What time should Homeschoolers Wake Up?

The wifie and I have been married to one another for over 26 years ..... and for the vast majority of things, we see eye to eye.  When we don't, usually one or the other easily slides to the other persons point of view with very little resistance.  However, one area that neither of us has budged on is around what time the girls should wake up in the morning.  Val believes that the girls should wake up at the same time each morning, say 7am, get dressed, eat breakfast, brush their teeth, and then start their day.  I'm of the opinion that the girls should sleep until they naturally wake up, then start their day even if that means 9:27 am or 10:11 am, and that if they feel like doing the first half of their school activities in their sleepy clothes then they can.  Brushing is important for hygiene purposes so that should be done too of course, but pajama clothes are fine.    

As I searched out the homeschool social media sphere to gather more opinions (hoping to find more of mine of course), I've found plenty of arguments and "scientific" reasons for both points of view.  They run from the "get them ready for the real world" perspective to "children need more sleep as they go into their teenage years."  It seems there is no "best" approach, just as there isn't a best approach for any one way of home schooling. 

So, here we are ... Val and I on opposite sides of the matter, with equal say into the approach.  Where did we end up?  Well, the girls made this a non issue by simply getting up and handling everything themselves by 8:30 am!  They make their own breakfast, eat, brush teeth, get dressed for the day, and we are into our martial arts training.  Now, there have been some mornings where one of the daughters is slow to get up, and on those rare mornings (about once every three weeks or so), I don't go pushing them out of bed.  I let them rest, trusting that their body must need it.  There are also some mornings where the youngest likes to stay in her PJs until after Karate training, and that's find too.  They are self driven young ladies, so when they slow down .... there is a reason.

First Day of Homeschool!

Ahhhh, it is finally here!!! Yeah!! We are so super excited.  Today is the very first day of our homeschool!

Wait, what?! It is June 1st? The start of Summer.

Yep, it sure is.

You may recall the blog post about the Try Before You Buy homeschool model wherein you try homeschooling for an entire summer to see if it would really work for you and your family.  What we've done for a number of years is do summer homeschool, the Try Before You Buy model, so our girls simply expect to continue their learning all summer long.

So, what's changing in their daily routines?  Nothing from the previous summer.

Over the years, we've refined our homeschool summer model to fit with what actually works in our family.  Our schedule has turned into something pretty simple.

Today, for example, the girls got up at 8:30AM, and they are now finishing their breakfast. At 9AM, we will begin 30 minutes of morning Martial Arts training, lead by my eldest (she leads on Thursdays), and then they will do their academics.  They already know what to do and in what areas they need to cover.  They have complete freedom in the order they do their work, a lot of latitude in the modes of learning (digital, worksheets, book, dad taught, videos, ....) and how much time to spend in each area.  At 12 noon, the youngest will prepare lunch (she handles lunches on Thursdays), which we will sit down and eat together, and then it will be chore time.  Once chores are done, if they've achieved their personal learning goals for the day, then they can simply play/do whatever but if they've not made their goals, they return to what they need and want to get done. Dinner will be at 5PM, and we will play a strategy board game as a family around 6PM.  At 7:30PM, we will be at our Dojo for an hour long Martial Arts class.

Because we've been doing this for years, both girls know what is expected of them, and they do it.  It is rare that I need to step in and provide a parental push or adjustment.  Both girls love learning, and since it is driven by areas of interest, they go on their own ... and many afternoons will find them doing extra academics/research/pushing of their minds because they are so interested in something.  Eventually, they will make their way outside to bike ride, play with some kids, challenge me to a game of soccer, or play in the pool.  Each afternoon is different and we simply flow with whatever.

Florida Homeschooling Requirements

We're only a few weeks away from our girls ending common schooling.   It has been an interesting journey thus far, and we (daughters, mom, and dad) are very ready to begin the homeschool in earnest.

As they leave the "system", I have the responsibility to ensure we are playing within the homeschool rules framework of our state.  Our state is a good homeschool state, being supportive of this freedom option, and even provides free resources to us including free online classes!

Our state covers homeschooling requirements primarily within its statutes (The 2016 Florida Homeschooling Statutes).  I've been studying them aggressively to ensure that we are doing this right.

The statues covering homeschool are very straight forward, and they don't seem overly onerous.  Here are some of the key things that I have to pay attention to:

1. "notice shall be filed in the district school superintendent’s office within 30 days of the establishment of the home education program."

2. "The parent shall maintain a portfolio of records and materials" that consists of a log of what was done and samples of what was done by the student.  The log is to be created as we go.

3. "The parent shall provide for an annual educational evaluation in which is documented the student’s demonstration of educational progress at a level commensurate with her or his ability."

