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Showing posts with label Homeschool Chats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Homeschool Chats. Show all posts
Subtitle: How to do it, and why you may not want to
(The quintessential stack of homeschool read-alouds. These are about half of the books we went through this year.)
How can I help my kids learn to work more independently?
I’ve heard that question so many times, in conference talks, online forums, from friends, and from my own lips. Developing independent learners is something homeschool moms, especially moms of multiple kids, think about a lot.
I remember many days, collapsing into bed exhausted after being pulled in multiple directions all day, and wondering how long I could keep doing this. Helping my kids learn to work more independently became a crucial concern, like it would be the life or death of our homeschool. Now, as my oldest prepares to enter high school, I’ve seen him grow leaps and bounds in working independently, and I’ve learned a few things about helping kids be more independent. I’m sharing practical suggestions and a little straight talk.
1. Don’t push for independence too early.
When my kids were still in elementary school, in a desperate bid to find something my kids could start to do without me, I gave my older kids a workbook for language arts. When I had to be busy with another child, I would ask them to pull these workbooks out for some independent work.
At first the year seemed to go along swimmingly, but eventually I realized that while my kids were progressing to the next lesson each week, they still could not tell me the parts of speech. When we had a minor existential crisis over writing a poem, I realized that what I thought was independent work was really just busy work. In order for my kids to really learn what the workbooks were trying to teach them, I would need to sit down and go over everything with them step-by-step.
On top of that, I had wasted valuable learning time during that homeschool year when a little more effort from me up front would have set a stronger foundation. My kids were not ready to be independent, and that was normal, and I had to learn to accept it.
I think a mistake that we often make is pushing our kids to be independent in their school work too early. Some kids are naturally more independent and make homeschooling look so simple, but we need to be careful of even putting those kids into the “independent” category too quickly. Our kids may appear to be making progress, but if we never sit down and watch them do their work, we can’t really know if they are learning something, or if they are just pushing ahead in the book even when they don’t quite understand a concept. It’s our job as the homeschool mom to help them actually learn, not just get through a workbook. In the younger grades, kids need a strong foundation of understanding, through a lot of help from mom, so hopefully they can be solidly and truly independent in the older grades.
2. Start with checklists.
Once your child is at an age where they can reliably manage their own work - this usually comes in stages, so probably just one or two subjects at first - consider helping them stay on track with daily checklists.
Before I developed our checklist system, I’d often be working with one child, and another would interrupt to ask what they should do next. “I don’t know, go start on your next subject,” ended up being my vague default response - and my poor child, who still didn’t know what to do, would end up deeply invested in a lego game with a younger sibling instead of accomplishing anything.
Eventually I realized that we needed to break out of that habit, and one summer I created a document with a weekly checklist for each child, with all their subjects broken up into days. It looked something like this:
Monday:
-Math lesson -Grammar book -Copywork -Writing video (with sibling) -Read history
Tuesday:
-Math lesson -Grammar book -Copywork -Write outline for paper -Read science lesson
Wednesday:
-Math lesson -Latin -Copywork -Write first draft -Read history -Work on Awana book
Thursday:
-Math lesson -Latin -Copywork -Finish paper -Read science
Friday:
-Math lesson -Art lesson -Copywork -Type up paper -Science experiment with mom
That’s a very simplified example, but you get the idea. I have checkboxes next to each task, and once the checklist are finished, my kids know they are done for the day. I think it is motivating for them to see how much is left and to know they are making progress. It helps prevent wasted time since they always know what else they can work on by themselves (I will sometimes highlight their independent subjects a different color from the ones they need my help with). I even print these checklists for my little girls, but I am the one who manages the checklists for them, since they still need my help for nearly everything. The checklists keep me on track too.
3. Map out the year.
You can’t expect to just hand a child a homeschool curriculum and have them proceed without any help or direction from you.
A couple years ago, as my son entered middle school, I started having an “orientation day” with him toward the end of summer. We sit down with his school books and a calendar, and I show him how many lessons are in each book, how many days we have in the school year, and how many lessons he would have to finish each week to stay on track. I sometimes even write up syllabi and expectations for each homeschool subject - which is helpful, but you don’t necessarily need to go that far.
What I am trying to accomplish with our orientation days is teaching my child how to look ahead at the whole year, and provide checkmarks for them to be able to easily see that they are staying on track. It’s really teaching them how to plan by holding their hand through the process. Some kids may catch on quickly, and for most kids you’ll have to repeat this process every year until they can naturally take it on themselves. I think middle school is the best time to start this - remember, not expecting too much too early, but hopefully helping them learn more planning skills before they reach high school.
