Kaye and I have been publicly discussing our views of home schooling vs. schooling out of the home (as homeschoolers would call it). Kaye’s last blog has asked so many questions that I have decided to answer them in three blogs instead of just one!
The first question Kaye poses has to do with physical education. If I may, I’m going to expand upon her question, and answer what a home schooling family can do to satisfy requirements (if there are any) regarding art education, music education as well as physical education. I hope that if there are any of you out there who are considering home schooling, and are following this discussion I can provide you with a few ideas. If you’re looking for specific resources, check out my blogs on art and music curriculum resources.
Many states, not all, have requirements regarding these “elective” classes. In most cases, the law merely states that the child should participate in these activities ‘regularly‘; but does not define ‘regularly‘. New York State is one state that requires this and so here is what we do to comply. . .
Physical Education
Our goal for physical education is for our kids to enjoy activity. We hope that they enjoy it enough to lead active lifestyles and incorporate fitness into their daily lives. I don’t think it’s necessary for them to learn the basics of every sport as is taught in schools. I think the point of teaching all those sports in a school setting is to meet the needs of a variety of kids. I don’t have a variety. . . I just have mine and so we try to do things as a family that everyone enjoys.
For the last two years my oldest daughter has done ballet. (For anyone who doesn’t think that ballet qualifies as physical education I challenge you to 30 minutes of barre exercises!) She also plays on a soccer team. My son who is in kindergarten does gymnastics because as he puts it, “he’d like to flip through the air.” I should really look into trapeze school. He also enjoys the occasional rock climbing session.
We have also committed to teaching them how to swim this summer. (Note: It is very common for urban kids to not know how to swim until they’re older because there is such a lack of good, clean pools.) I’ll let you know how it goes–so far it has not gone well! BUT if they haven’t learned by the end of the summer we will sign them up for swimming lessons in the fall–we promise! We further make a point to take them on hikes, bicycling, and we regularly go to the park to run through the sprinklers. We schedule P.E. 3-5 times per week during the spring and summer and 1-2 times per week in the winter. We simply feel like our kids minds work better when they’re active.
Many parents fulfill their requirement for P.E. either through classes, or by allowing participation on a sports team. Also some public & private schools will allow home schooled children to play on the school sports team depending on the rules of the league the particular school is in. Sometimes, a group of homeschoolers will get together and one of the moms will offer P.E. classes.
Art
Art, for most home schooling families, is pretty easy to comply with because there is a lot of curriculums available. However, to me, it seemed silly to purchase a full art curriculum when I live in a city that boasts home to so many world class museums. So I decided to write my children’s art curriculum using the museums that are less than 20 minutes away!
To study art, we make a point to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I wish everyone could have a Met where they live. The collection is so vast that I am sure we’ve been dozens of times and I’m sure we’ve yet to see one fourth of it. But before I go into what could easily become an entirely separate blog. . .here’s what we do:
1) We pick a collection or section–ancient Egypt, renaissance painting, suits and armor, costumes, etc.
2) We make up stories pertaining to the art (mostly to keep the interest of the younger children and because it’s really fun to pretend where some of these things have been!) We capture whatever we can on by digital camera.
3) We come home, dig out our sketch books, paper or clay and try to make something inspired by what we saw. (Note: If you have older children, I highly suggest doing this with the sketchbook at the museum. However, my 1 year old twins would NEVER sit still long enough.)
Of course we go to other art museums but we really like the Met best. I hope that by educating my children this way, they really come to appreciate the role that art plays in culture and in history. However, my kids, I admit, care much more about getting literally “into” the art, and so we just make sure that we provide a variety of materials for them to experiment and play with. My hallway, contains no less that 30 pieces of child created art at any given time and we frequently give artwork out for gifts.
For my daughter, who actually shows interest and talent beyond just getting messy, we have enrolled her in art class at the local Y. She is currently taking pottery, but she has a variety of options to choose from and has taken other things in the past. Classes would be an option for my other children if they wanted to as well, however, their passions seem to lie in other areas.
Not every child is going to become a good artist. But every child can learn to think creatively (something I think art helps you do naturally) and learn to appreciate art. I will add as a side note that I find that by providing a variety of materials and not allowing television to be an option for the majority of free time, my kids find plenty of art to be engaged in!
Music
For us, this has been one of the harder areas to find activities to do. Many families that we know have their kids in private lessons. This is a good option since learning an instrument will teach a child a potentially useful skill plus music theory. My problem is that music lessons cost thousands of dollars. In order for my daughter to do them, she would have to give up art classes (which she really loves) in order to take an instrument that I would most likely choose for her because she really doesn’t know what her options are. To be honest, this just didn’t make sense to me. While searching for options I happened to mention to a friend who is a brilliant musician and composer (and also happens to be a music education student) my struggle. She was home schooled and said this: “I think every one should do what my parents did and let their kids experiment on a bunch of different instruments rather than settling on one so early.”
Well, gosh, all of the kids in her family are fantastic musicians–her parents must know something?! So that’s what we’ve done. At the beginning of every school year, I let my kids choose an instrument that is reasonable and they could play immediately (so not flute or trumpet which are very difficult to get a sound out of at the beginning), we pick up a few books, and just play. So far, we’ve studied drums, violin, and piano. This coming year, I will have a “full orchestra” with one child on the recorder, one on the guitar and one on the piano. They make curriculums, CD’s, and computer programs geared towards teaching these instruments. In fact, at the toy store you can buy recorders with music and instructions included. Should any of my children really fall in love with one of their instruments we will pursue it via private lessons etc. (For those of you who are wondering, the piano was given to us and we got the violin off e-bay. We have never paid more than $25 for an instrument–no more than we may pay for a nice toy for a birthday or Christmas.)
There’s also a children’s choir at our church and we make a point to take our children to some type of show at least twice a year. We have seen a Broadway Musical, gone to orchestra performances, and the ballet. We also love the free performances of local ethnic artists that the library sponsors.
I hope you would agree, our kids aren’t lacking in opportunities in these areas. I think we’re at an advantage because we live in a city that has such great venues however, I think that any home schooling family can do a good job rounding out their child’s education with special activities with a little creativity. Libraries offer good resources and there are likely to be at least some venues relatively nearby for even the most rural families. I think the key to art, music and physical education is to allow children to find their niche and encourage it.