ABBA Homeschool Academy

The Key for Getting into the Groove of Homeschooling

abbakd — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 15:13:00 +0000

Getting into the groove of home schooling after the summer break can be a challenge for parents who are homeschooling for the first time or for the 21st time. One of the key ingredients I have discovered when trying to find the schedule and routine that work for both myself and my child is organization. I'm not talking about getting only the school room organized, but the entire home. Disorganization leads to chaos and chaos leads to frustrated and unhappy children and parents. Research has shown that children who are frustrated or unhappy will usually end up giving up on learning mentally and emotionally at some point.

You know how frustrating it is to reach for something you really need only to find out that it isn't in that particular place anymore. This costs time, energy and emotional resources as you quit what you are doing in order to go look for the missing item. Even after you have found what you were looking for, the emotional distress can linger. Imagine what a child, who is responsible for learning an incredibly enormous amount of information during their childhood, must feel to constantly have that flow of learning disrupted in order to search for those missing items. This can put parent and child out of sorts with each other which definitely does not create an effective learning environment. Disorganization is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to successful home schooling that I have seen.

Children have an innate need for orderliness in their environment. Yes, this is true in spite of what their room might look like. Children need a calm, orderly environment in which to learn effectively. Children in an organized learning environment will thrive when they are given love and positive reinforcement. These children are able to focus better and complete their tasks in a timelier manner. This is especially important when you have a certain amount of time set aside for your school with a set number of assignments that need to be completed within that time frame.

Parents I have observed that seem to be able to quickly get into the groove of home schooling have several things in common. One thing they have in common is that they are very organized. They didn't necessarily start out that way, but they learned that it was vital to their success and they took the time and effort to make the change. These parents have all their school supplies where they can find them easily. Their classroom, whether it be a separate room set aside for learning, or the kitchen table, is organized and clean. They have their books, Project Boxes and other curriculum items laid out ready to go. They organize their school day ahead of time. They know what each child needs to be doing before they sit down to teach them because they went to the effort to organize their school schedule ahead of time. They don't wait until the last minute to attempt to get organized.

I can personally vouch that when you get organized you'll find your homeschool groove a lot faster and easier. Your home school experience will be so much more rewarding and fun. You'll have more patience and enthusiasm when teaching and you won't get tired as quickly. Your bond with your child will strengthen and you'll be amazed as you watch your children blossom and thrive under your leadership. Organization is, without a doubt, one of the key factors to a successful homeschool experience. If you need help finding your home school 'groove', give us a call at (620) 223-3434 and we'll be happy to give you suggestions and tips that have worked for us.

Why Finding Your Child's Learning Style Is Important

abbakd — Fri, 05 May 2006 00:44:00 +0000

The term 'learning Styles' has become a commonplace phrase among home educators. While many homeschooling parents tell me they have heard of the term, they also tell me they really don't know if the are teaching to their child's learning style or not. Or they don't know if it really makes any difference anyway. Many homeschooling parents also tell me they don't know their own learning style or how their learning style affects the way they teach their children.

In order to effectively teach to your child's learning style, it is important to first discover your own learning style. This needs to be done before attempting to diagnose your child's learning style. Your learning style will directly impact the way you attempt to teach your child. It is normal to try to teach in your own learning style. If you are aware of your own style of learning, you will be able to modify your teaching to better reflect your child's learning style. This will prevent countless moments of frustration on both the part of the parent as well as the child. Determining your own learning style can be done by taking the ABBA Homeschool Academy learning style quiz.

While there are several different types of learning styles depending on the learning theory, we will address three of the most common learning styles; the kinesthetic learner, the visual learner, and the auditory learner.

One reason to learn your child's learning style in order to be a more effective teacher is that learning styles influence almost every aspect of your child's life whether you realize it or not. They influence the way your child processes information, the way they recall that information, and even the way they describe that information. Learning styles influence which hobbies or sports your child will become most interested in. Your child's learning style and the style in which you teach will determine whether they become an engaged learner or a bored learner. It will most likely even influence the career they eventually choose.