4. Remember that independence does not mean mom can be hands-off.
Another mistake I see in homeschool circles (and that I have made myself) is the tendency to become a little slack on checking up on your child once they have reached a certain level of independence. This is how you reach Christmas break and take a peek inside your child’s Latin workbook only to realize they are two months behind (ask me how I know).
Even if your child is on the correct lesson number, remember that it’s still your job as a homeschool mom to make sure the understanding of the subject is there. You should frequently ask your more independent child about what their science book is covering right now, take a peek into their workbooks often, make sure you are grading their papers and tests so you can help shore up any areas where they are struggling. Be ready to answer questions, edit their papers together so they can learn how to improve their writing, and expect to have to research the answers to confusing math questions.
If you find yourself never doing any of these things, I’d encourage you to check yourself. Are you too busy with your own projects or outside commitments to make sure your kids are progressing as they should? Are you spending too much time on your phone, and not enough time enriching your child’s homeschool experience by actually talking with them about what they’re learning?
The truth of the matter is, there really is no point when a homeschool mom can just lean back and rest on her laurels, until her kids are graduated - maybe not even then. Homeschool students are always going to need help, direction, tips, discussions, and check-ins with mom. These things aren’t a chore, but an opportunity to pour into and connect with our kids through their education. Don’t wish those tasks away - don’t push your kids too much to not need you. They do need you, you are their best and only teacher, and being there for them is the beautiful thing about homeschooling.
I’d love to hear any more tips or encouragement you have on this subject! Comment below.
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.
How did your homeschool year go? Did you make any major changes, or was it a year of staying the course?
(This is not a photo from the homeschool conference - just two of my kids on a recent hike.)
Last week my family and I attended our state homeschool conference. Every year I learn something new, find great curriculum deals, discover curriculum that is new to me, and leave encouraged.
I’ve written before about why you should attend a homeschool conference if you get a chance. I think I may do another version of that article someday about why you should attend a Christian homeschool conference, even if you don’thomeschool. If a homeschool conference is a good one, at least half of the sessions would be uplifting to any Christian family, and I love that about our local conference. The focus is on raising our children and discipling them, and then also practical/academic tips - but the meat of it is a biblical philosophy on child-rearing that would benefit any Christian parent.
I received a conference-recap email from one of the many homeschool blogs I follow, and I really enjoyed it and was inspired to share a few takeaways from the conference we attended (including some interesting curriculum finds).
My Main Takeaway
A big theme of our conference this year was passing on the faith to our children. If you are not aware, the statistics on youth leaving the church in Protestant denominations in the United States are very grim. A full 70% of Christian youth leave the church, and these statistics haven’t improved in years - if anything, the situation has worsened. There were a couple different lectures about this topic (from Israel Wayne and George Barna), and though I only attended Wayne’s talk, from what I can tell the bottom line was the same - taking your children to church every week isn’t enough. Sending them to a Christian private school isn’t enough. Even homeschooling isn’t enough!
Kids need to have a good relationship with their parents, and they need to be trained by their parents. No one has as big of an impact on the faith of children as their parents do. Children need to know the tenants of their faith, see it being put into practice by their parents, and receive focused teaching about biblical doctrines (the truths of the faith) and a biblical worldview (how those truths should affect the way they see they world and the way they live).
You obviously can’t pass on that kind of knowledge and faith if you don’t have it yourself! Alot of Christians think we have a biblical worldview, and we don't realize that in many cases, we actually don’t. Wayne shared the PEERS test, which is a biblical worldview test - he said that though he quibbled with the phrasing of a few of the questions, it’s not a difficult test. The statistics among different groups of students who have taken this test are very interesting (and scary, honestly).
(This is a graph from the Nehemiah Institute website, the organization that produced the PEERS test. That blue line represents a TINY number of Christian private schools that have a high focus on biblical worldview training, as opposed to those that focus on academics - only about 2% of Christian kids are in those types of schools. The green line represents homeschoolers, who only started being included later. Honestly, I think we homeschoolers could do better. The traditional Christian private schools and public school lines should be sobering. Keep in mind that all of these lines represent ONLY youth from Christian households.)
