
Agatha Christie
Alex Haley
Beatrix Potter
C.S. Lewis
Charles Dickens
George Bernard Shaw
Hans Christian Anderson
Louisa May Alcott
Margaret Atwood
Mark Twain
Phillis Wheatley
Pearl S. Buck
Robert Frost
Virginia Woolf

Businessmen
Andrew Carnegie
Colonel Harland Sanders
Dave Thomas
Joseph Pulitzer
Ray Kroc

Composers
Felix Mendelssohn
Irving Berlin
John Philip Sousa
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Entertainers
Alan Alda
Charlie Chaplin
Christina Aguilera
Dakota Fanning
Hanson
Hillary Duff
Jennifer Love Hewitt
Justin Timberlake
LeAnne Rimes
Louis Armstrong
Whoopi Goldberg

Explorers
Davy Crockett
George Rogers Clark

Inventors
Alexander Graham Bell
Benjamin Franklin
Cyrus McCormick
Eli Whitney
Thomas Edison
Orville Wright
Wilbur Wright

Military Leaders
Douglas MacArthur
George Patton
John Paul Jones
Robert E. Lee
Stonewall Jackson
Matthew Perry

Photographers
Ansel Adams

Presidents
Abraham Lincoln
Andrew Jackson
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
George Washington
Grover Cleveland
James Garfield
James Madison
John Adams
John Quincy Adams
John Tyler
Theodore Roosevelt
Thomas Jefferson
William Henry Harrison
Woodrow Wilson

Religious Leaders
Brigham Young
Dwight L. Moody
Joan of Arc
John & Charles Wesley
William Carey

Scientists
Albert Einstein
Blaise Pascal
Booker T. Washington
George Washington Carver
Pierre Curie

Statesman
Alexander Hamilton
Daniel Webster
Patrick Henry
William Jennings Bryan
William Penn
Winston Churchill

United States Supreme Court Judges
John Jay
John Marshall
John Rutledge
Sandra Day O’Connor

Women
Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams
Clara Barton, started the red cross
Florence Nightingale, nurse
Martha Washington, wife of George Washington
Susan B. Anthony, women’s rights leader

Famous Homeschooling Parents
Lisa Whelchel
Kelley Preston and John Travolta
Will and Jada Pinkett Smith

I saw this list via the Successful Homeschooling website after having met again another well-meaning person who recommended www.oneadayvitamin.net has tried to talk me out of homeschooling. Affirmed to us all over again that we are totally right on track.

Every start of a program, we make sure we get into the habit of dressing up for school time. Teacher Mama in her slacks and our little homeschooler in his uniform. But as we go along and him having already forged into his mindset our homeschool schedule, we get flexible. It is especially convenient when it is just too humid to dress up. Hence, the sando shirt clad little guy infront of that office furniture he uses during school time.

The reason being is that flooding has been happening along Marcos Highway lately during heaving rains.  I’m not talking about storms and typhoon yet. We cannot help but point our fingers to the construction of the SM establishment in Masinag. Ever since construction started there, Marcos Highway has become a catch basin when it rains. Thus, the flooding. That construction might have messed up with the pipelines or something. They would have to figure this out. Because nothing like this has happened before the construction.

With this scenario of traffic being paralyzed for hours whenever it rains happening twice already this month, I cannot help but change my mind on getting our kiddo enrolled in a regular school. My husband and I considered sending our son to a Jesus Flock Academy next year. The academy also utilizes the same School of Tomorrow curriculum that we currently use.

Although the plan is for me to personally drive our son to and from school, it would be too much of a hassle to spend hours on the road. I’m sure my being a member of a reliable roadside assistance club will help whenever I get in trouble on the road. But I honestly think a problem this big should be addressed by our local government soon. And hopefully, this will be resolved before the problem gets worse.

This again, gives us another reason to stay put and enjoy the benefits of being homeschoolers.

I have loved our previous curriculum and I never thought our current program could surpass my “like” for the previous. I am all the more convinced that whoever designed the progression of these programs knew what he or she was doing. It is parent/teacher friendly that I am now able to work in between classes. For someone who is working from home without an assistant in the house, this is one thing I cannot emphasize enough how much I appreciate.

As my 5 year old son already knows how to read quite well. He goes through his paces, goes through the instructions and does his self tests, all by himself. During exams in between lessons, I get to do my virtual assistant job and also compose random web articles like colon cleansing and even beauty reviews that I post in my beauty blog. I am kind of excited to know how the Level 1 program will be like. I have been reading feedbacks from the homeschooling group I belong to that SOT’s curriculum on Math isn’t that strong. I have yet to see that. My husband is great with numbers and a Mensa member at that. I figured he can well assess if the upcoming programs will be lacking in content. But so far, we’re good with School of Tomorrow and we love homeschooling!