Our homeschool year ended so differently than it began, it's a little difficult to begin this post.
Last fall, I knew this would be one of our hardest homeschool years yet, and so I went into it in tackle mode. We struggled, we cried, we ended each day exhausted, but by the end of the first semester, we were enough ahead that we were able to take it easier in the spring. Because of that, I feel pretty optimistic as we closed the books in May, and it's hard to remember back to where we started. But taking some time to reflect and learn from our successes and failures is a good thing, so I'm looking through my old papers as I think the year through.
I already shared things that ended up working well for us this past year, and so this post will be focused more on lessons learned, and things that didn't end up working for us.
First off, to get you into my frame of mind last fall, I spent the entire summer last year worrying about some areas of weakness in our homeschool. There were several skills I wanted to be stronger, several additional subjects I wanted to cram into our school year, not to mention the fact that my oldest was solidly in Junior High, and I wanted to start helping him develop specific study skills. Oh yes, and my youngest would be starting kindergarten.
It was alot to tackle all at once, and I approached the coming school year with a sense of dread, if I'm going to be honest. But I "tightened my belt", as Bilbo Baggins would do, and jumped into the school year with fervor.
Lesson #1 - It is (mostly) a mistake to overload the curriculum.
In my planning frenzy last year, I decided we would try to make it through five (five!) history curriculum books for my older kids, each of which were each meant to last an entire year. I justified this because a couple of the books were a little lower-level, and I figured we would just read through them on the side instead of doing the assignments. I'm still not sure why I decided to do this - remember, I was extremely anxious last summer, and not quite in my right mind.
What ended up actually happening is that we got through three of the planned-for books, which in retrospect feels like quite an accomplishment, even though we fell short of the five (five!) I had planned. What we did get through was actually quite lovely, and my oldest has surprised me by quoting something from our Greek and Roman studies (example:"'Tis the crumpled rose leaf!"). So I say it is only mostly a mistake to overload the curriculum, because if I hadn't overloaded, we certainly wouldn't have learned so much this year. But it is a mistake in that it can make everyone's lives a little miserable if you tip over into "too much". More may be doable than you might think, but certainly not five different history curricula (five!).
History Curricula We Accomplished:
- America's Story 1 - 2nd, 4th
- America's Story 3 - 5th
- World's Story 1 - 7th
- The Story Of The Romans by Miller
- The Story Of The Greeks by Miller
Lesson #2 - Know how much each child can handle.
When I was doing my homeschool planning last summer, it struck me that my oldest would be in junior high, and that I wanted him to develop some of his own school planning skills over the course of the school year. So I typed up an actual school syllabus for him with some planning guidance, and I bought my 7th grader an academic planner so he could plan out how he wanted to accomplish his school work.
I don't think this was a bad plan in theory, and he did end up using that planner. However, because of the aforementioned overloading, his work load got a little messy, and I eventually went back to typing up checklists for him each week. The checklists ended up being the basis for his planning rather than the academic planner, but I was still happy to see him developing initiative and taking charge of his schedule by moving things around when it worked better for him.
However, as I moved back to my checklist system, I started to see just how much I was asking each child to do each day. Some of my children were not daunted at all and shot through a 9-10 item daily checklist. But for some of my kids, when they had a long checklist handed to them each morning, would freeze up and feel like they could never get through it...so why even try?
As I noticed our multiple history books and up to four different language arts tasks, I realized I needed to organize differently to keep our days more doable for my easily-overwhelmed kids. I ended up alternating some language arts subjects, rotated history books, and dropped some not-as-important things all together.
The sweet spot seemed to be about 5-6 school subjects per day, and once I made the checklists look more easy to accomplish, our school days ran much more smoothly with less complaints. This also built their confidence - once they started feeling like they could accomplish their checklists in a reasonable amount of time, I could add in another study here or there.
Realizing my kids' mental stress tolerance when confronted with a checklist helped me make adjustments so they could be successful. We still accomplished quite alot, but recognizing their limits made a big difference in everyone's attitude.
Lesson #3 - Sometimes the answer is to do more.
A big message to homeschool moms when encountering an area of struggle is that homeschooling is so great because you can give your child individualized attention, you can make adjustments for them so they can still be learning while developing skills, etc. "Don't worry, it will come!" they say.
Pretty sure that I've said that before, and it's been true! But another thing that is not as often mentioned, but that I've also found to be true, is that if your child is really struggling in an area, sometimes you might just have to buckle down and do more of that thing than you ever thought you could handle, especially when it comes to skill-based subjects.
This may seem to contradict what I said in my last point, but it's all a balance, isn't it? If I have a kid struggling with handwriting, I can take oral narrations so as not to make them hate learning history because of the writing required...but also, we probably need to increase the time spent on copywork. Struggling reader? I will read books to them that are above their reading level, but I should also require them to read more books at their reading level out loud. Spelling terrible, slow at solving math problems? Rote memorization of spelling lists and multiplication tables it is.
Learning isn't always gentle and natural, and it doesn't always feel beautiful. Sometimes it's just plain hard. But isn't it a gift for our children to learn that they can approach something that feels impossible, and through gritted teeth they can overcome it? That it can even, someday, become something that is easy for them? That kind of lesson may require forcing a child to do a school task they don't want to do, and tears and attitudes may be involved, and sometimes you can make adjustments - but all that doesn't necessarily mean we should ease up on the actual task at all. Sometimes a break is helpful, sometimes leaning into the struggle even more is what’s needed. It takes a lot of wisdom to know which way to go.
Lesson #4 - Homeschools must be bathed in prayer.
I realized anew this year that homeschooling five kids is actually really hard work, and it's going to be really hard work for a long time. I'm basically working full-time job hours, or more, and I'm going to go to bed exhausted many nights, and I might cry sometimes, and that's all pretty much normal.
In addition, no matter how well I plan, or how great my curriculum choices, or how many methods I try, my children are going to have areas of struggle and weaknesses that the curriculum may or may not cover. It's my job to help them through it, even when I have no idea how.
And after struggling to my wit's end, then I'll remember the folly of my whole approach. Because of course, I remember, I can't do this without leaning on the Lord.
I don't have enough wisdom, or stamina, or kindness and gentleness and patience, to homeschool well on my own. I need to constantly set my mind on God's Word, pray for His guidance and help, and pray for His wisdom as I make homeschool decisions for my kids.
Everyone says this sort of thing so much that it starts to feel trite, but it shouldn't. I want my children to learn who Jesus is, learn to love Him, more than I want them to learn to be proficient at math (though I want that too). If the Lord doesn't build the house, the laborers work in vain. If the Lord doesn't illuminate the heart of a child, the homeschool mom teaches in vain.
Leaning on the Lord in prayer as I educate my children must be the central thing, the first-thing to be done, and I've seen the necessity of this as we wrap up a very difficult year in a better place than I anticipated. This attitude of reliance on Him is something I want to cultivate more in myself as a homeschool mom in the years to come.
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