The benefit of homeschooling as it relates to all this can be summed up in one word - time. Parents have the biggest influence on their kids, but that influence can be diluted by a lack of time spent with our kids. Homeschool parents have an advantage because we are not lacking for time - we are with our children nearly all day, every day!
Homeschool children (should) have an up-close look at what a Christian life should look like, because they see it playing out in every situation we encounter daily. Scripture tells us that “everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher” (Luke 6:40). That’s a little sobering, isn’t it? It means as homeschool parents we need to be careful that we ourselves are living out a truly biblical worldview. Our strengths in this area will likely be passed on to our kids, but also our weaknesses.
Time is also a crucial ingredient for building any strong relationship, including with our children, and having strong relationships with both parents provides a distinct statistical advantage in passing on the faith to our children.
(This chart is from the Gen2 survey, which is a general survey of churched Millennials and the impact of their upbringing on their practicing of the Christian faith as an adult. You can look at all the findings from that survey here. They are up-front about the fact that more people who were previously homeschooled took the survey than those schooled in other ways, despite trying to specifically advertise to those who went to public or private school. Despite the sample being a little uneven, it’s still pretty interesting.)
Homeschoolers, we have alot of things working for us! The trick is not to squander all these advantages, which can certainly happen. This whole discussion was simultaneously heartening and challenging to me.
For Further Reading
Though the website is a little old-school, I recommend exploring the Nehemiah Institute - they are the organization that produced the PEERS worldview test, and they have alot of interesting documents and resources.
For more information specifically on the exit of youth from the church and what we might do about it, I highly recommend the books Already Compromised and Already Gone by Ken Ham.
Israel Wayne has a couple helpful books about parenting and education that I’d recommend: Raising Them Up and Education: Does God Have An Opinions? (don’t be put off by the title, it’s a great book - I even had my oldest read the chapter on math, and it greatly improved his attitude!). He also has a systematic theology and biblical worldview curriculum for middle and high school that we picked up for our 8th grader this year.
George Barna also has a new book related to this topic, and I haven’t read it yet, but I might pick it up: Raising Spiritual Champions.
Other Interesting Sessions
“Why Americans Can’t Read” - Alex Newman - It’s shocking how illiterate we have become in America - half of American adults are functionally illiterate, and those statistics are coming from the Department of Education itself. I couldn’t find an article from Newman related to this topic that wasn’t behind a paywall, but the answer to this problem comes down to one thing - we need to ditch the “whole word” method and go back to actually teaching phonics.
“The Problem With School Choice” - Alex Newman - There are alot of unintended consequences with allowing the government to fund ALL school choices via vouchers and other forms of funding, which is a big push in many states right now. You can read this document if you are interested, which includes alot of the information Newman shared in this talk.
“Help! The Highschool Years Are Coming!” - Jan and Roger Smith - This session included so much encouragement for the high school years! I couldn’t find any articles about this specific topic online, but you can hear from the speakers on Zan Tyler’s podcast.
“Is Homeschooling Just For Women? - Israel Wayne - My husband went to this session and came back inspired and challenged in his role as a Christian (and homeschool) dad! I’d personally recommend anything by Israel Wayne, I’ve been encouraged by his resources many times. You can check out his ministry here.
Interesting Curriculum
Homeschool In A Box - I didn’t get to explore this booth much, but this company is on my list to research - their booth had a bunch of themed, hands-on learning boxes that I think my kids would find so fun!
Homestead Science - This is a family-run homeschool company from Idaho, and I am particularly interested in their survival study, which seems right up our alley.
Math Without Borders - We spent a good amount of time talking with the man who owns this company about this high school math option - it’s on my list to research for next year! But I wanted to point out “The Grandpa Project” on his website, which includes a bunch of videos he put together for his elementary and middle-school grandchildren to learn more about math - and this page in particular is the best math facts flashcard system I’ve ever seen online. All this is free on the website, and we’ll definitely be using it this summer! He also has a “bonus topics” page with a bunch of fun math videos that we’re going to explore.
New Generations Resources - Generations is a curriculum company we’ve been exploring for history mainly, but my little girls have also been enjoying their science books - they have this new science curriculum coming out for 3rd grade about the human body that I’m considering getting! They also released this adorable catechism book for the littlest learners - I really love that all the answers to these catechism questions are an actual Bible verse.
There are so many other interesting tidbits I could share, but I’ll leave it there! I would love to hear if you’re ever been to a homeschool conference, how it was helpful for you, or your thoughts about any of the topics or resources I shared here! Comment below, or hit reply if you are receiving this in your inbox.