We know from research that different learning styles use different areas of the brain during the learning process. For example, the kinesthetic learner uses the cerebellum and the motor cortex which is responsible for most physical movement; the auditory learner uses the temporal lobes which are responsible for any aural processes; and the visual learner uses the occipital lobes which are responsible for our visual sense.

Research has also shown that the more areas of the brain we are able to use when teaching our children, the better they will be able to fully comprehend the material, the longer they will retain it and the better they will be able to apply it. Your child's dominant learning style will determine the way they are able to use the other areas of the brain. At ABBA Homeschool Academy, we maximize your child's learning potential by integrating ABBA Homeschool Academy Project Boxes and Living Books into their own customized curriculum. This is especially valuable for addressing kinesthetic learning. We also allow our parents to mix and match from our curriculum choices. This customization will help you accurately teach to your child's learning style.

Another reason it is important to discover your child's learning style is a
common assumption that traditional schools attempt to teach to every learning style, therefore, the way traditional schools teach must be the way I need to teach. Parents who believe this usually have a child who did poorly in school and was labeled 'learning disabled', 'special needs', 'behavior disorder' etc. That list could go on and on. Or, they have observed someone else's child that carried that label and believed to themselves that it must surely fit that particular child.

When a child is labeled, it is a sad fact that people will have a tendency to look for things in that child that makes that label fit. Even the child will eventually start to believe their label must indeed fit. Children who are labeled may drag their 'label' through life believing it is accurate. At ABBA Homeschool Academy we work with parents to help determine their child's unique learning style and to customize a curriculum that truly fits their child.

People who believe that the traditional school system must have some fool proof way to diagnose these children have come to believe it is the child that has the problem. They haven't considered that maybe the traditional school system simply failed to teach to that child's particular learning style. The truth is that most school systems don't even attempt to discover their students' learning styles. Most traditional school systems still use didactic lectures and bookwork as their sole means of teaching. This may work somewhat for those who are visual or auditory learners, but it spells disaster waiting to happen for children who are kinesthetic learners.

It is a statistical fact that most little girls are predominantly visual or auditory learners while most little boys are predominantly kinesthetic learners. Who are the children labeled 'behavior disorder' or 'learning disability' in the traditional school system? Little boys are - many times over.

Boys are many times more likely to become a high school dropout than are girls. This statistic changes dramatically when boys are effectively taught to their learning style and even more dramatically the sooner this change is made. When a child's learning style is accommodated they suddenly become an engaged learner.

So, no matter what learning style your child has, it is important to discover and maximize it. Because an engaged learner is a successful learner. Your child will, in turn, carry that success into every aspect of their adult life. If you have any questions regarding learning styles, our curriculum, or the services we offer here at ABBA Homeschool Academy, please feel free to give me a call at (620) 223-3434.

~ By Connie Wollenhaupt

Do Home School Children Keep the Faith of their Parents?

abbakd — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 00:14:00 +0000

~ Connie Wollenhaupt

Studies reported by the NHERI have shown that over 94% of homeschooled children will maintain the faith of their parents after they have graduated. This is particularly important because the two most frequent reasons parents gave for teaching their children at home was to provide a better education for them and for religious reasons. The third and fourth most common reasons parents gave for homeschooling were to teach their children certain values, beliefs, and worldviews and to develop better character and morality. Choosing a fundamentally sound Christian curriculum, such as offered by ABBA Homeschool Academy, is important in helping parents pass their faith on to their children.
There are additional actions you as a parent can take to ensure your children keep the faith.

Let your children know that God is important to you. Talk about Him to your children during the course of your day. Don’t wait until you’re teaching Bible to tell your children how important God is.

Pray with your children at different times during your day. Start your school day off with prayer. Make sure to thank God for Blessing you with your children. Call them by name when you pray.

Be involved in your church. But at the same time don’t let church activities split your family apart. Make Sunday the best day of the week, something your children will look forward to.

Use incidents that happen during the day as a way to prove to your children that you believe what you profess. Let the circumstances of life become opportunities to model God’s message of love, forgiveness and trust. This is probably the single most important way to evangelize your children.

When your child has a problem, make sure you pray with them. Use problems as a teaching tool to instruct your children in Christian values and beliefs. Conflicts between siblings can be a great way to teach Biblical conflict resolution and forgiveness.

