Schoolhouse Saturday by A Panama Mama - Homeschooling Intro
This is my first Schoolhouse Saturday post! I’m excited to share with you every week what we do for school, the method we use, fieldtrips we go on, our lending library and much more. I hope you’ll check in each week to give us some encouragement and see what we have been up to.
As I have said before, I am a former Spanish teacher to middle school students. I have taught in a public school in the past, but I much prefer the freedom that comes with teaching my own kids at home. The curriculum we have chosen to use is called Ambleside Online. It is a free online curriculum, but you have to find or buy the books that are to be read. Here are some of our favorite books from this year.
My children are aged 8, 7, 5, 4, and 2, so learning comes in all shapes and sizes. The method we have chosen to use to educate our kids is the Charlotte Mason approach, but we will talk more about that later. With this method, CM encouraged formal education to begin after the child turns 6. So I currently school 2 of my kids. That will be changing in two months, though!
We currently do school in the afternoon since it is rainy season and is usually raining then. That gives us the mornings to go out with friends, field trips, play outside or just get stuff done. Most of our expat friends here in Panama also homeschool their kids so it is fun to do field trips together. We recently have been to a flower farm, a cheese producer and a farm and nursery.
We also did some homeschool community service by cleaning trash out of a local park. We love learning in such a beautiful environment and look forward to sharing more about our schoolhouse experience here!
Schoolhouse Saturday will be brought to you here every Saturday by A Panama Mama.
Check back each week for updates on school life, curriculum, our lending library and more.
If you have something you’d like to hear about, feel free to let me know in the comments.
Thanks for visiting!
Thanks for sharing!
My wife is an teacher, so I'm always interested in education related subjects, especially for elementary age kids. It's neat to see how you're using field trips and experiences to shape their education. Looking forward to more updates.
@tippy vote
@originalworks
The @OriginalWorks bot has determined this post by @apanamamama to be original material and upvoted it!
To call @OriginalWorks, simply reply to any post with @originalworks or !originalworks in your message!
To nominate this post for the daily RESTEEM contest, upvote this comment! The user with the most upvotes on their @OriginalWorks comment will win!
For more information, Click Here!
The kids and I have a lot of fun. I like the freedom I have while homeschooling. Like last year, we were moving and it was impossible to pack while schooling and doing everything else, so we took our "summer" a little early. This summer, we didn't take any time off (and the kids are too young to notice). Funny thing about Panama is their school year runs March to December. They get their "summer" off starting around Christmas (when dry season starts).
Kids learn more from field trips than they do reading about something. You're a busy bee with 5 little ones!
I love hearing about different teaching curriculum. There are so many of them out there it is good to know some are free.
Yes, we love this one. The reason I was attracted to it at first was because it is free. But now we love it and would probably even use it if we had to pay for the lesson plans.
Hi @apanamamama, I just stopped back to let you know your post was one of my favourite reads and I included it in my Steemit Ramble. You can read what I wrote about your post here.
If you’d like to nominate someone’s post just visit the Steemit Ramble Discord
Thanks so much! Appreciate being included! :) Homeschooling is a lot of fun! ;)
Very cool! I think I'd like those field trips too. I also admire your commitment and skill to home school your kids.
Absolutely awesome !!!!! I see my
:) That was a fun tour! :)
Those are really neat homeschooling activities. I think actually going out and doing things like field trips help kids learn. That's one of the unique parts of homeschooling. Really good idea for a post series. I recommend you using the #steemiteducation tag when you write about education topics. A lot of the education community here checks those tags for interesting education posts so it might help other teachers see your posts.
Yes! Thank you! Totally forgot about that tag. I have used it before. Need to remember next time.
Wow is amazing what you are doing with your childs <3
This is good information for those who are thinking about or those who are homeschooling. My children are grown and homeschooling their own children now. Upvoted and resteemed for those that may find the information useful.
Cool thanks! Awesome that your kids homeschool their kids too! I have a friend who was homeschooled and now sends her kids to public. I don't get it... I was raised in public school and taught in public school, but I choose to homeschool.
I hope you do a series of field trips and what you teach at the kids on that week!!! Can't wait for more of your posts.
Yes, I plan to cover what we do on a weekly basis and any field trips we do. This was just an intro. Thanks for the comment! :)
Nice! can't wait!