Time flies by faster every day, and although I've been meaning to place a homeschooling update here (currently, I have five children under the age of 10), other things keep sliding to the forefront of my mind. So, as I drink some Assam tea and my children play Machi Koro 2, I'm going to take a minute to type away as I review our homeschooling life. How have things changed over the past few years? What has been working, and what has not turned out as I'd hoped? What are our educational plans for the future?
What has changed over the past few years
A few years or so ago, I started wondering if we needed a name for our little family homeschool endeavor. I'd heard about other families doing this, and I liked the idea of having a cohesive vision and name behind our educational efforts as a family. A while back, I had read the Hexaemeron by St. Basil the Great, which is a series of homilies that he gave at some point in the 4th century. In one of these homilies, I had come across a beautiful quotation:
" You will finally discover that the world was not conceived by chance and without reason, but for an useful end and for the great advantage of all beings, since it is really the school where reasonable souls exercise themselves, the training ground where they learn to know God; since by the sight of visible and sensible things the mind is led, as by a hand, to the contemplation of invisible things." (St. Basil the Great, Hexaermeron homily 1)
This quotation stuck with me. Somehow, over a thousand years ago, St. Basil expressed my instinctive approach to education! After thinking about all of this for a long time, I finally broached the topic a homeschool name with my family and suggested St. Basil the Great as the patron and name of our educational endeavor. I asked one of my kids to make a sign with a portion of this quotation, and we taped it to the wall as a visual reminder as we go throughout our day.
We continued to keep our very slow approach to education, but I started to filter our different materials and activities through this vision. Previously, I had gone through frequent deliberation as I questioned whether we were doing "enough" or the right things, especially when I'd see beautiful curricula or hear about all of the amazing things other families in our areas were doing at their highly-commitment co-ops. However, I haven't grappled with that type of deliberation in a long time. Now that we have St. Basil's wisdom to drive our educational choices, I am able to much more easily figure out what best serves my children and their learning life.
This year, I've also implemented assignment notebooks and a gentle a structure for my two oldest kids (4th grade and 2nd grade), since I now give them each a few specific assignments each day. We do general classwork 3 days a week in the afternoon, and most often, they spend anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour on their assignments. (Sometimes, they choose to split up their classwork throughout the day or do most of it in the morning, but I am only "available for classwork" during a designated chunk of time in the afternoon.)
In short: We now have a name for our homeschool with a guiding statement, we've accumulated more books, and I've introduced a little bit more structure for my oldest kids. We also purchased ducks, which has become a wonderful learning experience.
What's been working?
Homeschooling has been going fairly well this year, which is nice. Especially since Fall was insanely draining with the baby's teething and habit of fighting naps, having a peaceful, gentle homeschooling routine was good. Having a clear vision has very helpful for me, and I hope it's helpful for my kids, too. We've been exploring a lot of great books and topics, and that's been really fun. We've been maintaining a peaceful rhythm that's been working well for us.
Each day follows a similar pattern: gathering at around 9 a.m. to read the Bible and do a short Lectio Divina together, reading a few picture books with any kids who want to hear them, and running around outside or playing inside with board games and toys. In the middle of the afternoon, we'll have a snack and often a pot of tea, then I assist my kids with any of their classwork that they need assistance with. Depending on the day, we'll go to daily Mass, gymnastics, or a park or zoo with friends. Once a week, we have a Eucharistic Adoration hour, one evening a week we have Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, and one afternoon a week, we take our books and toys to a home for the dying.
(Lately, two of my children have been spending a large part of their time discussing The Lord of the Rings with some of the adult volunteers at the home for the dying. It is so fun to see!)
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| My kindergartener doesn't do formal classwork yet, aside from little bits of practice here and there with letters and BOB books. Also, I picked up that Greek book (is was used and pretty cheap) and the kids read from it up now and then for fun, but we aren't doing any formal Greek studies at this point. |
On Mondays at teatime, we eat sourdough scones while I read a chapter of our history book (Story of Civilization, we're currently going through Volume 1) out loud. The two oldest kids then have the rest of the week to create a "history report" about something in the chapter: a picture, a written report, or a three-dimensional paper model, which they present during dinner on Friday.
On Wednesday mornings when we gather for our Bible reading, we do a short "nature study" together. We read a nature poem, then read and discuss a page or two from God Made That! by Kathleen Hoenke and William Jacobs. On Wednesday afternoons, my oldest child also does an art lesson from Ever Ancient Ever New by Bethany Pedersen.
We also have lots of time for playing and chasing ducks and reading books and just thinking together. The days are often draining but they are beautiful and a tremendous gift.
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| Zoo trip! |
What hasn't been working?
Although there have been many things that are working well, I've noted a couple aspects which have not worked well.