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.
(Photo from a visit to our friends' ranch last fall.)
Between the months of September and May, it seems my life revolves around being a homeschool mom. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but not by too much. There may have been a time when that fact would have bothered me - I wanted time to do other things, to be other things. But I've come to recognize that there is a time and a season for everything, and this is the season that we are in the thick of homeschooling. Instead of kicking against the goads, I've come to embrace homeschooling as the equivalent of my 9-5, my career if you will. When viewed through that lens, I don't think I could pick a career I love more than educating my own kids, being with them all day, watching them grow and change and learn and thrive. What a blessing!
Since we've established that I can't think of much else beside homeschooling right now, why not embrace it on the blog too? I thought it was high time for a little 3/4 year homeschool update (actually more than that now, since by the time this post goes up we'll have a mere two weeks left!).
State Of The Homeschool
First, lest I scare any future homeschoolers out there, the last couple school years have been more all-consuming than is normal for us, or than is typical for the average homeschooler.
I am, after all, homeschooling five kids this year, even though one of them is just in kindergarten. On top of that, we've been in a transition period with some of my kids as I work on getting them to be more independent with their schoolwork - teaching independence surprisingly still requires alot of supervision. So we are very much in the thick of it right now. I said at the beginning of this school year that I anticipated this year being the hardest year of homeschooling for me as the mom. In reality, I think the 2022-2023 year, this year, and possibly next school year, will probably be the three hardest homeschool years we will have to go through. So I'm really just in the middle of the hard.
In some ways this year has been easier than last year, and in some ways it's been more difficult. I anticipate that I'll say the same thing next year, and after that we may be fairly home free (oh wait, after next year my oldest will be starting high school, so maybe not).
For the rest of this post, I wanted to share some things that are working well for us this year. There are alot of things that didn't work that we've changed this year, but I think I'll save some of that for a different post. These are the successes thus far.
Daily Checklists
A couple years ago I started creating daily checklists for my kids, and the effect it had on our productivity was incredible. At the time we started, most of my kids were not completely capable of following a checklist on their own, but just having everything laid out on a checklist helped me to help them keep on track. There are alot of subjects that would have fallen through the cracks if it weren't for our checklists! I understand there are alot of free-spirited homeschoolers out there who are probably cringing right now, but if you have ever had a sneaky feeling that you aren't accomplishing what you had hoped for in your homeschool days, let me just extol the virtues of the checklist. There are so many subjects and books that we would just forget about if it wasn't for my checklist system.
Weekly Planning
Every weekend I set aside a half hour to take a look at my plan for the week and make adjustments. This involves adjusting our checklists and taking a look to make sure we are on track with different subjects. At the start of the year I set lesson "checkpoints" for different weeks of the year, and that way I can quickly look and see if we are falling behind on our quarterly goals. Then I adjust our checklists as needed.
I originally modeled my checklist system after Sarah Mackenzie's notebook system, but I got tired of writing everything out each day, so now I just keep a "Weekly Checklists" file on my computer. This is our "ideal" homeschool week, but since we often have appointments, Bible study, or homeschool support group meetings, I just adjust the schedule depending on what we have going on that week. Just being able to look ahead and plan for the days where our school hours will be cut short has helped so much in keeping us on track this year, with a minimal amount of stress from me.
Front-Loading The Year
I admittedly pushed everyone a little harder than normal during the fall semester of school. I had so many things I wanted to get to with the kids this year, and with my middle schooler I had some tougher schoolwork to add to his plate. Did I over-plan a bit? Considering I was pushing all of us through THREE different history curricula and TWO science curricula, yes (why did I do that?). Were we a bit miserable in the fall? We were, and yes, it was my fault.
Don't worry, I came to my senses. I relaxed everything a bit this spring, but pushing us a little harder in the fall ended up giving us some space to pull back a bit this semester. It's actually been very nice, and we ironically are still going to get to most of what I planned, just at a more reasonable pace. I won't be so crazy in my ambitions for next year, but I might keep that idea of front-loading the year and having a more leisurely spring.
