This year, I met so many new parents who are considering homeschooling in the upcoming school year. I have so many things I want to tell them. But then I refrain because I know a lot of how we homeschool reflects our own personal experience growing up, how we think our children ought to be taught, our own children’s personality and their academic level, etc.
For me, I’d already chosen the Montessori curriculum years ago. However, I’ve since learned that Montessori homeschooling is different from a Montessori public education, you get to be more fluid and you can customize and tailor. Now that I have a better understanding of what the Montessori curriculum actually means, I’ve relaxed and started looking at other curriculum.
So I thought what I would do is to interview people who have different educational philosophies and highlight how they’re homeschooling, the curriculum they use, their daily routines, etc. Basically be nosy and get answers to questions I always want to know whenever I meet a new homeschooler!
Hopefully this series will be helpful for people who are just starting to research homeschooling.
Mandarin Mama
For my first profile, I wanted to interview Mandarin Mama, who is in her first year of homeschooling. Mandarin Mama has 3 kids, 6.2 year old boy in kindergarten, 4.4 year old girl, and 2.5 year old boy. She sums up her homeschooling philosophy as, “Outsource as much as you can. When you can’t outsource, blatantly steal other people’s ideas”. I love using her as an example whenever people tell me homeschooling is hard work and that’s why they would never do it. I hope it makes people pause a little and think, “Hey, maybe it is possible!”
I love finding out how others teach because often it gets my brain out of its stubborn ideas. From Mandarin Mama, I learned there’s no shame in outsourcing. It doesn’t mean I’ve failed. I didn’t think she was failing by outsourcing, but somehow I had it in my head a Montessori teacher is supposed to prep everything and do everything themselves. But I’ve come to realize, given my personality, I can’t do it all in a timely manner.
Why homeschool, and how long?
She chose to homeschool because she wanted to make sure her children learn Chinese when they’re young. But she expects to homeschool till high school because she feels that certain subjects, such as American and World history, are not taught in the way she feels they should in school. She also feels that children are taught to regurgitate what teachers tell them and taught to think critically about the wrong things in public schools.
For Mandarin Mama, she had 2 years of being introduced to the idea by other Chinese homeschoolers, stalking homeschooling groups, reading books and doing research, plus a year of stories of her friends’ kids in public school. She broached the idea with her husband and he was generally amicable. The decision to homeschool was finally made when she had to register child #1 for kindergarten. What pushed her over was the thought, “If I mess it up, what’s the big deal. It’s only kindergarten.”
Where the Children get their Chinese
The kids are in an OPAL (one parent one language) household. She speaks Mandarin whenever she can, including using dictionaries for words she doesn’t know. She also insists on her children speaking Mandarin back. Her two oldest have lunch dates with Mandarin speaking grandma once a week. She speaks Chinese fluently but would prefer to read in English. (There were many Sagebook characters, especially in the latter sets, she didn’t know and learned alongside her son.)
Her oldest boy started 3hrs/2x/wk preschool at 3 and added another 3hrs/2x/wk preschool at 4. Both are 100% Chinese immersion, for a total of 4 days a week. The second child went to the two preschools at 3. One preschool is play-based and teaches some zhuyin and Chinese characters more the Montessori way. The other preschool is more traditional and teaches simplified characters. All 3 children are also going to a Mandarin Mommy and Me class once a week until they start preschool, with the oldest tagging along younger siblings if he doesn’t have other classes at that time slot.
In addition, they listen Chinese CDs in the car 50% of the time, and watch Chinese cartoons. This year she will be going back to Taiwan for the second time for about 5-6 weeks for the immersion experience.
As of now, child #1’s is stronger in spoken English but stronger in Chinese reading/writing. Child #2 is stronger in Chinese. And child #3 understands both English and Chinese equally but isn’t speaking much in either language. (Note: This is very typical of bilingual households, especially for a later child who is a boy!)
Where the Children get their English
Other than their dad, the children watch English YouTube videos, with #1 starting at about 18 months and #2 and #3 as babies. They have not learned any English reading and writing but play with English phonics apps and English video games.
For child #1, he’s also getting English exposure through the extracurricular activities he’s signed up this year as a kindergartener.
Daily Schedule for Child #1
Mandarin Mama runs a year round school schedule. However, since she takes classes outside of the home, and many classes are available only in the summer, she tends to sign #1 for camps in Summer or Spring breaks.