Let your children know that you consider home schooling to be a privilege, not a chore. Let them know that they are important to you and that they are important to God.

Every curriculum offered by ABBA Homeschool Academy is based on Christian principles and contains a Bible course as one of the core subjects. We believe our curriculum choices will help make it easier for you as a parent to pass on your Christian values, beliefs, and worldviews to your children. The Christian principles taught throughout our curriculum will help your children develop better character and morality. All of these are vital to your children keeping the faith.

How to Choose the Right Home School Curriculum

abbakd — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 00:12:00 +0000

~ Connie Wollenhaupt

A common refrain heard among home school parents is, “Finding the right curriculum is so confusing”. Another familiar concern is, “I tried a certain curriculum and it didn’t seem to work for my child”. Homeschooling parents can be so overwhelmed with the myriad of curriculum choices that they settle for a curriculum they have heard that worked for someone else’s child. After they purchase that curriculum they find to their dismay that it isn’t the right choice for their child. Choosing a home school curriculum can be a very confusing process. There are a myriad of choices out there and unless you have some prior knowledge of the different curriculums, it can be extremely difficult trying to figure out which one will work for your child.
ABBA will take several things into consideration when helping you choose the right home school curriculum for your child.
The first thing to consider is your child’s learning style. Not every curriculum will work for every learning style. If you don’t know what your child’s learning style is you can go to ABBA Homeschool Academy’s ‘learning style’ page and take our ‘Learning Style Online Quiz’. This will help you determine if your child is a Visual Learner, an Auditory Learner, or a Tactile/Kinesthetic Learner. A Visual Learner is one who learns by seeing, an Auditory Learner is one who learns by hearing, and a Tactile/Kinesthetic Learner is one who learns through movement such as touching and feeling. Taking the Online Learning Quiz yourself will let you know if your learning style is different than your child’s. A person’s teaching style will usually closely follow their own learning style. Taking this quiz will help you as a teacher know where you might need to make adjustments in your teaching style to better fit your child’s learning style. Making the necessary adjustments in your teaching style is vital to ensuring your child gets the most out of their home education. No matter what your child’s learning style is, ABBA Homeschool Academy will have a curriculum that matches.
In addition to knowing your child’s learning style, there are several questions you need to ask yourself when deciding which home school curriculum to use. What is your schedule like? How much free time do you have to devote to lesson planning, scheduling, etc? For parents who are very busy and don’t have a lot of extra time the ACE and Alpha Omega’s LifePac might be good choices. They are self-instructional and require minimal lesson planning. They have the instructions to the child written in each lesson. Whereas, the BJU Press and Christian Liberty Press curriculum does require more lesson planning on the part of the parent. The Teacher’s Guides for the BJU Press can be quite large and some subjects have two large Teacher’s Guides for one student textbook. The BJU Press works well when parents spend time the evening before planning out the next day’s school schedule and lessons.
Another question to think about is – How many children do you have? Are they close together in age? If so, the Weaver Unit Studies might be an option. This allows the parent to teach several children at a time. The Switched-On-Schoolhouse (SOS) curriculum uses the computer as the main teaching aid. Everything is done on the computer and the tests are automatically graded for the parent. The SOS does require a little more effort from the parents while installing the software and setting up the school calendar. Once this is done, however, the child can usually work with minimal supervision from the parent. The SOS is a fully interactive multimedia program with thousands of videos built into the software. The SOS and the LifePac curriculum are published by the same company and follow the same basic scope and sequence for the most part.
One question to also contemplate is how much time you spend traveling away from home. The SOS curriculum requires your child to be in front of the computer every school day. The LifePac and ACE curriculums, however, are easily carried with you in a vehicle or on a plane. They come in individual units per subject and can fit into a suitcase or carry on bag with no problem. Other curriculums like the BJU Press and Christian Liberty Press have traditional textbooks which are not as easily packed.
You also need to know if your child is a concrete learner or if they become easily overwhelmed. The Ace curriculum comes in bite sized units of study called PACES. There are 12 paces per subject. Each quarter your child would receive 3 of those paces from each subject. This works very well for children who thrive when they can see progress being made quickly. The children attain a sense of achievement when they complete a unit. This is encouraging to those children who are easily frustrated and who might shy away from a large textbook. The children learn the academic concepts in the paces in a methodical yet interesting manner.
It’s also important to ask yourself if your child enjoys writing. If so, the LifePac curriculum has more of a writing component to it than the ACE curriculum. Your child will write more essays and reports with the LifePac curriculum than with the ACE curriculum. This is also good to know if your child doesn’t like to write as much. The traditional textbooks from the BJU Press and Christian Liberty Press also require essays and reports.
One last question to weigh is whether or not your child seems to learn best by doing hands-on activities. All children usually like doing projects, but for some children this seems to be the best way they learn. The LifePac curriculum has a lot of supplemental activities that a hands-on learner might enjoy. The BJU Press also has extra activities for the child. Research has proven that doing hands-on activities can enhance learning for most everyone. ABBA Homeschool Academy has taken that into consideration and has incorporated Project Boxes with every curriculum. The Project Boxes are shipped every quarter and have enough activities to last from 3-12 weeks. The Project Boxes contain most of the materials needed to complete the activities. Each Project Box is designed to enhance some academic concept your child is studying that quarter.
When assessing learning styles in your child remember that everyone will have a mixture of different learning styles. However, there will be one certain style that is dominant. This is the one that you will want to consider the most. There are other factors to consider also in addition to the learning style of your child. Having a full service academy like ABBA Homeschool Academy can help you determine which curriculum is right for your child. ABBA also allows you to mix and match from our curriculum choices. A parent might like a certain curriculum for math and another curriculum for the other subjects. You are not locked into any one curriculum. If you find that a curriculum doesn’t seem to be working for your child one year, you may make a change the following year. With ABBA you are free to choose what works best for your child.

