The Beauty of Homeschooling

Years ago, when I was but a young elementary school student, we had an unusual snowfall in the tiny town where we lived. Most of us had never actually seen it snow before, and our class quickly became completely distracted. Our teacher allowed us to go to the windows, catch a few snowflakes on dark construction paper to look at them---and then it was back to school as usual.

This morning, in the middle of "school", we had an earthquake. It was so mild that, at first, we weren't quite sure whether the ground was really moving. Since the younger children were abuzz with questions, we set aside our planned Science for the day and delved into earthquakes, volcanos, Mount St. Helens (which was in the news this morning) and Mount Shasta (which we've driven past on family vacations).

The local news, on at noon, rounded out our study, with a full report of the earthquake activity, plus some brief mention of the scientific study that's been going on in Parkfield.

This is one of the things I really like about homeschooling---that we have the freedom and flexibility to learn about what matters to us.

There is also the freedom of time. Yesterday, Isaac met for the first time with a falconer. Since then, he's had his nose buried in a book he borrowed---when he's not designing the mews (or, as I call it, "little house") for the red-tailed hawk he's planning to get. I'm so glad he has the freedom to dive deeply into this interest.

Days like yesterday and today convince me that we're doing the right thing.

Eclectic homeschooling

Ah, yes...the debates over homeschooling philosophies, approaches, and methods! I pretty much stay clear of all that controversy these days, having long ago decided which tried and true homeschooling mags I'll stick with while avoiding many support groups, online "communities", and conferences. Frankly, having collected years of absurd advice from people who didn't know me or my children and, in all too many cases, had never actually attempted to educate any children at home, I pretty much know the drill well enough to manage without all that foolish annoyance. (I'm not saying that there is no value in groups, conferences, etc. It's just that my limited time doesn't allow me the luxury of sifting.)

Eclectic is where we're at these days. Standard textbooks aren't my cuppa tea (or coffee) although we do use them on occassion, usually more as references. Instead, I tend to gather books and resources and a bit of this and a bit of that. Recently, for example, we've been handling our "subjects" this way, bearing in mind that there's a lot of overlap between subject areas:

Bible: We take a radical approach and---shocking though it sounds---use the Bible as our main text in studying the Bible. Right now we're reading through the book of John.

Worldview: Although we have some nifty resources and an actual course we may do someday, recently we've been analyzing current events and stuff from the newspaper. Today, the newspaper had some reports about hurricane destruction in Haiti, which tied in with our geography study. It also quickly became science as we whipped out the encyclopedia and started looking up stuff about tropical storms.

Logic: We were using the Bluedorn brother's book, but now we're about to start a private online study.

History: Typically we begin by discussing anything I think interesting from my "this date in history" calendar. Today's entry sparked a discussion about confirming Supreme Court justices. We're studying about Cortes, and I've been reading aloud (also counts as literature) Henty's "By Right of Conquest".

Geography: We use a number of atlases, outline maps, and other resouces, and tie this in with whatever we're studing in history.

Civics: I was going to tie this in a bit better with history, but decided not to do so. We're doing my version of a basic Civics course. This is only a weekly class.

Grammar: We're using Nancy Wilson's "Our Mother Tongue". There's a lot to recommend it, but I'm not completely enamored, so I'll probably pick and choose among other stuff as well, possibly Saxon's new grammar stuff.

Penmanship: My favorite standby---the Italic Handwriting series. This year, I am bound and determined to force everyone to practice their penmanship every day!

Spelling: Miriam is using Spelling Power. The next two kids are using something called, I think, "Apples", which involves daily worksheets targeted for secondary students. They aren't exactly thrilled, but then they both cheered wildly at a sentence I came up with for a recent spelling test: "The students decided to form an anti-spelling committee." The youngest kids are doing my own program.

Composition/Narration: This is still way too fly-by-night for my tastes.

Reading: Phonics (Play & Talk) and self-directed reading.

Literature: usually tied in with history.

Science: Whew. This is turning out to be "delight-directed" this year, with lots of exciting unschooling projects going on. Officially, we're studying health & nutrition, but there's lots of other learning going on as well, especially by my resident bird expert.

Foreign Language: Only Miriam is doing this one so far, using the Rosetta program to learn Spanish.

Math: This is our most "schoolish" subject.

P.E.: Martial arts, bicycling, surfing, and, lately, volleyball and table tennis.

Practical skills: This runs the gamut from learning all sorts of life skills to construction to hunter safety training to work experience to...you name it.

I think I covered the gist of what we're doing now, but I have a feeling I've left something out.