First, the pacing of our "school weeks" and "school breaks" was not great. At some point (maybe a year ago or so?) I got the idea that, since we homeschool year-round, it'd be good to have planned breaks throughout the year...and that we would do 9 weeks of classwork, followed by a one week break, then 9 weeks of classwork, etc. I figured that in each 9 week section, we could have a more intense focus on special topics, particular projects, that kind of thing. Needless to say, this idea did not work! 9 weeks was just far too long of a time before giving ourselves a break. It was so long that if we started a "special project," we'd lose momentum and things would fizzle out and I would wonder if we would ever be able to finish any projects ever again.
As I began to see this idea unravel, I informed my kids that following Christmas break, we would move to a new model: 6 weeks of classwork, followed by 1 week of break, 6 weeks of classwork, 1 week of break, etc. I'm already loving this new model. I purchased a grammar curriculum for one of my kids and when it came in the mail recently, I didn't stress over how it'd fit into our routine with everything we were already doing. Instead, I put it on the shelf and decided that we'd start it during a new 6-week term.
Another aspect that did not work well was Latin. In fact, I've remarked to a few people that perhaps one of the reasons why this year has gone so smoothly is that I haven't even tried to do Latin with my kids! I am a little bit disappointed in this because the Latin program is beautiful and has an awesome approach, but it just was not working for our family dynamic. Here's the gist of things: A few years ago, we purchased the download for the pilot program of Latin Through Stories, which offers Latin to children as a spoken language, using a variety of components--stories, fine art study, discussion, puppets, skits, storybooks, and songs. I was so excited about the approach and truly do think the program is wonderful. Inevitably, however, whenever I offered a lesson, I'd always be hunting for all the different components (what happened to the dog toy for the presentation? Where on my computer did I save the painting?) on top of trying to keep a variety of ages of kids engaged in the lesson. I tried spreading an entire lesson out over a week, as well, but it was tough. There was just a lot for me to keep track of, and having all the materials ready and organized in time was very difficult. Someday, I hope that I can try a formal Latin study again. But this year, I decided that we would just not even try, and that's OK.
Incidentally, just before bedtime a week or so ago, a couple of my kids were working together to learn the Hail Mary in Latin. I have no idea what brought that on, but it was neat to see that even if I'm giving up on the actual program for now, they are still absorbing and learning and growing! I've been thinking that I may start bringing out our handful of Latin storybooks for them to read here and there, so that they can continue to absorb the language.
What are our educational plans for the future?
I try to stay pretty open about our educational choices and specific courses of study in the far-away future. At the moment, I try to really restrict using technology when it comes to schoolwork, but I imagine that in the future, we may take advantage of some of the online courses and materials that are abundant. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it! In the near future, there are a few areas that we'll focus on more intentionally:
First: grammar! I have long believed that a great way to learn grammar is by reading good books and absorbing the beautiful writing. Yes, an actual study of grammar is good eventually, but I've never seen a need to rush into it. However, I've noticed that one of my kids would probably really enjoy starting a formal study of grammar soon. So, at the recommendation of one of our local friends, I purchased Fix It! Grammar and we'll incorporate that into our classwork routine once the new term begins.
With shorter terms, I also hope to include more research papers. One of our kids wrote two research papers over the course of the Fall and seemed to really enjoy those. Going forward, I want to increase the frequency of research papers because they are a fantastic way to learn and grow, and having a completed paper is also a wonderful way to see your accomplishments.
Another area I want to focus on more intentionally is guiding my kids to use a soroban abacus. A family at our church introduced us to the soroban and we excitedly ordered that, along with a couple of workbooks...and I think I only sat down with the kids to do it twice. I love the idea of teaching them to use a soroban abacus, and think it would be great for their math skills and brain development. I just need to make room for it in the schedule. With shorter terms, we may just focus on abacus work for a span of six weeks or so at some point.
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| For the past couple years, I've been on a journey with math, and I will try to blog more about it in the future! |
Finally, a big area I'm thinking about at the moment is getting more consistent with daily rest time. Over the past several months, my baby has gotten in the habit of really resisting naps, even if at least one nap is definitely needed. On top of that, our house just isn't big enough to put all of the younger kids in separate areas for a daily rest time--but they need rest time, and I definitely need rest time! Going forward in this school year, I'm going to try workshopping different solutions-the baby recently slept in the arms of an older sibling one afternoon, so I'll probably try that again (I have many memories of holding sleeping babies when I was a kid, so I don't know why I didn't try this earlier!).
Overall, as I think over the past several months of homeschooling, I feel very grateful. I'm so grateful that I can stay at home with my kids, that we can homeschool, and that God has been guiding us in this endeavor. This educational journey has been a gift, and I'm interested to observe how we continue to learn and grow in the months ahead.
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