Is Your Home Schooled Child Bored To Tears?

abbakd — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 06:20:00 +0000

“Mommy this is boring, kids at a ‘real’ school don’t have to do this!” Sound familiar? Same tune, different refrain perhaps? Maybe add some squirming and fidgeting. We have heard variations of this sad tale from different home schooling parents who have visited our booth during the homeschool conventions. Their common solution has been to try to force the child to do ‘it’ anyway, followed by a lecture on obedience. While it is a God-given command that children obey their parents, and therefore is vitally important, it is also important that parents try to understand the reason behind their child’s behavior and attitude. Here are three suggestions we have found that may help bring about a change in the child’s attitude and the parent’s response toward the child’s behavior.

First, examine your attitude towards your child’s education. Ask yourself where the part of homeschooling that involves sitting down and spending time with your child ranks on your daily priority list. If you find yourself telling your child, “Well, lets hurry and get your school done today so we can….. (you fill in the blank)”, then this will certainly foster the same unenthusiastic attitude in your child. This tells your child there are more important things in your day than ensuring he receive a quality education. Instead, try to change your child’s behavior by changing your attitude towards school. As you sit down with your child tell yourself to put this day in perspective by realizing that, with an enthusiastic and gracious attitude on your part, this could be the one day your child remembers most fondly about being homeschooled. Turn off the phone, if possible, for two hours every day during school. Put on a smile and just revel in being with your child. Tell yourself this time will never be counted as wasted. You’ll be surprised how quickly your new attitude transfers to your child.

Secondly, look at what you’re offering to your child as far as variety in their school day. Do you do the same thing day in and day out? What does your child have to look forward to? Do the things they have to look forward to relate to school or something other than school? School can be fun when you add variety and enthusiasm. One of the best ways to so this is by including hands-on activities during the school day. This can be done during the school lesson or after the sit down portion of the school day is over. Many research studies have shown that children who do hands-on activities learn faster and also retain the information longer. Not only that, hands-on activities help ensure that children with any type of Learning Style are performing at their fullest potential. That is one reason we at ABBA Homeschool Academy, have included Project Boxes, with numerous hands on activities, every quarter that correlate to the concepts being taught. These Project boxes contain almost all the materials needed to complete the projects, as well as, detailed instructions for the parents. Most Project boxes have enough activities to last from 3-12 weeks.