Morning Time
We've been more consistent than ever with morning time this year, and it's been a really lovely time for us as a family. We've read through the whole New Testament together during morning time (we're finishing up with Revelation right now), and this is my favorite accomplishment of the year. We've had time to discuss all this Scripture together, and I think of the promise that God's Word will not return void, and I know that it will hold true with reading through the Bible as a family too. We've also finished several chapter books together, done some art and music and poetry study, and sang hymns and psalms together. Morning time has been a staple for us for a while, but I'm really happy with how fruitful it feels this year, even though we've kept it simple.
A New Science Curriculum
We've always used Apologia Young Explorers for science, but this was the year for us to branch out a bit. My oldest is solidly in middle school now, and I thought it was time we challenge him a bit more with science. With my younger kids, I was admittedly getting a little weary of the Young Explorers format (even though I do love that curriculum), so I decided it was time to just try something fresh.
For middle school science, I chose to let my oldest go through the first edition of the Apologia middle school textbooks, mainly because my mom gave me a box of my old curriculum and my science book was in there. Now, I know, science textbooks do need to be updated periodically since science is always changing and new discoveries need to be added. However, when looking over my old science textbook, I realized that middle school science really hasn't changed that much. At that age, you are still learning alot of scientific basics. There might be little things here and there that are slightly out of date, but the important facts that they really need to know are the same, so I felt comfortable with using an older, but really rigorous and solid, textbook. What I love about the first edition Apologia textbooks are that there are no bells and whistles required. There is no "student notebook" that needs to be purchased, there isn't a ton of excess information that you really don't need to know. All that's required is a basic lined notebook (that the student uses to create their own scientific notebook), basic household items for experiments, and the textbook. I think the format has done alot to help my oldest learn some valuable study skills, and teaching him how to write up experiments. I'm quite pleased with how well the old Apologia has fit into our homeschool, so I'm going to be looking into the middle school Berean Builders texts for next year, because they are written by the same author as the first editions of Apologia and follow a similar format and philosophy.
For elementary science, we're tried out a new-to-us curriculum this spring called Science In The Ancient World by Jay Wile at Berean Builders. This curriculum series goes through different scientific discoveries through history. We have been studying the Greeks and Romans in morning time, so having some of our science tie in with that same time period has been really interesting for us all. The lessons are short and explained in a really great way for this age group. With Young Explorers, I felt that alot of the textbooks were more at an upper elementary level, and I had to simplify it quite alot for my younger kids. I think Science In The Ancient World is much easier to use with young elementary and older elementary at the same time. Each lesson involves an experiment, but most of the experiments use basic household supplies and are very quick and easy to do. We've been doing many more experiments than we usually do just because this curriculum makes it so simple! I am excited to get as far as we can before the end of the year (we only started in January, so we won't have time to finish - remember the TWO science curriculum thing), and I'm interested in picking up the other volumes so we can coordinate our science with history in the future too.
So these are the things I am really happy with in our homeschool right now. I'm sure I'll be back over summer break to share some lessons learned or plans for next fall, but for now, in the home stretch, it's good to review some of our wins as we try to finish the year strong.
Please let me know if you want a deeper dive on any of the things I mentioned! If you want to hear more about anything, I'll write a longer post and maybe even put together some IG stories to give you a peek at our homeschool!
Note: I wrote this post as a type of newsletter for my local homeschool support group, after my thoughts were originally stirred by this Instagram post. I hope you all get some encouragement from it too!
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In many, many ways, homeschooling is easier now than ever before. There are so many curriculum companies, so many resources, so much inspiration and ideas. Back in my mom’s day, there were basically two major curriculum companies for homeschooling, and that was about it. We have an embarrassment of riches in the homeschool community now, and that really is a blessing.
But along with the amount of resources and moms sharing their homeschool journeys online, I think the mom in the trenches can sometimes get her homeschool vision skewed. So many people are sharing the fun things they are doing, or the different ways they are educating, complete with beautiful photos of elaborate projects and smiling faces. Many wax poetic about how wonderful homeschooling is, how much freedom it’s brought their family. I am confident this is all true and coming from a good place. Homeschooling is portrayed as beautiful, peaceful, aspirational, joyous even; a chance to take charge of your child’s education and homeschool them according to their own needs, a chance to give them the joy of learning. And homeschooling can be and often is all those things! But along they way, maybe some moms are picking up an idea, even subconsciously, that if homeschooling is not smooth sailing, maybe it’s not right.