The first one isn't a big deal.  It is a one time paper work filing that has the kids names, ages, etc.  Back in October of 2016, I had reached out to our county's public school system section leader to ensure that I our counties latest preferred form version.  This person (Toney S) was very responsive and got back to me with a cheerful note appending the form.

The second one, maintaining records as we go, is more a discipline issue than anything else.  I believe I will find and use some sort of online journaling software. Hell, a blog could do it.  That is, each day ensure that what we've done is chronicled in some manner that can be accessed.

The third one, the annual education evaluation, seems fair but brings back in the squishy area of subjectivity that I don't like.  However, our state is great in that the evaluations can be done in a number of ways.  According to the Florida statutes, we can do the annual evaluations by:

1. Having a teacher certified in the state of Florida review their work
2. Taking a Nationally Normed Student Assessment Test (aka Standardized Tests)
3. Taking our School District's Assessment Test
4. Having them evaluated by an Education Psychologist licensed in the state of Florida
5. Any other method agreed to between me and the School District Superintendent

Of these options, the one we shall be choosing is a Florida certified teacher yearly evaluation.  I've already found a fantastic link to a directory of Florida teachers willing to do the necessary evaluations.  Prices range from $25 to $50 or so per child per year.  Some of the teachers are earning extra money during the summer months, while others are homeschool parents themselves that happen to be licensed to teach in Florida.  You can find the directory at http://florida-homeschooling.org/evaluator/ 

If I combine the online journaling software with a digital capture of my daughters work, then that would mean all the information for the evaluation by a teacher could be done on-line!  And if the evaluator wants to talk with them, a simple Skype session could be established. That may be a great way to manage and handle all this.  By keeping it online, I could also easily handle the two years of records keeping required by the statutes.

Well alright all right! Here we go!

Our Homeschool Charter

Before upgrading my life to become a homeschool dad, I spent a lot of my time in the active and formal creation and application of "Strategy" to help target and guide organizations. So when I read a blog post about constructing a charter for your own homeschool, I thought "well damn, that makes a lot of sense!"

The homeschool charter becomes a formalized outline of your strategy.  That is, at a very high level, in the universe of all things that could be done, what will you do and wont do.  It also helps capture the fundamental beliefs that drive your approach to homeschooling and education. It becomes a way of keeping decisions aligned so that you can achieve and reach a goal, when there is uncertainty and unknowns before going in.

Below you will find the homeschool charter that I've developed thus far.  It will no doubt morph over time, as all good strategies do.  Oh, I've named our school Exerevno Academy (I thought naming the home school and having a mascot was a good idea too!)

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Homeschool Charter of Exerevno Academy

I. Vision 
 - A world of Self-Sufficient, additive members of the human race

II. Mission
 - To Create Self-Reliant, effective members of society who better the human race 

III. Philosophy
 1. Each human being has a right AND obligation to grow to their full potential. This is only accomplished by pushing on ones perceived boundaries to see if they have reached their own true limits. 

 2. Leveraging the natural tendencies of curiosity, creativity, and resilience, Exerevno Academy provides an environment that cultivates a behavior of  reaching beyond the individuals perceived constraints of the mind, body, and soul thereby enabling the individual to  grow throughout their life time in pursuit of their maximum potential.  

 3. Exerevno Academy provides a challenging environment that cultivates a fearless love of the exploration of life.  Exerevno students enter the world Intellectually, Physically, and Spiritually stronger than most, ready to carry humanity forward.

 4. Actual experience is a far superior teacher to theoretical constructs.  As such, Exerevno Academy aggressively seeks to provide its students with experience based learning opportunities. 

IV. Colors
 - Silver, Gold, and Purple

V. Mascot
 - Dragon

VI. Strategy of Exerevno Academy
 1. Aggressive development in the Student an appreciation and application of feedback loops
 2. Emphasize the perspective pillars of Philosophy and Strategic Thought
 3. Favor learning techniques that are pragmatic over those solely borne of, and use only in, the academic world

VII. Tactics of Exerevno Academy
 1. Encourage self-driven exploration allowing the students to dwell in areas most interesting to them
 2. Foster self-driven analysis of an area under consideration through Science, Spirituality, and History
 3. Cultivate self-driven inclusion in the human race with extensive travel
 4. Grow self-driven problem solving skills by posing challenges, questions, and the like through scenario and word problems 
 5. Improve self-driven knowledge consumption with the exploration of a variety of learning models and memorization techniques

VIII. Operations of Exerevno Academy
 1. Daily practice of Martial Arts, Writing, Problem Solving, and Creative Pursuits
 2. Require each student to create and operate their own business throughout their tenure at the school.
 3. Frequent game play with games requiring strategic thought


IX. Fundamentals
 1. Feedback Loops
 2. Regular Daily Movement 
 3. Metrics and Analysis

(Copyright 2016)