Homeschooling From A Student's Point Of View - Part 2

Part 2. The Learning Journey

@minismallholding did a post on why we became homeschooled in the very first place. Her post is here
Part 1 of this post is here

After becoming homeschooled again at 13, I was learning even more independently than before. Once a year in August, a homeschool-officer-person visits to check up on what we’re doing. We need to have covered math, science and English, as well as a foreign language, art, history, S.O.S.E and P.E. Most of these we covered easily, but once we discovered what they were looking for and acceptable methods to cover the subjects, organising my learning became even easier.

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Math

I use Khan Academy for my math. It’s honestly the best thing I’ve ever come across. It’s super interactive, gives me a direction to head in, shows progress really well and is free (although we have donated to it). For someone that procrastinates a lot this was perfect. It was simple to just watch the videos even when I didn’t feel like it, and then on my good days I could power through the questions and interactive ones.

English

Once I’d covered most of my grammar and spelling, English was no longer a big thing for me. It’s not something I really want to go into when I get older (poetry or that stuff) so all that was left to practise was writing… which is what I’m doing now. I read lots and try to pick up as much as I can. Posting it to the internet and seeing the response seems to be a great way to practise, even though I have a long way to go still. Google Docs is also an amazing way for me to do any work. I share my documents with my mum and she can suggest changes and read my work, helping me learn from any mistakes I make

Science

Words can’t describe how much I love science. I was so enthusiastic about chemistry at one point that I memorised the entire periodic table… something I still remember to this day. Khan Academy does a lot on science as well, and covers physics, chemistry, biology and more. My main two are chemistry and biology. I love drawing up and creating huge projects on them and explaining what I’ve learnt to people… even if they don’t seem very interested. I found this song and was constantly singing it… I think it drove my mum mad

History

I used to hate history. In school it’d be the most boring and awful subject to get through, so I assumed it’d be the same when homeschooling. That is, until I found what I enjoy about history. I love looking at old civilisations and mythology, as well as how the planet and countries worked. I’ve done projects on Ancient Egypt, Norse mythology and other countries and their beliefs. Not what’s typically done for history, but the homeschool-officer-person seems happy with it nevertheless.

Art

I draw lots, and love making things so this is covered in my spare time. A lot of my choreography would also be considered art, so I don’t even have to think about this subject. At the moment I’m doing design, and hoping to make dresses.

S.O.S.E

I have no clue what this even is but I think Studies of Society and Environment? It seems to cross over with my history and science so even though I don’t do work specifically for this subject I still seem to cover it.

P.E

With doing up to 12 hours a week of gymnastics training, P.E is 110% covered. At one point I was doing ballet, calisthenics, contemporary, and rhythmic gymnastics all at the same time. For health I tended to just hand over what I’d done in science. I did a lot on human biology and health was something that interested me because of my dance.

Foreign Language

I’ve used many things for my languages, and they have their pros and cons. First off we learned German. My resource? My mum. She has ancestry from Germany so she does know quite a bit of German and that’s the first one we tried learning.
We ended up buying Rosetta Stone and learning Chinese. This was great, but I found it hard to find the time for it. We had a cd which meant we could only use it on a PC. I found it easier to use my phone.
On my phone I downloaded two apps that I found helpful. Memrise, and Duolingo. They both have their pros and cons, and today I learn two languages on them. Russian and German. They’re very easy to find time for, but they aren’t as good with immersing you in the language as Rosetta Stone.
I’m 16 now and am doing a course from the University of Adelaide called Maths Track which is how I’m going to be able to enter Uni.
So if you’re being homeschooled and need help with motivation, remember that there are tons of ways to suit subjects to yourself and enjoy most of your work. Sure there are the necessities (which I’m lucky enough to enjoy doing) but finding something like Khan Academy that can help guide you through in a way that doesn’t rush or stress you out is great. No matter what you choose to do in life I think there’s alway a way to learn in a fun way.

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