Our lilac bush, which has not bloomed in three years, came to life with flowers this year. As I was choosing a photo for this post, I remembered the too-many photos I took of the lovely blooms, and it struck me that our lilac bush feels like a fitting metaphor for our homeschool season. After two years of struggling through our homeschool days, somehow as we close out this year I find myself less burned out and more excited about homeschooling again.
Often when I write these “lessons learned” posts I’ll have some general principles and advice mixed in with my points, but I don’t have any this year. The changes we made were unrelated to any specific challenges we had, but ended up shifting our homeschool dynamic in unexpected ways.
Last year I ended the year struggling hard, and the fact that this year was better is probably a mix of the changes I made and also just entering a different season with my kids. I don’t think if you are struggling you should do the same things we did this year - but if you are struggling in your homeschool, make the changes YOU need to make to feel excited about homeschooling again. Don’t be afraid to try something new, because sometimes it ends up being just what you needed.
These are the two new things we did that breathed some life back into our days.
1. We started a new Charlotte Mason curriculum for history, geography, and literature.
We have been doing Masterbooks for history since the kids were small and to be clear, we have loved it! But after going through the same books several times now, I was ready to try something else. I heard about a reformed protestant Charlotte Mason curriculum that was in its beta year, called Living Heritage, and I was intrigued. I liked a lot of the books on the lists and the layout of the curriculum, and I decided we would give it a try.
I have been familiar with Charlotte Mason’s philosophy for years, and we have incorporated some of her principles (such as narration), but this was our first attempt at a full Charlotte Mason approach for certain subjects. We followed Living Heritage Cycle 4 for history, geography, art and music, and literature (with one or two science books as well).
Living Heritage ended up being a success for all my kids. I saw them grow leaps and bounds in their abilities to recall information from the readings, and in their writing endurance (for my older kids). We had zero complaints about any of the books (except my boys making fun of the opera stories we read), and my older kids asked to continue reading “real books” for history next year too.
Since we have never done another true Charlotte Mason curriculum, I can’t compare it to the big curricula, like Ambleside Online or others. It’s my understanding that there is some crossover in the booklists. What I appreciated the most about Living Heritage was the Bible, which is treated as a full and important subject. The books under “Bible” were so rich and theologically deep. I was especially nervous that the 8th grade Bible read would be too tough for my oldest, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much he understood and retained. It taught me that I shouldn’t underestimate my kids’ abilities to understand and enjoy even hard books.
This ended up being one of my favorite years of our homeschool, but not because it was easy. We combined Living Heritage with other curricula for science and math, as well as different “spine” books for our co-op classes. It was challenging to balance everything we were doing, but I think it stretched and grew my kids, and raised my own confidence in what we can accomplish if we manage our time well. We spent a lot of time on meaningful learning, and it wasn’t a burden to me or the kids because we really enjoyed so many of the books.
I did make adjustments as we went - I dropped one classic that was proving too much of a burden, and a couple books slipped off the list merely because of time. But when I look at the stacks of books we did read, I’m left with alot of satisfaction. We will adjust the curriculum to work with our high school plan for the fall (I still can’t believe my oldest is in high school), but it wasn’t even a question that we would be doing Living Heritage in some form again. You can check out Living Heritage here.
2. We rejoined a local co-op.
After taking a four-year break from any kind of co-op group, we re-joined a local co-op this past fall. We were part of this same group when my oldest was in 3rd and 4th grade, but at that season of life with young kids, I found it too challenging to attend a weekly co-op. I was floundering and recognized I need to spend some time developing my own homeschool discipline and direction before considering a co-op again. My goal was to wait until my youngest had learned to read - and after she finished her kindergarten year, we visited the co-op again.
The timing was right for us to give co-op a try for multiple reasons. My kids were more academically independent, we had good homeschool routines established, and my youngest was reading. Over the past several years we also had several of our core homeschool friends either move away or stop homeschooling all together, and we were in a place of needing a group we could connect with locally.
It’s been new for me to balance having a vision for our homeschool days at home and keeping up with our co-op work, but it helps alot that our co-op is mom-run and flexible. All the kids’ co-op leaders are also homeschool moms with their own things going on, and we recognize that mom makes the final call on what work needs to get done and when. My kids get the most out of it when we stay on schedule with co-op, but if we have a bad week or choose to drop an assignment in favor of something else, we have freedom to make adjustments.
Socially, it’s been a lovely thing for the kids, and I don’t take it for granted. They have made friends, they have just the right balance of structure and visiting time, and the kids in this particular co-op have seemed to mesh together very well. It was what we needed this past homeschool year to keep us encouraged.
Most homeschool moms would tell you that you often have to re-learn how to homeschool every year - there are always new challenges and adjustments that need to be made! This year we took a risk on changing our homeschooling style for over half our subjects with Living Heritage, and adding a big item to our weekly schedule with co-op, but both of those changes ended up paying off, by God’s grace. I’m thankful to end this homeschool year feeling satisfied instead of burned out.
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