Homeschool chat with Bilingual Homeschooler

“Think more of home education when you are at home defending it to yourself, and defend it less to other people. You do know what you are doing. The tweaks and changes you make are validations of your vision, not invalidations of past choices. You are growing alongside your children becoming an educator as you go. Think more of your journey as a homeschooler, and less about what your kids are learning. ” Julie Bogart

Today’s homeschool chat brings you  Umm Ameerah, a homeschooling mother of two girls who resides in Saudi Arabia.

1)Tell us a bit about your family and your child/children.

 I’m a mother of 2 little girls, 6 and 3. We are a multilingual family, speaking English, Arabic and Russian. We are expats living in Saudi Arabia. Being homeschooling for over 3 years now.

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2) What was your main reason for choosing to home educate your children ?

The main reason is quality of education provided in the country we are residing in and having the control of what and how are children learn.

3) What does a “typical ” homeschool day look like for your family?

A typical home school day starts with good breakfast, followed by our weekly schedule, which includes main subjects like Quran, English and Maths and additional weekly subjects like Arabic, Russian, Science, Geography, Islamic Studies and Art.

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4) What type of a home educator are you ( structured, semi-structured, Charlotte Mason, Steiner, Montessori etc.)? We try to follow a Montessori method of homeschooling, but we mix it up and don’t stick to it religious. We structure our homeschool and use British National Curriculum as a guide.

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5) What do you love the most about homeschooling ?

The best thing about homeschooling is the flexibility and going at the pace of our children, knowing their strengths and weakness we can push or slow down as needed.

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6) What is your favourite subject to teach and what is your least one ?

Our favourite subject to teach is definitely going to be science and geography as this includes a lot of fun experiments and documentaries. The lease favourite subject would be languages.

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7) What do you find challenging when it comes to homeschooling your children ?

First would be holidays always effect our routine as we don’t have any regular activities during the holidays. The second would be the social aspects, since found ourselves moving around lately (from city to city) we found it hard to provide maintaining social connections with friends, but some cities are better than others with regards to socialising.

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8 ) How do you deal with unsupportive family ,  relatives and friends ?

I Do not have any.

9) Where do you see your homeschooling journey in 5 years’ time ?

We would like to see our daughters become more independent when it comes to self learning. One thing in particular we would like our daughters to take on seriously in a future is coding, as it seems to be a create tool/skill these days

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10 ) What advice would you give to anyone who wants to start home educating their children ? 

Before you decide to go ahead with home schooling you need to educate yourself and learn what you would be potentially getting yourself into. Then once decided educate yourself some more… Do online courses and read on methodologies, so that you get your head around the concept…
Join local homeschool community for two reasons, support and the social interaction with their kids (which is a must)