Homeschool Fridays: Classes

This is another rerun from my old blog.

Our homeschool group usually has several classes which are open to the families each school year. Soon, I hope to do more in depth posts about each of the classes, or subjects that have been offered, but here is an overview. Once I have written those posts, I will link to them from here.

First of all, it is important to note that we are NOT a co-op. We have never had one, and most likely never will. That is not to say that we don't like, or approve of homeschool co-ops, but our group has never been part of one.

Classes have generally come about in one of two ways. Often a parent or group of parents decides there is a need for a class in a certain subject area (such as Biology, or Literature), and they then go find a teacher who they can hire relatively cheaply, or find a good textbook that they would like to teach a group from. This usually only happens for the high school and upper middle school aged kids. These types classes can also by more like study groups led by a parent, like the AP European History which was offered last year by a mom who wanted her twin daughters to take the test, and wanted some people for them to study with. So, she cam up with a text and syllabus, and offered it for free to other parents. The kids would then meet once a week for discussion and activities.

The other way is when a parent has a skill or training in a certain area (such as archery, painting, or basketball), and decides to give a class on that subject area. I have gone to wonderful archery classes, print making classes, and stained glass classes which came about in this way.

Though the second type of class is of course always taught by a parent, the first type has a few more options. We have had middle school science classes taught by students from Western Washington University ( a university in our town),  and we have done online classes taught be teachers in other states. I participated in a British Lit class taught that way. I hope to do a full post on that class very soon, so I won't say any more about it now.


I think that is a pretty good representation of the different classes that have been taught in our homeschool group. Questions? Comments? I would love to answer them!

The Iliad - Homer

This December through January, I read The Iliad for Ancient History. Now, while I have read lots of kid versions of Homer's works (Rosemary Sutcliff's are the best), reading the original was a whole new experience. This was not the first time I had read an exact translation of an ancient text (last fall I read The Epic of Gilgamesh, which is the oldest written story in the world), but this was on a whole new scale.

The version of the Iliad I read, the Robert Fagels edition, is about 500 odd pages, all told. That length would have been no problem to me if it were a modern prose story. But, it's not. It is an ancient war story that is mainly about who killed who is what terrible way, and who each of those men's grandfathers were, and what kind of farm they used to have. Seriously. Also, it is in verse. Not rhyming verse, just... verse.

Yeah, all of that made it a tricky, though not entirely uninteresting read. Because, while I did not enjoy it most of the time, it was a challenge. It was something very new and different for me. As hard as it was, and as much as I complained, when I was done, I felt an immense sense of accomplishment. I really did something.

I also know that this is not the last hard book I will ever be assigned to read. Far from it. Now that I have fought this and beat it, all those other books (the Odyssey next month for instance) will seem just a little less hopeless, and a little more beatable.

I guess this is not so much a book review as a book triumph. I don't see any reason to tell you whether or not you should read it. There is no point with a book like this. I just told you why I read it, and why I don't regret all the hours I spent reading a book I did not really enjoy.