We homeschool moms don’t as often share when we are going through a hard season of homeschooling. We don’t want to discourage potential homeschool moms from giving it a try, so we are quiet about the times when our child breaks down crying over copywork, when doors slam and frustration boils over, when school takes longer than a full time job would each day. We tuck it aside, save it to cry about to our husband or mom later, and put on a good face for our mom friends. But maybe we secretly wonder if we’re really supposed to be this exhausted, if maybe we’re doing it wrong, or if homeschooling isn’t really what we’re supposed to be doing at all.
Sometimes the advice is “lighten up a little bit”, “don’t worry so much about academics”, and “connection over curriculum - just put the books away for the day”. And maybe sometimes that advice is the answer. But it actually can’t be the answer to do that every day - the bookwork actually does need to get done eventually, and your child does need to learn to multiply someday, and if we lighten the workload forever we’re not actually not doing ourselves or the kids a favor. Self-discipline has to be learned in it’s own way in homeschooling, by child and mom. Putting the books aside can’t always be the solution. My mom used to say “it doesn’t have to be fun, it just has to get done”, and that’s a truism that homeschool moms don’t like to admit anymore, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still true.
Just because something is hard, doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile. Just because there are bumps along the way, maybe whole years where homeschooling is a struggle, that doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing for your family. Just because no one is having fun right now, doesn’t mean you’ll be deprived of joy forever. A good marriage, for instance, is hard work, but we know how much joy and fulfillment comes when we stick it out through thick and thin, and we know that marriage is a good thing worth fighting for, even when we experience difficult seasons. I view homeschooling in much the same way.
The truth is (and I feel confident in saying you could ask any longterm homeschool veteran and she will confirm this), homeschooling is not always fun. It is actually hard work. There are going to be rough patches, rough seasons, rough years. It takes a level of grit, self-sacrifice, and mental toughness on the part of mom to make it for the long haul, and this is true no matter what style of homeschooling you choose.
Homeschooling takes a determination to see through the rough times until you come out on the other side, because everyone experiences struggles (they just don’t talk about it), and this too shall pass. It takes endurance to train your kids in study skills, self-discipline, and character development to make your days run smoother, and that’s not always fun. There often will be tears along the way. These are growing pains. These struggles don’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. It may mean you’re going to have to put in a little more effort and time into helping your child mature and grow…until one day you’re making dinner and realize that your child did a whole math worksheet today without breaking down. Until you notice that they actually read their Bible and pulled out their school books after breakfast without being asked. Until you see that instead of bickering with their younger sibling as per usual, they are on the couch helping their sibling work through a chapter book.
And that is when you get that surge of joy. So stiffen your spine, homeschool mom, and “learn to love what must be done*”, even when it’s hard. Pray for wisdom, pray for endurance, pray for patience, and stick it out. There will be joy along the way.
May God reward your work, friends, and I know He will when we homeschool as unto Him.
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*This is a phrase I think I originally heard from Mystic Winckler or Karen Andreola, but is attributed online to the poet, Goethe. I don't know where I heard it first, but it has become a refrain for my homeschool.
One of the things I decided to add to our homeschool this year is a study of one of Shakespeare's plays. I was a little trepidatious to start with the kids, but over the last few weeks we have really gotten into it, and I wanted to share what we've been doing!
First, why study Shakespeare? There are a few reasons to consider studying Shakespeare in your homeschool, and these are some of mine.
Why Study Shakespeare With Elementary Kids
Rich Language. The language of Shakespeare is challenging and rich. It’s so good for kids to hear and see that kind of complicated language and feel comfortable with it. This will help them later with reading comprehension, writing skills, vocabulary, etc.
Familiarity With Idioms, Etc. Shakespeare added so much to our vernacular in the form of idioms, cliches, figures of speech, etc. Knowing the background enriches our understanding of English, and will allow them to use these sayings with confidence in their future writing as well! A good Shakespeare quote can't help but elevate an essay, right?
Character Elements. There are interesting character, moral, and "social norm" elements that are presented by the characters in Shakespeare’s plays. For instance, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, we are learning a bit about the foolishness of braggerts from the character of Bottom.
Historical Tie-Ins. There are alot of interesting historical tie-ins in Shakespeare plays that give you a richer understanding of Shakespeare/The Middle Age - from both directions.
Knowing Shakespeare Literary References. There are a ton of references to Shakespeare and his plays in literature, and even just in pop culture, and being acquainted with Shakespeare will allow them to be "in the know" when they encounter those references elsewhere.
