Have you ever finished a book and found that you weren’t quite ready for it to end? Maybe the book was so good that you just don’t want it to be over, or maybe the book sparked so many questions in your mind that you feel the need to satisfy your curiosity.
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What do Tim Tebow, Serena and Venus Williams, and Bethany Hamilton all have in common? All were young athletes who took their skill to the highest level possible, excelling beyond peers in their chosen sport.
But what places them in a unique group among many other professional athletes and Olympic medal winners?
They were all homeschooled.
To professionally compete, student athletes need the flexibility to train, travel, and study. Homeschooling offers exactly that kind of flexibility so children can balance the demands of athletic goals with academic requirements.
Homeschooling is a natural choice for many parents whose children are pursuing mastery in competitive athletics as an alternative to turning their child over to a coach and trainer.
Professional athletes need extensive coaching input. When your child reaches the level of traveling for training, for camps, or for extended coaching, their school does not need to get put on hold. A homeschool curriculum can travel with them. This can give your child the competitive edge since they no longer have to fit training into the summer months.
It is no surprise that many Major League Baseball players come from cities near the equator. Optimal weather means they can train year round. This geographic advantage can mean the difference between getting drafted or passed up for a player with more training time.
The same advantage is available to homeschoolers who understand the training demands it takes to becoming a upper level competitor. Education does not have to impede nor be sacrificed for your kids to train, but as a parent you don’t have to step completely out of the picture. I love that homeschooling has kept us central in our kids lives even as they have spent many hours under the training of other coaches.
I’ve read that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to reach a master level with a musical instrument. I can assume that the same can be said for athletics, competitive sports, and any other area of intensive study. For a student athlete, that's three hours of daily practice for ten years.
Given travel, schooling, sleeping, and eating, fitting in the roughly twenty-one hours a week of practice is a challenge. Being able to shift our school schedule to fit our life—through homeschooling—has been a godsend.
We chose to use Sonlight’s four-day option. In the beginning, we had longer school hours for four days and one day off to have outside lessons. As travel for athletics began to take up more of our days, we continued with a four-day week, doing our main subjects on four days and science, projects, and electives on the fifth. This schedule helped us keep our school days shorter while staying on track for all the required subjects.
The families I’ve spoken with, who have multiple athletes training at the same time, often bring their school to the gym and study between sessions. There is no shortage of curriculum setups that will fit your students learning style while giving you the flexibility to meet their goals. With Sonlight, we take the day's reading selection with us when we have a long drive, a competition, or an early game.
Since homeschooling takes considerably less time than conventional school, we can actually finish our school before lunch time even on the road. With no homeroom, assemblies, class switching, or bloated electives to fill their open hours, our students complete all of their academics in under four hours. There is no need to fill their schedule with electives because your student is living them.
Homeschooling is a great way to chase you child’s goals while keeping your family connected. For our family, athletics has always been a priority. The older boys continue to play baseball in college. I will never regret the crazy life we lived to make sports a priority for them while balancing school and home life.
Athletics can demand a huge amount of time. One summer, between three boys, we were washing jerseys for seven teams. My husband was coaching three of them. The seasons were long: spring league to fall ball with winter hitting in between. These were the events that turned the pages of our family calendar. With all of the driving, hours of practice, and Dad playing the role of coach, homeschooling gave us the right amount of flexibility to still function as a family while letting our boys pursue their athletic dreams.
By homeschooling, the boys had the chance to become athletically competitive while developing the depth of character that will carry them throughout the rest of their lives. Homeschooling helped us to build strong athletes and great men. These are the reasons student athletes, Olympians, and young hopefuls alike are turning to homeschooling to help them achieve their goals without sacrificing their education.
Take advantage of our 100% guarantee. No other homeschooling company can match our Love to Learn, Love to Teach™ promise. You can order with confidence that either you will have a great year, or you will get a full refund.
