Ground rules are important but it sounds like you've already got some good stuff underway.
The primary rule for us was - SCHOOL WORK DURING SCHOOL HOURS.
The only way out of this is if the child is so ill that he needs to sleep. Otherwise, I tailor the tasks to his capability.
Schoolwork can be formal (which can be book learning or computer-based); semi-formal, such as watching educational TV shows and DVDs or visiting museums; or informal, such as taking the child shopping as part of a maths/life skills lesson. Even cooking alongside you in the kitchen, is of value. The most important thing for you to do, is to document it and make sure you can explain to outsiders, the educational/curriculum value of what you are doing.
In other words - for the child, you've taken him shopping and perhaps asked him to read the shopping list and go find something. By asking the child to look at prices and help you decide the best value, you are involving the child in some often complex mathematics, especially estimation (which is definitely in the curriculum). The process of paying for the goods and making change is also an important maths lesson plus life skill. Planning a shopping list according to ingredients needed for a recipe is also learning how to follow a procedure as well as plan, act and follow through. It's very important.
difficult child 3's lessons are not exactly home-schooling, because he has teachers for each subject. However, the lessons are done at home, the teachers in contact via mail (electronic or snail mail) or telephone. Only occasionally do student and teacher ever meet. Some never do. So the lesson plans have been developed so they can be done at home. Sometimes CDs or DVDs are sent out, websites are emailed to us and in general, it's a fabulous program which can be tailored to each child.
The fascinating thing for us has been the way the Science practical experiments have been adapted to ingredients available in most homes. There are some wonderful experiments you can do, with no special ingredients. With a few more unusual ingredients, you can have even more educational fun.
We live near the sea and we've had "excursions" to explore organisms in rock pools. We build sand castles as the tide comes in and study erosion. A bit further inland are some mangrove areas which are a fascinating place for study. We've gone fishing there too. Just uphill from the mangroves is a patch of temperate rainforest - we actually have to walk through it to get to where we park the car! So we can explore erosion on the beach, fish in the mangroves and walk through rainforest, all in one short excursion, five minutes' drive from home.
Look around your own environment. Chances are there are some wonderful opportunities and it is amazing, we so often neglect what is right in our own backyards.
The important thing is, to connect it to other aspects of what you teach, to write it up or document it in some way and to make sure you use this to keep the authorities satisfied.
The other important thing - keep it at the right academic challenging level for your child. Some kids need to be led gently, others thrive on heavy challenge. Make sure the child progresses once they have reached the right milestones and make sure the work is properly scaffolded. In other words, don't begin to teach algebra until the child already understands more basic mathematic functions, especially fractions (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of fractions).
If your child seems restless, difficult or bored, involve the child in developing their own curriculum. Be prepared for the child to be needing a lot more challenge. But if the child seems to be struggling, help him/her find another way to learn the material.
Also important - teach your child to identify their own deficit areas, and instead of avoiding them, to actively get stuck in and face the challenges head on. Most important.
Always learn to follow through on questions asked. You don't have to know the answers, just know how to look them up.
And always go look them up. Now. In our house, it's how we live. For example, husband said something last night about British actor, Sir Ian Richardson. I mentioned that he died a couple of years ago.
husband said, "You must be mistaken - surely not!" then went to look it up on iMDB.
Second example - SIL2, when he first moved in with us a couple of years ago, had a big inferiority chip on his shoulder (I call it the "Westie" metnality, after the western suburbs of Sydney which are more working class and where people seem to be a bit blustery and almost "in your face" with ignorance worn as a badge. Totally unnecessary. A few months with us and him making sweeping statements as if they were fact, with us responding with, "That's interesting, I didn't now that. Let's look it up and find out more," and he began to check information for himself before announcing it loudly as fact. As a result he has learned, over time, that there is no shame in not knowing everything. The shame is in CLAIMING to know everything, and never actually learning anything.
Example 3 - SIL2's father was visiting with his daughter, bridesmaid for easy child 2/difficult child 2 and needing a fitting for her dress. Bridesmaid saw some black rice I had soaking (prior to cooking it in the microwave). As you soak it, some of the dark purple colour leaches into the water. "What's this horrible-looking purple stuff?" she asked.
"Yes, it does look a bit off-putting," I said. "It's black rice, I'm eating it because it's higher in fibre and I need every bit of help in my diet. That purple colour is loaded with anthocyanins, very healthy. It used to be only available to the royal family in Thailand, so you might hear it called forbidden rice. It tastes a bit like brown rice."
Her father piped up. "Oh yes, we used to eat that all the time when SIL2 was little. We raised him on it. And also on wild rice." [I had a packet of wild rice out on the bench, highly visible].
"I only heard of this stuff recently, I didn't know we'd had it in Australia so long ago," I replied. "Well, well, that is interesting..." (I was fairly certain he was lying utterly, the only motive being to impress me - WHY?)
He replied with more compounding. "Oh yes, we lived on it. Ate it all the time. My mate Tony, he's Greek, used to get it into his deli for us, specially. He did say it was unusual."
By this stage I was not believing him but I wasn't gonig to call him on it. It just wasn't important. I was feeling a bit mischievous, however, so I began to leak information, piece by piece. I said, "The first time I cooked it I had some problems."
He replied with, "Yeah, my wife said she had some trouble too." (no further elaboration).
I said, "I've found if you soak it for a few hours, it cooks faster."
"Yeah, that's what my wife said, too."
I finally changed the subject and took pity on him. But after they had gone, I began my search for accurate information. And as far as I can determine (and I've shopped at Aussie Asian food supply places for decades) black rice has only been available here for the last five yers or so. Some time after we got access to jasmine rice in the supermarkets.
Now, it's not important. Really it's not. But what I'm describing here is the end result of two attitudes:
1) Ours. We check information out, we look it up. We find out. Not only is there no shame in not knowing, there is excitment and adventure in finding out.
2) His. The "I must seem to be equally cultured/intelligent/educated as them (whoever 'them' may be) or I am the failure I secretly suspect myself to be."
Very sad, because I like the guy, as a person. I just wish he didn't try to coat everything with bulldust. He really had no need to impress me, I certianly wasn't trying to impress him. In fact I was telling his daughter how I was enjoying finding out about this new ingredient in our larder. I happily shared stories of my culinary disasters.
husband says the only day he considers truly wasted is the day he doesn't learn something new, however trivial.
Home should always be a place of learning - about life as well as continung to add to academic progress in cooperation with school. In an informal way, at least. You watch things together, you read the books your kids read, you recommend books you have read to your kids - it's part of family sharing. When you choose to formally home school, it then should simply become an extension of this.
Our house is messy, but has been kindly described as "an enriched environment" with Periodic Table behind the toilet door, star charts on the walls, puzzles in frames in other places. We collect fridge magnets from places we've been, there are stamp albums on the coffee table as well as an amazing, intricate construction by difficult child 3 which is like a fairground ride for billiard balls. A computer in almost every room, sometimes two. Books lining the walls. An enriched environment indeed - to live here, and NOT learn something new each day, takes real effort.
Marg