Thirdly, check to see if you or your child might be burnt out. This could be part of the attitude problem with your child and, fortunately, is something that is easily remedied. One of the main culprits in homeschool burnout is a boring routine that is imposed on the child by a parent who has the misconception that learning can only take place when their child is seated with pencil in hand. This is an especially common mistake that first time homeschooling parents often make, especially if they have pulled their child out of a traditional school. Their expectations of academic achievement have been colored by a peer-segregated system, in which order and control of a classroom often have to come first, thus sitting at a desk takes up a large portion of the day. As stated above, research has shown that children actually learn better when exposed to a variety of experiences and activities. Take your child on a field trip on a regular basis and incorporate it into their curriculum so that it is not something that happens ‘outside’ of school. Research your field trip with your child before you go, so they will get more out of it and will appreciate it more. Look up your states homeschool website for a list of suggested fieldtrips in your area. Most importantly, don’t feel guilty for having fun. After all, school should be fun and you have been given this once-in-a lifetime opportunity to make these home schooling years the best ones in our child’s life.

Copyright 2005 by Connie Wollenhaupt, ABBA Homeschool Academy

Do You Have What It Takes To Homeschool Your Child...

abbakd — Sat, 13 Aug 2005 01:28:00 +0000

Do You Have What It Takes To Homeschool Your Child?

You may be asking the same question that thousands of other parents are also asking - Do I have what it takes to homeschool my child? Perhaps you've been sending your child to a traditional school, or it is time to begin school soon and you're trying to decide the best route for your child's education. If you've been feeling a little scared about trying home education, you're not alone.
Many parents report feelings of anxiety, worry and fear when considering homeschooling for the first time. A common feeling of being unqualified to teach their child, or anxious that they might miss something in their child's education, or overwhelmed by the curriculum choices out there. So what does it take to homeschool your child?

If you want to know if you have what it takes to home school your child just ask yourself these four simple questions:
1). Do I have the discipline to learn and grow with my child? Time has proven that parents who are successful in educating their children at home are those parents who are willing to provide an interactive learning experience for their child consistently. This doesn't necessarily mean that you have to spend hours planning lessons every day. What it does mean, is that you're willing to embrace the excitement of discovering again for the first time. Laugh with your child and show enthusiasm. If you can remember and recreate the excitement of discovery, and are willing to convey that feeling to your child even when you don't feel like it, then, you're well on your way to homeschooling success.
You will find innovative ways to create enthusiasm in even the most bored children in an upcoming post entitled "Is Your Child Bored To Tears?”

2). Am I able to read and write well? This may seem like a no-brainer, however, many surveys have shown that it is possible tograduate from some traditional high schools with a high school diploma and still not be able to read the Sunday paper or write well enough to communicateeffectively. Or perhaps English is not your native language and you find yourself struggling to understand certain phrases or words at times. To homeschool their children successfully, especially young children who haven't yet learned to read, most parents do need to be able to read and write English well.
Becoming literate is possible at any age. Parents who are not sufficiently literate in English can go on and successfully homeschool their children after using a good phonics program. Most adults are able to learn to read well if they apply themselves with a good phonics program for 3-4 months. Finding the right phonics program, such as those offered by ABBA Homeschool Academy, is important. ABBA Homeschool Academy has several excellent phonics programs that work equally well for children and adults.

You may be saying, "of course I can read and write, but I don't have a college degree or any teaching credentials, so how will I know how to teach my child?" While a high percentage of home school parents do have a college degree, that doesn’t mean that if you don't have a college degree or teaching credentials, you can't successfully homeschool. Studies show that having a high school diploma and college degree will not necessarily make you a better teacher of your child anymore than it will make you a better parent. These same studies have shown that homeschooled children, who have parents without a college degree, perform just as well on standardized tests as those homeschooled children who have parents with college degrees.
What is important to your homeschooling success, however, is finding the right curriculum and having educational support and guidance. Many parents find that enrolling with the right homeschool academy, especially a full-service academy like ABBA, can provide the support and guidance needed. Not only does ABBA provide the full academic services you would find at a brick and mortar school, but they also provide added services and a unique style of curriculum not typically found at other academies.
Find further information about ABBA's academic services and unique interactive curriculum in an upcoming post entitled "How To Find The Right Homeschool Curriculum For Your Child".

