Questions about Homeschooling Answered

I was blessed to receive an email via this page’s contact form. It was from a parent who is seriously considering homeschooling her child.  I can totally relate to her because I had the exact questions and thoughts in my head a year before we officially started homeschooling.  And her bringing up these questions, further affirms the purpose of Christian Homeschooler to minister to parents who would love to homeschool their child/children.

With our dear reader, Rheea’s permission, I’m posting her letter live. The purpose is for the benefit of other homeschooler-to-be folks who might have the same questions.  For easier tracking, I incorporated my answers right after Rheea’s questions.

Hi.

I am thinking of homeschooling my almost-3 year old daughter and I came across your blog. The Ace & Christi curriculum sounds very interesting, and very doable. I hope you don’t mind if I ask you questions about your homeschooling experience with Ace & Christi. I actually have some listed down and here they are:

1. What’s your typical homeschool schedule? How do you incorporate it into your normal day? I work from the home, and I also don’t have a fulltime helper and no yaya, so I’m worried about how I can work homeschooling into my day.

Ideally, we start our class at 9A.M. But we are not rigid about our schedule. It is one of the advantages of homeschooling. 😉 We actually have the same sentiments back when we were still trying to figure out how on earth I could afford to squeeze in a homeschool class in my already packed schedule.  I also do not have a helper or nanny. I’d say, it took me a month to adjust.

Homeschooling will pretty much eat up the rest of your mornings.  But what’s neat about it is, I’ve devised a way to have things work to everyone’s advantage. Here’s to give you a picture of how our set up is.  This allowed me to temporarily switch to online work from time to time, when the little guy is busy answering exercises on his paces.

I have since dedicated the mornings to homeschooling and lunch onwards to doing my jobs online.

2. Do you follow a school schedule like, well, in a traditional school? e.g. 8:30am-9am is reading, 9-9:45am is arts… If not, how do you accomplish what you have to teach?

No, we do not follow a rigid schedule.  But we do follow the manual that is provided by the School of Tomorrow for the curriculum that we currently use (Preschool with Ace and Christi) and we work according to my son’s pace. I will later run you through how one school day is like.

For each day, in this curriculum, the subjects Word Building, English, Math, Social Studies and Science are incorporated in such a way that every single subject is related to each other.

3. Do you have to prepare much for the lessons? How much time does it take? Do you have to provide any materials?

This is what I am so delighted about School of Tomorrow, I barely have any preparation to do, save for the crafts material that I need to get ready for the day.  Everything is right there in the manual.  You basically just have to read it out and supervise your child.

Yes, we did buy some materials, like the globe, crayons, art papers and all those stuff that a regular student buys.  Save for writing paper and notebooks. The Preschool with Ace and Christi curriculum has paces to do that job.

4. I haven’t got any teaching experience; does the curriculum make it easy to teach?

Neither do I.  Here’s the news.  I am licensed professional teacher but I have no traditional teaching experience. The only teaching that I have done are the one on one,  group teaching and couseling that I have with the ladies in church.  Yes, the curriculum is very parent friendly.  You just have to follow through. No fuss.  Easy but very effective.

I have to get this emphasized. Because up to this point, I still get amazed on the progress of my little guy.  Why? Because in the Preschool with Ace and Christi, a student is not yet taught how to read.  The focus is phonics and getting the child learn about the letter sound with ease and backed up with music and even character building.  After a few months and we haven’t even finished all the letter sounds, my son is able to read even up to five letter words!  My heart is thrilled and utterly blessed by such progress. I can say that the School of Tomorrow’s curriculum is a perfectly thought out curriculum.

5. I noticed in the pictures you seem to have a sort of classroom set up–what if I don’t really have space in the house, will it still work?

This is my exact predicament before we officially got down to homeschooling.  We have a very tiny house. Read: 48sqm.  With two bookshelves and quite a number of furnishings.  Nobody would have guessed that a study nook could even fit in any of its four corners.  But the old adage proved true, “If there’s a will, there’s a way.”  We made use of that small corner in our receiving area/parlor/sala and cared less if people who visit will come in surprised by all those letters in front of my son’s school office.  My son’s office basically just eats up a 3’x3′ space.  Which isn’t so much, if you come to think of it.  We just make use of the rest of the house and even the garage during physical activity time.

6. Finally, if you don’t mind me asking, how much did you spend for the curriculum? Can you buy it separately from School of Tomorrow without enrolling with them?

The Preschool with Ace Curriculum has 4 manuals, while the advanced curriculums have 2.  This means that this is the priciest curriculum.  Give or take you are going to spend around P30,000.  But you can call Living Heritage Academy.  It is the homeschooling body of The School of Tomorrow Philippines and ask for a quotation and break down.  Their contact number is 822 9663.

Thanks so much. I really am encouraged by your blog. I pray blessings for you and your family.

Sincerely,

Rheea

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Thank you very much, Rheea, for bringing up these questions.  I hope that I answered all your questions satisfactorily.  Feel free to email me for follow up, if any. We are blessed to know that you are encouraged by this blog.  It again is an affirmation of God’s faithfulness and our heart to minister to fellow homeschooling parents.