Getting Started with Homeschooling
Practical Considerations for Parents of School-Aged Children
© Beverley Paine
Index
Homeschool
Australia
Contracts
Contracts are popular forms of classroom planning in schools as they allow students considerable input and responsibility into the education process. They are very easy to use in the home learning environment.
A contract is an agreed upon individualised activity outline that incorporates parent direction and guidance with children-led interests. Contracts provide a structure that enable children to operate successfully independently. This structure, however, still allows parents to plan and coordinate the activities.
If you use contracts you will need to get together with each child regularly, perhaps daily, to check progress and to evaluate the learning process. This gives your children time to share with you any questions they might have, and also any insights and understandings from the learning. It is also a good time for the parent to check if the contract has been understood, or needs to be adjusted in any way. Such ‘conferences’ are an excellent time to jot down some evaluative comments.
Contracts should always be negotiated between you and your child. This encourages ownership by the child of the learning undertaken doing the contract activities.
The flexibility of the contract system is as broad as the creative range and needs of the parents and children using it. A contract may be prepared for one day’s activities or several. It is probably not a good idea to go longer than a week, unless you are working with a child or teenager who is capable of sustained interest or independent work.
A contract can cover either one subject or topic area, or several. It can follow traditional curriculum subjects such as language, math, science, or be tailored more to the child’s interests - pet study, music practice, word processing, cubby building, collections, etc.
The format of a contract supplies a written plan and record of each child’s daily activities and progress. For younger children, who are not reading yet, you can use symbols and pictures. Sometimes the contract is written or typed on a sheet of paper, recorded on a wall chart, or perhaps written in a special purpose book. Often there is a space for the child to sign his or her name to indicate they have agreed to complete the work or activities set out in the contact.
The examples illustrated below are offered as a guide to devising your own contracts for learning. Children can be involved in preparing their own, embellishing them with drawings if they like. An excellent idea is to keep completed contract sheets in a pocket folder, or pasted into an exercise book, which the children can decorate.
CONTRACT |
Name: Date finished: |
Subject: |
|
What I want to find out:
|
How I will share what I have learned:
|
Comments:
|
|
 previous page |
Excerpt from Getting Started with Homeschooling, Practical Considerations
© Beverley Paine, 1997