Some days we look almost "school at home"---not because of the materials we're using, but because of the way we're all sitting at desks and behaving quite classroomish. Other days may find us looking far more unschoolish, with multiple projects going on all over the house and even someone out in the yard, book in hand...Yes, definitely eclectic. Very much so.

End of our first week of school...

...and all is well. Not perfect, by any means, but good enough. I'm still working out the kinks in our new routine, and figuring out how to fit in everything I want to accomplish this year, along with all of our many activities.

But the best news is that I feel the most motivated and excited about home schooling than I have in quite some time. We've been at this, as a family, since our oldest (now a college student) was a preschooler and we sat around the dining room table, doing the Weaver Interlock program. That's a loooong time, and we've got about 10 years still ahead of us. So I guess it's understandable to get a bit burned out and to need a fresh perspective, some fresh ideas, and a fresh approach.

Right now, at the end of a long day, everyone is still up, although the youngest two are being sent to bed even as I type. The rest are in a mad frenzy of ironing, readying their martial arts uniforms for tomorrow's competition. We'll be up early, trying to get out of the house at around 6:30 to drive to the tournament. I chuckle, knowing that I won't have to get up any earlier than I've been getting up almost every morning for the past two weeks---and my wake up time is getting seemingly easier each day. Well---"easier" is a matter of perspective. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that it's becoming much less hellish.

I'm looking forward to next week, looking forward to the week after, looking forward to the best year of homeschooling ever.

Turn around

The day started with frustration. No one wanted to drag themselves out of bed. My workout had been OK, but not as invigorating as I'd hoped. My husband and I had had a misunderstanding the night before, and now he was leaving on a business trip.

Frustration and irritation seemed the order of the day. At one point, I decided I wouldn't want me for a teacher.

Somehow I got myself back on track. We pulled together. I concentrated on bringing more joy into our day. As my attitude improved, so did everyone else's.

The day ended well.

Reflections on our first school day

We are officially "back to school", and our first day of school was voted quite a success, even if one student complained that it was "hard" and that he didn't particularly like school.

My day began early, literally before the crack of dawn, as I forced myself to stumble out of bed at 5:32. Coffee and cold cereal---a little reading---and I was off to the gym for a vigorous workout. Then it was grocery shopping and back home to get ready for our first school day. Excitement was running high on all sides!

After a special breakfast of blueberry blintzes, we began "school" with prayer and a Bible reading from the book of John, with a little comment and discussion thrown in. Next, I read something about the origins of our Labor Day holiday. We bagan reviewing the Veritas Press history cards that we began using before the summer and, as soon as we hit the one about Cortes, I was urged to read Henty's "By Right of Conquest". This did not at all go along with my lesson plans, but I thought it was a great idea. So off we went...

After we'd read enough of Henty (in my opinion, which was not shared by everyone) we discussed an article in that morning's paper about a study regarding obesity in young girls. That was a great introduction for our health and nutrition unit. Our next activity was to read and discuss a chapter in "Healthy Foods".

Next on the agenda was spelling. I administered a test from "Spelling Power" while some of the other kids did worksheets. After that, everyone got out their italic handwriting books and, after a few mild complaints (what is it with boys and penmanship?) each set to work. A grammar lesson on nouns followed, with a little history of the English language thrown in for good measure.

In between, we had taken a brief snack break, but now it was time for lunch. After that was reading: 45 minutes of quiet reading for the older kids, and a lesson for the younger ones.

Then there was art: "Drawing Basics", a video course featuring Thomas Kincade. Our final school actifvity was setting up accounts on "Edventure" for the older three students. Miriam began whipping through projects while I fixed a crockpot dinner and tried to make arrangements for Isaac's falconry exam.

That done, we dashed out the door to our martial arts classes. After teaching two classes and talking with students and parents, we came home rather late, had dinner, and went to bed.

Getting back on track

All this planning and reflecting is proving to be a good thing, even if I'm spending more time reading, writing, and thinking than actually getting all my projects done.

The past year of homeschooling wasn't particularly inspirational or exemplary. I had lost much of my focus and sense of vision---and I've been working on restoring that. One thing that has been especially helpful has been reading Stephen Covey's "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families". I've read some of Covey's other books, but it has been years. It's been refreshing and motivating to be reminded of the principles, especially the one to "begin with the end in mind". So that's what I've been doing, and the goal-setting and dreaming has restored my sense of vision for what I'm trying to accomplish in our family. I'd highly recommend that all homeschoolers read this book. It's not about homeschooling per se, but it's one of the best books about family life that I've read in a long time.