Avoid Intimidation. If kids familiarize themselves with Shakespeare's plays when they are young, they won't be intimidated to dive in if or when they study the Bard in high school or college courses.
What We're Doing
In the past we have memorized Shakespeare passage from the book How To Teach Your Children Shakespeare by Ken Ludwig, and I still think that book introduces a really great rhythm method for memorizing some lines of Shakespeare! One benefit is that it is really easy and fun to do even with younger kids.
However, I wanted to get into the plays a little more, and I was getting hung up by our memorization work - should we finish memorizing the passages, and then get into the play? Or should we do both at the same time?
I decided to just dive right in with these resources:
Simply Charlotte Mason: Shakespeare In Three Steps
This is a series of guides to various Shakespeare plays, and I love the method used in the guides. We are currently working through the guide for A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is a great play to start with for elementary kids, I think.
First we read a short version of the story to get an idea of what is going to happen, which is included in the guide.
Then we listen to a dramatization of the play with a transcript in hand. This guide gives summaries of each scene, so the kids know ahead of time what is going to happen when we listen to the actual play. We are in this stage now, and I have to say, it's been a delight! I gave them highlighters and told them to keep an eye out for certain key lines from each passage, as mentioned in the guide - but I also told them to highlight whatever lines stand out to them or lines that they particularly like. It's so fun to see what lines my kids choose to highlight! It's also been gratifying to watch Shakespeare's humor click with them, which is a huge benefit of listening to gifted actors perform the actual play, as opposed to just reading a short story version. My oldest even declared he thought his cousin should listen to A Midsummer Night's Dream because it's so funny!
The final step is to watch the play, which we will do when we finish listening to/reading it. I love that this guide also includes summaries of the different movie versions out there, so you can pick one with no objectionable content for your child's age group.
Arkangel Shakespeare Productions
I followed the guide's suggestion, and purchased the Archangel audio production of A Midsummer's Night Dream, and I can vouch that it is excellent! These audio versions are also on Audible, which is convenient.
How To Teach Your Children Shakespeare
As we have been reading about and then listening to A Midsummer Night's Dream, it's been fun to see the lines my kids remember from our memory work using Ludwig's book, and I think after we finish the play we will continue to memorize some of the lines using his method!
I did want to note that I think Simply Charlotte Mason's method is really easy to do, but I do think kids will get more out of it in 4th grade and up, when their reading skills are really strong. I you are anxious to jump in with younger kids, I think Ken Ludwig's book and some good picture books are a better place to start.
Shakespeare Picture Books and Stories
As I said, I think there is a huge benefit of listening to Shakespeare's actual words, instead of just reading a storybook version of his plays. The humor that is in his actual writing just doesn't translate to a storybook the same way, in my experience. However, we have used storybooks to familiarize ourselves with the play before we listened to it, and these are the ones we've used so far. Please note, I haven't read through all the play stories in these books, just a couple, so screen your chosen story before reading it to your kids!
A Stage Full Of Shakespeare Stories - Really cute, whimsical illustrations in this one.
Shakespeare Retold by E. Nesbit - These are good, quick retellings of seven Shakespeare plays, with more suggested resources in the back!
Shakespeare Stories by Leon Garfield - I really like this book for myself - it gives a really thorough telling of each play, with some of Shakespeare's actual words incorporated. As far as I can tell, these version tries to keep to Shakespeare's general scene order as well, which is nice. I'm going to use this version for myself to screen which plays I want to cover with my kids, since it seems pretty thorough.
Other Books
DK Eyewitness: Shakespeare - This book is full of info about Shakespeare's times, as well as information related to different aspects of theater, with lots of pictures to make it interesting.
Will's Words: How William Shakespeare Changed The Way You Talk by Jane Sutcliffe - This is a fun picture book about some of the phrases that Shakespeare introduced or popularized in the English language.
Before I close this post, I just wanted to say that if the idea of covering Shakespeare with your kids seems overwhelming - then don't do it! It's totally okay NOT to study Shakespeare. It doesn't have to be taught in elementary school, or even at all if you and your kids are not interested. Shakespeare is very much an extra. I think it's helpful to be somewhat familiar with Shakespeare, but you are the homeschool teacher of your own family, and you get to decide when or if you will study Shakespeare with your kids! But if you do decide to dabble into some Shakespeare together, I wanted to encourage you that it can be really fun if you want it to be, and not as hard as you think!
If you have any other good resources to add, I'd love to hear! Leave a comment below.
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