As we all know, our plans and ideas change. In the beginning of the year, she took pictures of what “work” available and had her son choose. She logged them in a weekly checklist so she knows she’s doing enough “school”. As the semester progressed, she stopped asking her son to choose his work and moved the finished work picture from one picture holder to another once the routine was down.
She also dropped everything else except for Sagebooks and Singapore Math. Here’s what her schedule looks like now. (Note: This happened to me last year too. I started with ideas of what I wanted to accomplish, but ended up dropping most things and focusing on reading and math.)
- 7-7:30 Wake up, dress self, go downstairs and play Minecraft or Halo or watch iPad until about 8:30-9:00
- 8:30-9:00 Practice piano
- 9:30 Play or go to class. She makes sure to ask him to do Chinese or Math a few times a week. Sometimes he asks to do math himself. Sometimes they go through phases where Chinese or Math isn’t done for a few weeks due to life, or #1 or Mandarin Mama not asking.
The children have a lot of free play time. For next year, what she’ll do is to figure out what a 1st grade curriculum should look like and find appropriate classes for him. This may likely include Science and History.
Curriculum for Child #1
For Mandarin Mama, her decision for what curriculum to use is, “If it takes a lot of effort, it’s not for me.” She says she’s drawn to things that make the kids think differently and help them find and examine patterns and solve puzzles. Rather than using manipulative in her curriculum (as those curriculum would takes a lot of effort on her part to implement), she provides it in the children’s play environment. So for toys, she likes any sort of magnetic building block, Legos, Cuisinaire rods, pattern blocks, logic games, and puzzles.
For Mandarin Mama, she choose the classes for her son and he can drop it after finishing a term. The only non-negotiables are Chinese, Kung Fu, and Music.
Practical Life – Major focus of first semester of homeschooling. Learning address/phone number, dressing himself, getting own milk and breakfast, how to use house key, get mail, how to write name in English, and folding laundry. He has no defined chores other than having to clean up his toys.
Chinese – Sagebooks or Greendfield 15-45min/3-4x/week, zhuyin class 1/5hr/1x/wk last semester, Chinese class 3hr/1x/wk. He learns his reading and writing in the Chinese class. He’s currently reading Chinese picture books.
English – None. She has told him he can learn phonics once he’s mastered zhuyin.
Science – Playwell Lego class 1x/wk (physics of a lot of things) in English, Youtube videos in English.
Math – Singapore Math 2A, non-Common Core edition. Minimum 15 minutes each session, no limit on number of pages. The book is in English but she translates it into Chinese and writes the instruction in Chinese. M2 logic classes 2x/wk 50min each at seed2sprout, in Chinese.
History – None
Art – Chinese calligraphy 2 hrs/week in Chinese, art teacher 1hr/1x/wk in English, art co-op/playdate 2hr/wk
Music – 30min/1x/wk piano lessons and practice 10-15 min 3-5x a week in English
PE – Kung Fu 2x/wk, swimming 1x/wk, soccer 1x/wk, basketball 1x/week. All English except Kung Fu. He’s in this many sports because this is the last year before teams care whether or not you’re good.
Socialization – Weekly play group at her house. All the classes he’s taking. Weekly Art co-op. She throws many parties and events each year.
If She Had Any Advice
Here is Mandarin Mama’s advice.
- Always always know what your goals are (like with Chinese)
- Know why do you want to homeschool?
- What is most important for them to learn? That is what is important. For her, she realized what is most important for her this first year is Math and Chinese and that is what she chose to focus on.
- Think of goals on a weekly, monthly, and yearly basis, as well as the big picture. It took a lot of thinking, about 2 years worth. But it is helpful because then you don’t stress out.
Getting Time for Oneself
Mandarin Mama finds time for herself during Moms’ Night Outs. During the day, if she needs time for herself, she asks her husband, who works from home, to watch the children, or allows them to use the iPad, play Minecraft or video games while she takes some time for herself.
As she says, ” I don’t ever feel as if i have no time for myself. The problem is using that time wisely.”
Here are some more pictures of her homeschool environment.
Tada! Mandarin Mama has her own blog, where she talks about everything she finds important in her life, including learning Chinese.
This is an awesome article. Thank you for sharing. I have been thinking about homeschool for long time. I am still at the edge. 🙂