3). Do I have the right curriculum for my child's learning style? Without the right curriculum for your child's particular learning style, you will find your child becoming more and more frustrated as the school year progresses. Parents who try to force the wrong type curriculum on their children, have children who lose their love of learning. Having the right curriculum for your child may make the difference between academic success or failure. Misunderstanding a childs learning style often gets many students the label "Learning Disabled" by the traditional school system.
It is important that you find the curriculum that will complement your child's learning style. Finding your child's learning style is not as difficult as you might think with the help of informative charts such as those found on ABBA's Learning Styles page. There are also questions you can ask in discovering your child's learning style: Is your child always moving or fidgeting? Most likely he is a tactile/kinesthetic learner. Is your child always talking? Maybe your child is an auditory learner. Does your child often ask to see the pictures or videos of the lesson? This may be a clue that your child is a visual learner. Accommodate these different approaches to learning with the curriculum at ABBA Homeschool Academy.
You will find further help in discovering your child's learning styles in an upcoming post entitled "How to Find Your Child's Learning Style and Teach Effectively".

4). Do I have the necessary academic support and guidance I need? If you're like many other parents, you've sometimes found yourself wondering what you need to do next with your child or what project or activity might help your child fully understand a new concept. Questions like these are easy to answer if you have the proper academic support and guidance of a full-service homeschool academy, such as ABBA.
It is sometimes frightening and overwhelming to find yourself accountable for your child's education. Parents enrolled in a homeschool academy report feeling much more confident and sure of their child's academic success when they know they have a knowledgeable educational staff supporting them.It is important to enroll in an academy that not only has staff with teaching experience, but with staff who also have personal experience homeschooling their own children. There's just no substitute for being able to talk with a homeschool academy staff member who understands where you're coming from because they've been there themselves. The reassurance that someone understands your problems, and has helped you come to a workable solution, can promote confidence in your ability to homeschool, and that, in turn will inspire confidence in your child.
Studies have shown that children who feel confident score much higher on academic tests and most go on to lead productive lives as adults. At ABBA Homeschool Academy, we not only have experienced teachers on staff, but more importantly, most of our staff has active homeschooling experience. We understand your unique problems, we've faced them ourselves and we're there to give you the support you need.

Without a doubt, children learn best and to their fullest potential when taught by someone who loves them and takes a personal interest in their every need. A love of learning, a love for your child, and the right curriculum and homeschool support is more important than having credentials or degrees.

John Gatto said, of teaching children, in an article for the March 2002 Life Learning Magazine, "You can be trained from outside, but only educated from within; one is a habit of memory and reaction, the other a matter of seizing the initiative".

Copyright © 2005 by Connie Wollenhaupt, ABBA Homeschool Academy

Home school curriculum choices

abbakd — Mon, 08 Aug 2005 07:24:00 +0000

ABBA Homeschool Academy recognizes your desire for unique and exciting curriculum that will enhance your child's learning experience. With our flexible home school curriculum, your child is free to explore, discover, and imagine while you, as the parent, are able to maintain control over the type of curriculum you teach your child.

With our flexible curriculum choices, you are no longer locked into a set curriculum that may or may not be working for your child. Instead, you are free to choose from the core subjects of Math, English, Language Arts including Spelling and Reading, History/Geography (Social Studies), Science, and Bible from our variety of Homeschool Curriculum Publishers. You may choose all core subjects from the same curriculum, or you may mix and match from our diverse selection.

If you find that one particular style of curriculum does not seem to be working well for your child, you are free to choose a different one the following year.

In addition to the core subjects, your child will also receive quarterly Project Boxes and Living Books Sets which correlate to the academic concepts they will be studying that quarter. Your child will also receive a yearly Imagination Station designed to enhance their creativity and love of learning.

No other homeschool academy offers you this freedom of flexible home school curriculum choices with such value-added items as the hands-on Project Boxes, Living Books Sets, and the Imagination Stations!