Excitement brews for family of homeschoolers in Canfield

By HAROLD GWIN

VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER

CANFIELD — Some kids get the summer off from school, some keep up with classes all summer and some are anxious to get back to the books in the fall.

Those generalizations apply not only to children who get their education in traditional classrooms, but to those being homeschooled as well.

“We do just a light schedule during the summer,” said Laura McGuire of Canfield, who, with her husband, Tom, is now in the 14th year of homeschooling their children.

The couple have four children who will be homeschooled this year, if you include Andrew, 5, who is of pre-kindergarten age.

Matthew, 11, will be in sixth grade; Sarah, 8, will be in third; and Bethany, 6, will be in first.

Their oldest son, Tom, graduated from homeschooling last year and will be a freshman at Youngstown State University this fall, pursuing a degree in computer information technology.

There are three other younger children at home: Amy, 2, and twins, Megan and Rachael, 1.

The goal is to keep up with math and reading over the summer while offering some “fun units” of study, Laura McGuire said, explaining the latter may include science sections on bugs, flowers or some other topic that children find interesting.

Homeschoolers generally follow their local public school calendar in terms of when school starts and stops, she said, although what happens in between can be significantly different,

“We do a four-day schedule here,” she said, preferring to keep that fifth day open for field trips and other educational activities.

“We usually take the summer off,” said Sarah Johnson of Youngstown, who, with husband, James, will be homeschooling four of their children this year. Most of their friends who homeschool do the same, she said.

This summer was a bit different, she said, as a couple of the children have been doing summer projects.

The family welcomed a new arrival this spring, baby Will, and that kind of slowed things down a bit, Sarah Johnson said.

The Johnsons will be back at it on the day after Labor Day.

Lauren, 16, is a junior; Emily, 14, is a freshman; Matthew, 11, is in sixth grade; and Andrew, 9, is in fourth.

Samuel, who turns 4 in September, gets involved as well, although, “we don’t call it school,” Sarah Johnson said.

The couple also have another daughter, Abigail, 2.

“Everybody likes to go shopping,” Sarah Johnson said of the back-to-school excitement at her house.

Its also a time to order new workbooks and texts, lay out the curriculum, plan field trips and more.

The Johnsons keep their in-home classes running on some holidays the traditional classrooms enjoy, as well as snow days.

But they enjoy one break that traditional schools don’t offer. When it’s someone’s birthday, everybody gets the day off.

This is the time of year that home-

schoolers must present their local public school district with the results of last year’s tests and assessments and a proposed curriculum and list of materials to be used in the new year, Sarah Johnson said. The rest is just typical back-to-school stuff.

Homeschoolers must provide 900 hours of instruction during the school year, but can arrange their schedule to have longer school days with more days off, if they wish, she said.

Laura McGuire said her children are excited to start their school year.

They especially like to get together with the homeschool group for field trips and “Friday Fun” scheduled once each month, she said.

She is director of Educated As God’s Living Example, a Christian-based support group for home-

schoolers that currently has 42 families (with 150 children) as members.

gwin@vindy.com