My 11 year-old son, Phineas, has significant learning differences. Although the classroom model of schooling could be stretched far enough to mainstream this special needs kid with his peers, his specific challenges mean that it's not the best choice. Full-time inclusion in a group of students presented with fifth grade-level work doesn't work for him or them.
Continue readingIf your kids are fascinated by fictional maps inside the covers of novels, let them recreate a 3D model of Wild Island from My Father's Dragon. Here's how!
Continue readingSee the world with Window on the World, a geography title in Sonlight's Intro to World History. And then go farther with these extension ideas for cultural literacy and missions.
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My Father’s Dragon from History / Bible / Literature K is an engaging adventure through Wild Island. It's a favorite with my kids! Here are some easy extension activities you can do as you read through the book.
Does the book need extra activities? Certainly not. Reading and then discussing the topics outlined in your Instructor's Guide are plenty. But some families love crafty projects or hands-on activities tied to the themes of their Read-Alouds. If you are that kind of family, read on for fun extras to extend your experience with My Father's Dragon.
We recently made a relief map of Wild Island and Tangerina using air-dry clay and kiddy dough. Plastic animals represented the animals in the story and a dinosaur played the role of our dragon. The girls had great fun, and we ended with a three-dimensional visual to refer to throughout our Read-Aloud.
In the novel, Elmer plans a trip to rescue a baby dragon. Have your child plan for a real or imaginary trip by considering what to pack.
If you have a backpack or luggage available, they can try packing it to see how they would fit in the necessities and how hard it would be to carry.
On the island of Tangerina, Elmer is able to eat enough tangerines to fill him up. Take your cue from Elmer's meal and experiment with various citrus fruits. My girls enjoyed trying new fruits—everything from tangerines to key limes. If you have easy access to more unusual fruits, give those a try as well. Rambutan were surprisingly delicious although tamarind juice took a little getting used to.
Elmer packed a toothbrush for his trip to Wild Island. Children don’t always see the need to brush their teeth, but this science experiment will make it clear. You’ll need
Place each egg in a cup and cover each with a different liquid, using water as your control. Record what type of liquid is in each cup, and have your child predict what will happen. You should notice the egg in vinegar begin bubbling right away.
The next day, check the eggs. Pull them out of the cups to compare them. See if any changed color or if the shell is partially dissolving. (You should notice the shell on all of them dissolving somewhat except the one in water.)
Return the vinegar egg and the egg in water back to their cups.
With the remaining three eggs, use a toothbrush and toothpaste to brush them. You should see that some (but not all) of the color will scrub off the darker colored eggs (especially if they are white). Compare the eggs to see which get the cleanest.
The next day, return to the egg in vinegar once all the shell has dissolved. You can take it out and have your children touch it. It should feel damp and squishy. It also will be somewhat larger than it was before. Place the egg on a paper towel, and you can see the liquid inside the egg start to soak into the paper towels. Your children can touch and play with this egg, but be prepared because if it breaks open, the inside may still contain raw, liquid yolk.
Once you have cleaned up everything, you can discuss what certain beverages do to egg shell and compare to how they affect teeth. Encourage your child to make connections between the eggs and the enamel on their teeth.
Toward the end of the book, Elmer gives the monkeys magnifying glasses so they can see better to do their job. I simply handed each of my two youngest girls a magnifying glass and had them find three things to look at. Once they began, they kept trying to find more and more things to look at. Magnifying glasses are fun, and every homeschool family needs at least one on hand!
My Father’s Dragon has two sequels, which your children will likely enjoy:
They continue the story of Elmer and his dragon on more adventures and are a perfect extension to the first volume. My Father’s Dragon is also available on audiobook if your children would like to hear it again (and again).
To find out more about Sonlight's unmatched Read-Alouds, and our complete book-based homeschool programs, order a complimentary copy of your catalog today.
Do you frequently run into days when you have more subjects on your to-do list than time in the day to teach it? Do you wish it were easier to carry things over to the next day instead of trying to cram it all in one? Would you like to spread your curriculum out over a longer time period or run a lighter schedule of many subjects during the summer? If so, loop scheduling may work for you.
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