We began this school year the last full week in August, after a couple of the most stressful years we've ever weathered. These years were stained by loss and grief, hospital stays and heartbreak. They broke something in me.
Last year I realized my love for learning and inspiring a learning environment had been effectively suffocated. I did not want to do this anymore. Everything felt impossible, pointless. I was tired of fighting, of wearing so many hats, of having so much responsibility and so little time to myself. The Father of Lies had worn me down, and frustration is one of his greatest tools.
Contrary to what some may think, I am not a militant homeschool mom. I believe that it's the best schooling option for many families, but not everyone. I know many children wouldn't have an education if it wasn't for public schools, but they are essentially government schools, and that I cannot trust. We have lost so much, not only in quality of education, but also culturally. I acknowledge some benefits of a social school environment with teachers who aren't your mom, but I can also clearly see their flaws (which, unfortunately, we have the most experience with). I passionately oppose public school systems and teachers that have embraced agendas contrary to truth and authentic science--and the truth is that you really don't know who they are until your child comes home knee deep in the muck. Most children do not yet have the foundation of logic to reason through certain alternative ideas for themselves. I'm passionately averse to peer influence, especially the "pop culture" variety, and know first-hand how hard it is to fight the herd. I also believe that many moms who say they absolutely cannot homeschool most likely can, and would be fantastic at it if they had more faith in themselves. I, therefore, still have the responsibility to do what I feel is best for my children.
Amid my burnout we looked into brick-and-mortar school options that would uphold our Faith and ethics, yet would not send us to the poor house...well, poorer than it already is. Apparently, such a school does not exist in our state; possibly not even in our country. We looked into boarding schools, none of which were an option. I hoped the Holy Ghost would whisper to me before future schooling decisions had to be made.
He did.
Of course I worried and procrastinated, as I do best. And then I started a notebook for every feasible idea that popped into my head on how to make this work. Social media posts of fantastic educational ideas were screenshotted and saved to a "School" folder on my phone. At the end of July I sat down with the notebook, opened the digital school folder, and assembled what looked very much like an evidence board from a crime series. After considering what we wanted to accomplish, what our abilities were, and what was available to us, I finally had the rough draft of a plan for our 2021-22 school year. It was such a turnaround year for us that we're repeating the method for our 2022-2023 school year.
Goals for the year:
- Reanimate/inspire a love for learning
- Find opportunities for learning outside of home
- Embrace "real life" learning
- Clearly define time for every subject so certain subjects aren't neglected
- Decrease stress as much as possible
- Don't break the budget
To keep costs down:
I shopped our own bookshelves before "Adding to Cart." Because of all the curriculum I've bought over the years there were very few books I needed to buy new. And before buying new I looked for gently used copies of the books we needed. Curriculum sell/swap pages on Facebook, Amazon used listings, and Thrift Books were my go-to sites for books. I even unexpectedly ran across a library book sale where I stocked up on new reads for the year. And for once I did not let myself feel even a little bit guilty about switching out curriculum that was boring us to death.
To decrease stress:
If Mom or Dad is stressed, so is everyone else.
Every year I would panic about writing up lesson plans, which required me to go through every book, mark the page numbers we had to do each week, including coordinating sections of the book with the season or other subjects--for two, then three, then four different grades. We would inevitably fall behind, (I'd) panic again, and I would become the Dictator of Catching-Up. So, I no longer write up my detailed lesson plans. There is no stress about how far we made it in text books, yet we cover more material than in previous years because we have more fun with what we learned.
I am also taking the advice of many seasoned homeschool moms and a couple teacher friends who said they considered the subject complete when they had covered about 75% of a text book, as long as the required number of days have been put in. This went against my nature to flog the dead horse and put in overtime if we had fallen behind, despite declaring over and over that kids should not have to fit in a box. Who's to say that all the information in a book is the exact mental load a child should and could process in nine months? Working flexibly with our kids' strengths (and weaknesses) is one of the main reasons we continue to homeschool.
To make time for each subject:
It seems so obvious now, but preconceived ideas can be blinding. In previous years math monopolized every morning...and boy did we wage some epic battles over it. It was the first subject I made the kids tackle, hoping they would quickly conquer and we could move on to other subjects. But it never worked that way. I expected the boys to be self-motivated when they really needed order and a lot more guidance.