Heavy duty planning

Every waking hour this week, it seems, is filled with planning...if I'm not planning schedules and deadlines and reading lists and subject matter and learning objectives, I'm planning chores and menues and errands...or just planning what to plan. In other words, I'm in full scale strategic planning mode.

I'm operating under several assumptions:

1. I need to get more organized. That's sort of the story of my life, and a constant refrain of mine, but I'm returning to some of the time management and organizational habits/techniques that have worked for me...after a fashion...in the past.

2. I can't rely on my memory as much as I used to. There is just too much to remember, and I'm getting too old! This means I've decided I need to go back to using a planner/organizer.

3. Unschooling and relaxed schooling and all that doesn't work for everyone. Some of us need more structure, more discipline, more goals, more...

Because of the above, I've been spending my time putting "systems" into place. The planner/organizer is one such system. Because of our busy household, with more of us coming and going, I've put together a simple "communication center" for us to leave notes, phone messages, etc. We now have a new system in place for menu planning and shopping lists. Etc....

Countdown

Although the local schools are, horrific as it seems to me, starting today, we have the good sense not to have our first official day of school during the summer. Scripture may be silent on the subject, but you can't convince me that there isn't something sinful---if not downright criminal---about making children go back to school before Labor Day.

Even September 7 seems early to me, but that's our target date.

Last week, we had the cousins visiting, and we enjoyed beach and martial arts adventures with them, along with just hanging out and playing. This week is a quasi-vacation. My husband and I had all sorts of wonderful plans of 20th Anniversary getaways...but said schemes will have to wait for later anniversaries. It seems that one of the downfalls of having more than the socially acceptable number of children is that relatives aren't exactly beating a path to our door in order to have the glorious privilege of running our household for a few days while we go off and frolic. Even though the older kids are perfectly capable of doing most of the work, the task of watching SO MANY CHILDREN is enough to make normally brave relatives tremble and make comments about how they would feel as if they were in a prison. Or was it an insane asylum?

Perhaps it's because our relatives fear, not so much the children, but that our home and property has become a scene out of that famous Hitchcock horror film, "The Birds".

Somehow the cousins and their mother managed to brave an entire week with us, and with the birds, and seem to have survived with most of their health and sanity intact.

In the meantime, we're going to hang around close to home, watch the kids and birds ourselves, and reflect that since we've never really had an anniversary sans kids (our oldest was born 8 days before our first anniversary) why should we start now?

Next Monday, I'll begin the daunting task of exerting all sorts of self-discipline and---gasp!---sticking to a dreaded SCHEDULE! I've worked out said schedule with much thought, reflection, self-study, and gritted teeth. So, a week from now I'll give it a practice run. The theory behind that is that, when September 7 rolls around, the schedule/routine will be old hat...one week old, to be exact. Of course, in the dry run week, I won't actually be doing school, I'll just be using that time for school prep and various household projects. We'll see how it goes.

More school prep

My planning for the upcoming school year is in full swing, and I'm being filled with enthusiasm and anticipation. This afternoon, Isaac and I did some online research into falconry, which has been an interest of his for a while. One of his major projects for this year is to go through the process of getting his falconry license, in order to become an apprentice falconer. I'm probably going to turn this into an ongoing unit study for him. So, to that end, I've been perusing Amazon.com and elsewhere on the web for books on falconry and related subjects.

Yesterday, at the Mid-State Fair, Isaac spent quite some time hanging out at the "Hawk Walk" and watching the birds of prey that "Zoo to You" had on display. We even met a falconer who had some good suggestions to get us started.

In the meantime, I've been working on a liveable schedule for our school days, and doing a lot of mental organizing, as well as tackling some much needed organizational projects around the house.

Busy, busy, busy

Today was a hectic day. I had all sorts of things planned that I wanted to accomplish, but most of it came to naught. Too many errands ate up too much time.

But, this afternoon, as I took care of a few things around the house, I became aware of a buzz of activity in our cluttered upstairs schoolroom/birdroom/playroom. Finally one of the boys came downstairs and announced, "You should come up and see the schoolroom. We messed it up the best we could."

Amazing...the Lego mess had vanished, except for a few creations on top of desks. The floor was completely uncluttered...well, except for some boxes of books I need to sort through. The bird cages and our rollaway shelf unit were rearranged. The room looked spacious and inviting.

And I didn't have to tell anyone to do all this!

Getting hyped up for Fall

It's almost August, and it's time for my annual back to school---or NOT back to school---rush. We're readying the educational materials, the "school room", the supplies, the fresh ideas, and the enthusiasm.

Hopefully we're readying more organizational skills as well! We'll see.

It should promise to be an interesting and eventful year. Lots of exciting stuff...