I’ve located the Queen of Lapbooking. She’s hanging out on Squidoo with lots of ideas and advice for new lapbookers like me. Actually I located her earlier this year, but it wasn’t until I saw the power of lapbooking with my own children did I fully appreciate her approach and creativity in her homeschooling efforts.
Jimmie’s been a working mom and a stay-at-home mom and well knows the struggles of both. She never dreamed that she’d be crowned “The Queen of Minibooks” just by doing what came naturally. Here’s her story in her own words:
“I was a public school teacher for seven years before becoming a SAHM. My daughter was born during that time, and so she spent the first three years of her life going to full time day care. When she was three we moved abroad, and I was able to become a SAHM. I’ve been homeschooling her since kindergarten.
I never thought that I would be a homeschooler. I was a teacher who believed in the public school system. But living abroad made homeschooling a necessity. My background in education made homeschooling an easy choice – I knew that I could do a good job. And I’ve found it far more rewarding to teach my daughter who loves me than to teach resistant middle-schoolers.
We live in China. I have three choices of schooling:
- National schools
- International schools, and
- Homeschooling
Chinese schools are unacceptable to our family for reasons of quality of education, unreasonable pressure that students face, and ideology differences. International schools are exorbitantly expensive. The quality of education is not worth that amount of money.
Homeschooling offers quality education at an affordable price. Plus we have the flexibility of managing our own schedule which gives us opportunities to travel. It’s a perfect fit for our situation.
Because I live abroad and have no access to libraries or even bookstores, I have to plan far in advance and bring books over from America, my home country. I started homeschooling with a complete Sonlight core package. It was a perfect decision because I didn’t have to spend any time piecing together resources. It was all there for me.
As the years went on, I began to branch out and choose materials from many different curriculum companies. Basically, I read a lot online and study several homeschool catalogs to decide what I want to teach and what materials I want to use. Currently, we’re using Winter Promise. Feel free to read my own comparison of Sonlight and Winter Promise.
As the years went on, I began to branch out and choose materials from many different curriculum companies. Basically, I read a lot online and study several homeschool catalogs to decide what I want to teach and what materials I want to use. Currently, we’re using Winter Promise. Feel free to read my own comparison of Sonlight and Winter Promise.
We are loosely Charlotte Mason styled homeschoolers. So that means we use a lot of living books and add in things like nature study, composer study, artist study, and Shakespeare.
We like to use lapbooking and notebooking along with other crafts. We also implement a living math approach and use timelines. You can learn more about our homeschool at my Homeschool Gallery or at my blog.
Because we homeschool, we can travel when we want to. My daughter, at age 9, has been to seven countries besides her own home country. She has seen both the Great Wall of China and the Terracotta Warriors. If we didn’t homeschool, there is no way we could do this kind of traveling with her.
Finding time for Sprite to spend time with her peers is, quite honestly, a real challenge for us in two main ways – my daughter is an only child, and Chinese children are very, very busy with school and have little time for free play. That means that we have to be very flexible. When local friends do have time, we drop everything to make play times happen. And we’re proactive. We invite; we seek friends out.
I think that more ridiculous than the questions are the crazy answers we sometimes say just to have fun with people. Chinese people who meet us in public almost always ask about my daughter’s education, “Does she go to school?” is the main question. What they mean is does she go to a local school (there is no other kind of school). My husband and I have been known to have a little fun with them and say something along these lines:
US: School? No way! Why would we do that? She’s a girl! Girls don’t need an education. She’s only going to get married and leave our home anyway!
THEM: (in shock) But I thought Americans valued education! You don’t want her to learn?
US: Who told you that? That’s not true. Americans, we’re so smart, we don’t even need education. You know America is rich! We have money growing around on trees. You just walk out and pick it. Our daughter doesn’t need school.
Of course, then we tell them we’re just kidding and then explain how we do educate her. I have to say, “We teach her at home. She does not go to school to learn. She learns at home. I teach her myself. It’s called homeschool. I have a curriculum from America that I use to teach her myself at home. She studies at home.” Because there is no concept of homeschooling, I have to thoroughly explain it (sometimes a few times).”
There are things that can make being a homeschooler and a budding small business owner easier. Jimmie says:
“Being a planner is helpful, that is, having a long term vision of where you want your child’s education to go, then being able to break that vision down into steps – year long curriculum plans, unit study plans, and lesson plans.
Obviously, a personal love of learning is helpful. If you love studying new things, your joy will rub off on your children. Don’t get worried! It will all come together –reading skills, math skills, even social skills. Take small steps each day. Keep making progress and it will all work out in the end.”
Be sure to check out her Sampler! Just click the link below to enter Jimmie’s world.
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