For years I fought the schedule; we needed to stay flexible, it just wasn't who I was, while I admitted children thrive with routine. Last year I decided to put together our own block schedule. As we moved through the first couple weeks I jotted down what worked best for us until we had a good working schedule. Everyone had to be up at 7:30 a.m. and seated at the kitchen table within 15 minutes. We then started out our read aloud time with religion/catechism while the kids would grab their breakfast and tea, and draw or take notes. We then moved on to language arts (grammar, spelling, or phonics) or history, depending on the day, before starting math. Math was only given one hour every morning, and was one of the few subjects each boy did separately because of differing mastery levels. We combined religion, grammar, history, and science, with each boy doing different work at his grade level--a serious time (and mom) saver. Any work that wasn't finished in the morning had to be done in the afternoon as "homework." With this new schedule we easily covered four subjects by lunchtime--with very few meltdowns. It was amazing.
To embrace real-life learning:
The kids have a hand in nearly everything we do. They have to do chores like every other kid out there; they make meals, clean, help harvest the garden, mow the lawn, run into the store to buy things. They pump gas and fill out checks. They learn how to budget right alongside me...although self control is a whole other lesson hard-learned. I taught Aidan basic sewing skills, at his request, and he's taken it upon himself to sew up rips in blankets, pillows, and stuffies. They've helped with car maintenance and use basic power tools. Gavin built a set of shelves in the basement where his Lego table is set up to hold some of his creations, and a moveable bridge to span the creek to check on his minnow traps. Sometimes these lessons happen during regular school hours. Gavin has been able to ride along with our neighbor who has a job that he'd like some day. The goal here is productive, self-sufficient adults.
Learning outside the home:
Has become essential for us to thrive. We all go crazy if we're cooped up too long, especially my outgoing boys. The last three years we've dual enrolled with the local public school so that the boys could participate in sports and classes I can't teach (or can't teach well). Having those classes taken off my plate was a huge relief, and for a couple hours every afternoon there is a period of quiet for me to read with the littles, or fold laundry, or paint, or...take a nap. However, it is extremely frustrating when I talk to people who assume my children were not socialized before we started dual enrolling. If anything our opportunities for socialization have been reduced since dual enrolling because we no longer have the time to join many of the field trips and homeschool groups we used to. We do get to learn in the great outdoors and enjoy picnics with books, activity days at the library, some field trips, and other exploratory adventures, often with fellow homeschoolers. We've also been known to do "car school" when we run into a busy day of running.
Reanimating a love for learning:
Was easier than I had feared. I suppose it's always there in us somewhere, just buried under the sediment of frustration or boredom. I can't claim to have found our way back to the wide-eyed wonder that we started out this journey with almost a decade ago, but it is so much better. The first step was to stop using boring curriculum. I replaced the old science with a new series (which I found used) that has a lot of color photos and diagrams, and includes step-by-step instructions for experiments every week. Anything hands-on helps get the boys excited about being involved. I bought a whole new history curriculum that integrates geography, and is full of color photos, maps, fun activities, crafts and recipes, audio recordings (so I don't have to read everything!), and even board and card games. Grammar involves us in the feat of building a dictated story sentence by sentence, putting in paragraphs and punctuation, marking an expanding number of parts of speech each week, and building our vocabulary lists in the back of our notebooks. Useful application of proper grammar is a much better teaching tool than mind-numbing diagramming or other traditional workbook exercises. At the end of this post I'll list the curriculum we use for anyone interested in giving it a try.
These are not earth-shattering discoveries, and most likely any homeschool parent who is still passionate about teaching her children has already discovered their rhythm. Deep down I knew there was a better way, yet as I mentioned, it can be a monumental achievement surmounting preconceived notions to make a change. And on we go, with prayers for the grace to know when we need to change and the strength to do so.
Our Curriculum
Math: Saxon Math for 3rd grade and up (also what the local school has used up until the '22-'23 school year)
History: The Good and the Beautiful History offers a broad sweep of study from creation to present, focused in different areas of the world each year. It does include some differences in religious opinion (Protestant vs. Catholic) that I edit or leave out, but offers good points of discussion with the boys and they do include Catholic saints in their study of historical figures. I'm disappointed that they're discontinuing this series!
RC History offers a similar method to learn history but Catholic and much more comprehensive.
Science:
Apologia Science is what we've been using for elementary and middle school, but again, includes some Protestant-based anti-Catholic viewpoints.
Grammar:
Phonics, Spelling, Writing, Word Study:
Spectrum Workbooks are what we used through middle school, as well as practical application.
Literature:
We have a healthy library here at home that includes many classics. Simply reading is the goal. I also use Audible for some read aloud time when I need to multi-task.
Religion:
