What we Homeschool: Curriculum

This post is later than I had hoped. I have always managed to post this before the school year begins, and here I am posting it in the second week of October. Oh well! The demands of life have taken precedence over blogging, though I am dedicated to a blogging comeback. Would you believe I actually began writing this post over a month ago?

So here is what we are learning together this year, subject by subject.

Bible: Our kids very much enjoy reading from a book called Victor Journey Through the Bible. We have used it off and on for a couple years. We're studying the book of Acts along with it right now, and we'll continue through the New Testament after that. It provides simple commentary or explanations to go along with what you're reading in scripture as well as diagrams, maps and actual photographs of the Holy Land. We're also using THIS SCRIPTURE MEMORY SYSTEM which we've used for over a year now and absolutely love. It works. It is simple. I highly recommend giving it a try. In the evenings, we have recently been reading through Hero Tales 2 and enjoying keeping up to speed with various missionaries around the world, some near (5 doors down) and some far (India is the farthest, I believe).

Language Arts: We take a Charlotte Mason approach to learning in our house. My sixth grader can spell, speak with excellent vocabulary, think abstractly, narrate almost anything, and write in several genres. I don't say this to brag to you. I say this to tell you that even I wasn't sure that this approach to learning would work for language arts, but it most certainly has.

We began language arts when Lukas was in grade two taking two years to work through Primary Language Lessons. When we finished that, we moved onto Intermediate Language Lessons, and Lukas will complete the third year of that book this year. This program was written in the early 1900s, and I haven't found anything that beats it. It uses a lot of copywork, dictation, narration, picture study, conversation study, and writing in the first book. The second book gradually adds more and more writing and begins to explore parts of speech, verb tense, noun/verb agreement, etc...while not officially giving the parts of speech names until this coming year. Charlotte believed that formal grammar study should be left until the child is capable of understanding the mechanics of grammar rather than simply expecting them to do it because we said so. By copying, dictating, and narrating what others have written, our children learn to communicate well through writing and speech.

Five in a Row also serves us well in language arts by providing us with great books to read. Mostly, at this point, we utilize the language arts study from FIAR rather than doing the entire study on each book. I teach the literary techniques used by the author, we study the artwork, and we learn life lessons. This year, we will re-visit books from Volumes 1-3 and study from Volume 4.

 

I also include penmanship for Ava in this category. She uses Memoria Press Copybooks for her handwriting practice.

Reading: Lukas has just begun to love reading this summer. His current choice in reading may be considered to be twaddle by Charlotte, but I am okay with that. He is learning a little history and geography as he works his way through the 39 Clues series. I don't want to stunt his new found enjoyment of reading, so I am treading softly as we choose books together. He will read books that I choose for him and that we choose together, often a living book that coordinates with our history study, but I want to leave time for him to keep reading through 39 Clues, especially since my husband is reading them with him. There's more to reading than formal education, yes? Currently, Lukas is reading Turn Homeward, Hannalee, which coordinates with our Civil War study.

Ava is reading from the Sonlight list of readers for 2nd grade. She is working her way through The Beginner's Bible right now, and she will continue through the list until she completes it.

Spelling/Phonics/Vocab: Lukas will study spelling through other subjects as needed. Basically, if he misspells a word, then we study the word, and rarely does he miss it again. That's the way he ticks. His vocabulary study comes from his science and history studies. Right now, we're focusing on science vocab, but, once we move onto a different history unit, I plan to do some historical vocab also.

We just started a new spelling curriculum with Ava. We are in our second week of using A Reason for Spelling. It seems like it will be a good fit for her. She really needs spelling reinforcement, which is why we have broken away from the Charlotte Mason method for her. What I like about this program is that it incorporates other aspects of language arts including poetry, copywork, dictation, and more, and it utilizes techniques that serve every learning style. Ava is excited about it, which makes it even better. If you are looking for a new spelling curriculum, their website actually allows you to download an entire week's lesson and lesson plans. Level B, which is what we're using, begins with a 30 day phonics review, which we're going to complete in about half that time since Ava isn't needing it as much as I anticipated.

History: We're beginning the year by finishing a study of the Civil War by Homeschool in the Woods. I love this curriculum. It is phenomenal. I honestly can't say enough good things about it. It is a unit study, and there is so much to do that it is hard to race through it. I could have blown through it in the spring and finished it, but we would have had to skip so much that I chose to take our time and pick it up this fall. Later in the school year, we will jump back and begin a more chronological approach to American history by using Homeschool in the Woods' New World Explorers and Colonial America unit studies. We are studying the Civil War at my 6th grader's request, and, since we had previously had a less than stellar experience with history, I chose to go against my usual bent toward doing everything in order.

Civics: We are loosely studying the electoral process. I hope to get more in depth into this study over the next few weeks, but I have not found a curriculum that seems well-suited for it. If you are a homeschooler who has a good idea, please leave a comment!

Science/Health: We will continue studying life science this year using Answers in Genesis' The Human Body and The World of Plants. We began the year with The World of Plants, and the kids are having a blast with it. I had planned to study it over the summer, but this particular summer just wasn't the time for it in our lives. Fall is working out fine. We will be growing some things in our dining room, and we'll continue to learn about plants at least through the month of November, possibly December depending on interest levels.

Math: Lukas is using Teaching Textbooks 6, which is a computerized curriculum that we began using last year. It utilizes spiral review, which works very well for him. Ava will continue working through the Math-U-See program wrapping up Beta and working through Gamma. We fell behind in math by no fault of Ava's since this is her strongest subject, but we will eventually catch up. Math-U-See works well for Ava because she loves the hands-on approach to math. It is a mastery program, and I like this approach for the early elementary grades.

Physical Education: Both kids are taking a homeschool phys ed class this year at a local place called Kids America that is the closest thing to a Y that our community has. Lukas is also playing soccer and will play basketball later this winter. Ava continues to study ballet and tap dancing and has added lyrical dance to her studies this year.

Art: A lot of homeschooling families choose not to devote much time to art, but we love it, so we are always doing crafts and art projects. We loosely use Artistic Pursuits, which I highly recommend and love, but I often add so many crafts and projects of my own that we end up setting it aside for much of the time. It explores various artistic media and includes art appreciation also. 

Music: Our kids are taking piano lessons from my husband this year. They're also actively involved in both Christmas and spring musicals at our church. In addition to this, I choose an era of music history to study each year. This year we are studying the classical era (1750-1828). Right now, we are listening to Mozart. Typically, I also check-out books from the library on whatever composer we choose to study, but I have been slacking in that area so far this year.  Later this year, we will, of course, study Beethoven and several other classical era composers that I haven't yet chosen. We usually spend 4-6 weeks on each composer.

In summary...

I know this seems like quite a lot of information to cover, but keep in mind that we don't cover all of these subjects every single day. Reading, language arts, and math are daily tasks. History and science are taught 3-4 days each week. Art and Music will only require one or two days each. I'm still working on tweaking our schedule, but it all works out somehow. Certain times of the school year allow us to focus heavily on certain subjects. This fall, we've been blowing through a lot of science and nature study. The winter months typically allow time for a lot of arts and crafts. In the end, we get done whatever it is God planned for our school year in spite of what we planned! I have learned that this philosophy works best for us. As long as we're following God's plan, our children will learn what He has for them!

First Day Lessons

The first day of school. It's always so much fun. I look forward to much in the same way I did as a girl, with anticipation and excitement bubbling over. I try too hard to make the day perfect. I stay up too late the night before. The children plan perfect first day of school outfits because they know I'm going to take too many photos to commemorate the day as if it is a once in a lifetime experience that should be cataloged into the archives of our hearts, never to be forgotten, every detail dually noted.

My kids look forward to the first day of school most likely because I have modeled my fervor for this day since Lukas first stepped into our school room when he was a week shy of his 5th birthday. Kindergarten was a blast. I learned to feel successful that year. I could teach a child to read! Outstanding! I then decided that if I could do this homeschooling thing, anyone could do it!

I've learned various lessons throughout our 6 years of homeschooling. In regard to the beginning of the school year, I have learned some specific lessons. First, never start school the day after Labor Day unless you have nothing planned on Labor Day, or unless you are super prepared and don't procrastinate or obsess over starting the school year perfectly with every I dotted and every T crossed. Uh-hem. So, basically, never start school the day after Labor Day if you are me, or if you are LIKE me.

Second, take your time. Don't try to re-invent the wheel on day one, or week one, or week two. Ease into the school year. Start with a few subjects, and plan something fun for the first day. Making our first day a positive experience helps our family to set the tone for the school year. 

Third, adjust the schedule and be flexible. If your child takes 30 minutes to copy a Bible verse and 30 minutes to do a math review page, and you are faced with only enough remaining time to either complete your history lesson or do a craft, choose the craft. It's the first day of school! History can wait one more day.

With those things in mind, we had a great day. My kids tend to be a little slow at tasks on the first day until they get into the swing of things. I know this, so I plan for it. This year, we began our school year with Bible, history, math, copywork, penmanship, read-aloud, reading, and a craft. The scenario above came into play when I nixed the history lesson in favor of the craft. Technically, our read-aloud is historical fiction that I chose to coordinate with our history study, so we didn't skip it completely.

The lesson I learned on this first day of school? If I don't have every I dotted and every T crossed, as I previously mentioned, I will be okay. In fact, I am okay. I do not have the first 3 weeks of school planned perfectly. In fact, I have only 3 days of school planned, and they are not planned perfectly. Who knew I could be okay with this?  Not me!

Our first day was a success! We'll keep adding other subjects into our schedule over the next couple weeks until we're studying everything that we have planned for this year. It should be a fun school year. I know I am looking forward to it. The orderliness is appealing to me right now. Life is busy and chaotic, but the school day is purposeful and well-planned. That's another lesson well learned over the years, but it has little to do with the first day of school, which is the purpose of this post. So, to end this post, here a few pics from our first day. I hope that your day was as successful as ours was!

 Lukas is in 6th Grade this year.

 Ava is in 3rd grade this year.

When We Homeschool: Scheduling

If you talk to 10 homeschooling moms, you will find 10 different ways of scheduling their school year and their school days. If you talk to them 3 months later, you will find 10 more ways of scheduling their school year and their school days. It seems like this is something that is constantly being tweeked and polished or changed due to the ever changing schedule of busy families and the needs of each child. 

For us, sticking to a basic, structured plan works the best. Some homeschooling families feel free to make appointments and run errands while finishing schoolwork late in the day, but I have found that this causes us to fall behind at our house, so we stick to a basic schedule.

Each of our days, year round, begins with family Bible study at 7:30. After that, our kids have a morning routine that includes things like breakfast, brushing their teeth, piano practice, exercise, and their personal quiet time. If they are able to get this done before 7:30, then they can have free time until school begins. I have one early riser and one sleepy head who gets dragged out of bed at exactly 7:30 (I'm usually about 5 minutes ahead of her).

Because I like to have my own quiet time after breakfast, we aim to start school at 9:30. We have changed the order in which we do our schooling so many times over the years, but we prefer to begin our day gently with a read-aloud. After the read aloud, both kids do their daily copy work and handwriting practice. Lukas does his math while Ava does her reading lesson, spelling practice, and math. Somewhere in there, Lukas gets a language arts lesson also, and sometimes he works on components that go with our history lessons as a part of his language arts (vocab, writing). After lunch, we begin with a picture book read-aloud and do some Five in a Row activities before hitting things like science, history, and art. Art sometimes is a part of science or history, and we often do projects as part of science and history as well. Science, history, and art are not daily lessons. History lessons take place 3-4 days, science 2-3 days, and art maybe once per week (or less, if I'm being honest). The kids have to do 45 minutes of independent reading also. I'm a little loose with this for Ava since she hasn't crossed the bridge to becoming and independent reader yet. We utilize a book basket that has books that coordinate with our science and history studies, and Ava's 45 minutes usually doubles as her book basket time.

I know that sounds like a lot, but keep in mind that some of these lessons are short. Language arts, for example, is never lengthy. I usually work with Lukas for 5 minutes, and then he has his assignment completed in 15. The same with Ava's math lesson. Now that my kids are getting older, I aim to have each school day completed by 3:00. We used to always be done by 12 or even 1 when they were little. I miss those days, but I love what we're doing now too.

As far as how we schedule our school calendar, that's a little easier to explain. We have a loose schedule. With a few exceptions due to things like moving and sickness, we school between Labor Day and Memorial Day. We do not take off all of the traditional school holidays like Veteran's Day, Martin Luther King Jr Day, President's Day, etc... We do take off birthdays. We don't necessarily take off snow days, but, sometimes, if the snow is just too tempting, we will skip part of a day for snow play. We take off days for my mom's chemotherapy and occasional other medical appointments. When the whole county is at the county fair, we have school (unless we're at the fair too). We are in charge of our schedule. If we need time off, we take it. We take 3 weeks off at Christmas (homeschool moms, this is the best decision we have ever made. The holiday season is busy. It makes things so much easier!), and a week off in the spring.

This year, we'll be trying something new. My husband is working a new job that requires him to work on Saturday while giving him Tuesday off instead (most weeks). We have decided that Tuesday is the new Saturday at our house, so we are going to try to school on Saturday instead of Tuesday as much as possible. This won't work during sports seasons, but I think it will work for most of the school year. We'll see how it goes!

To read more about homeschooling at our house, click on the tag below to see my previous posts about homeschooling.

Why We Homeschool

If you've been following my blog over the past couple weeks, then you know that I'm posting a series on homeschooling. If you are new to my blog, then I think you'll still find this post to be interesting. You can read about our path to becoming a homeschooling family in my post, Before We Homeschooled. This post is going to focus on why we choose to continue this quest to educate our children at home. If you are a homeschooler, then your reasons for doing so are likely broad and varied, as are ours. Here is a glimse into some of the reasons why we do this thing we do.

Homeschooling is a calling placed on our hearts by God...When our oldest child was just a few months old, my childhood best friend called to tell me that she was expecting her first baby. In that conversation, somehow, we started talking about education. It was in that moment that I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that my fun-loving, normal, spontaneous, previously rebellious friend had fallen off her rocker. Completely. Totally. Off. Her. Rocker. Even so, God planted a seed that day. It was the first moment that I ever thought a normal person might choose to homeschool. Five years later when it was time for us to homeschool, I was hesitant. I took this homeschooling plunge because I knew God wanted us to do it having no idea what His purpose for doing so was. Since then, I have learned that God has given every parent the task of discipling our children first and educating them second. For us that means educating our children in our home. The best place to make sure that our children are learning in an environment in which their faith in God is the top priority, we educate them ourselves. We personally have no desire to delegate this responsibility and are grateful to this calling that God has given to us!

Higher quality of academics...I don't believe that most classroom teachers would argue the fact that, if you are teaching only a few students, you are able to do a better job than you are when you are teaching 25 students. As a classroom teacher, I always knew that, the smaller the class, the easier it was going to be for me to teach them. This is true in the home as well. Our kids are getting individual attention every single day.

Variety of subject matter...What a blessing it is to study subjects that are of interest to our kids! Lukas asked to study the Civil War, and so we did. Ava asked to learn about butterflies, and so we did. Of course, our children don't get to choose every subject they study, but when they do have an interest, we are able to cover it. This makes learning fun for them and shows them that learning has a life-long purpose.

Flexibility...When we began to homeschool, I never imagined how important this would be for us. All homeschooling families have to learn to be flexible as the demands of managing a household collide with the demands of academia, but, for us, this became even more real when my mom became ill last year. We were able to be so flexible that we moved to be closer to her! Since then, we have been able to take days off when she had a chemotherapy treatment or other appointment. This is one of the many blessing of homeschooling! This time spent with my mom is irreplaceable, and my kids will never forget the opportunity homeschooling allowed them to spend time with their grandmother. If our kids are going through something emotionally, like finding out just how sick their grandmother is, we can throw school out the door for a day and catch things up later. After this past school year was interrupted with chemotherapy treatments, a bout of pneumonia, and a round of bronchitis for the kids, we continued to have school through the end of June. All that matters is that the material was covered.

Ability to meet the needs of our kids where they are... We are able to carefully chose curriculum based on the individual needs and learning styles of our children and to tailor their academic program to their ability levels. Of course, there is a time and place for children to learn to adapt, but that doesn't need to be an everyday occurrence. Lukas is an auditory learner, so we have learned that Teaching Textbooks works well because he can hear the lecture as he sees examples being worked on the computer screen. Math-U-See works well for Ava because she is a kinisthetic-tactile learner who loves hands-on projects. Ava is creative, and Lukas is intuitive. Both are getting their academic needs met in our home.

World View...One thing that I love about homeschooling is the ability to weave our personal world view through our curriculum. This doesn't mean that our children aren't learning about other world views or religions; it just means that our curriculum reflects our belief system. For example, we believe that the creation story in the Bible is literal, so our science curriculum is based on that belief and actually teaches them the opposing belief of evolution so that they will know how to defend a creationism stance. Biblical standards are also woven through things like history study, hand writing, read-alouds, and more. We also study the Bible and use Bible verses as copy work, dictation, and memory work. What better resource is there?

Discipleship rather than Evangelism...I could have chosen to cover this thoroughly in a couple of the above points, but I wanted to discuss it specifically. As a homeschooler, I have heard all of the reasons why we shouldn't be doing this, mostly from fellow believers. The biggest lie that many Christians choose to believe is that our children are designed to be salt and light, just as Jesus calls us to be. This simply isn't true. Children are children. It is our job to train up our children in the way they should go, and it is our job to protect their hearts and minds. It is not their job to evangelize the local elementary school. Sure, there are times that happens, but that is rarely the case. More often, Christian kids are sucked into world views and experiences that go against scripture. There is a time and place for children to be introduced to such things, but it is the parents' responsibility to do so, not a teacher who truly barely knows our children. If an adult feels called to serve in the public school setting with the goal of being salt and light, then that is certainly what they should do, but don't use this passage of scripture as your basis for putting your children in harm's way. We disciple our children in our home and provide them opportunities to minister in our community and church. Some day, they will be able to evangelize the world, but that day is not today.

Come back next week to hear about a typical school day in our homeschool!

Before We Homeschooled

To give you a little history about me, you should first know that I loved school. Public school. I loved pleasing my teachers by getting good grades. I loved music class and art class. I loved playing in the band. I loved receiving awards for academic achievement (I realize I sorta just created the picture of a geek, but, hey, I'm way over the stereotype. I've embraced it!). I loved wasting time with friends, hanging out on the weekends with those friends, and being completely stupid with those same friends. I looked forward to Friday night football games, trips on hot buses with the band to places like Disney World and Cedar Point, and my senior prom. I certainly had a good time in high school. Academics aside, high school was a blast!

After high school, I continued my quest for information. College was the next obvious step. At my high school, smart girls were expected to go to college. I never considered that there was another option. I picked a major and got started on the next stop toward adulthood. I went to college and graduated with a degree in music education with every intention to teach. I loved being a student, so I expected that I would love being a teacher.

To say that I didn't love being a teacher would be a vast understatement. I despised teaching. My first year wasn't just bad, it was wretched. My second year was better, but I still wasn't enjoying it. God grew me through it, but what he planted in my heart was that I was not supposed to be a career classroom teacher. It wasn't His plan for me.

I share all this with you to show you that my educational background actually  made me more opposed to homeschooling than the average person. I was almost offended by homeschooling families who thought they could do the job I was trained to do better than I could. I would never have said that to them, but I most certainly thought it. And being a trained classroom teacher? In my opinion, I think it sets you up for trouble if you choose to homeschool. So many people that I know who were once classroom teachers end up burning out when they choose to homeschool because they try to replicate a classroom experience. They try to make life fit into their school plans, when it only works if you do it the other way around. There isn't one way to educate a child. This is what I had to learn, and it took me a couple years to really embrace that and to realize that there was a better way to do this thing called school.

I became a stay-at-home mom the very week that I could have been starting my third year of teaching at two elementary schools in our little upstate NY town. I had moderate success in those classrooms the previous school year, but I knew that I wanted to be at home (a calling I later learned to not take for granted). We cut our income in half, and I spent my days loving on my baby boy.

In the years that followed, we had another baby and moved to Pennsylvania. While living there, I really started thinking about this whole homeschooling thing and talking to Eric about it. While everyone in our east coast town was scrambling to get their child into "the" perfect preschool, I was spending my days happily enjoying my little ones without a thought in the world concerning formal schooling. Eventually,  I attended a homeschooling info night that was held at our church with experienced homeschoolers. Eric was already on board with this idea, and that evening got me over my hesitation. We decided to take the plunge.

Why?

Oh, we had no idea why at the time. We just knew that it was what God wanted for us, so we did it. I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to teach Lukas to read (even though he had been asking me to teach him for months). I had already tried my hand at table work with him when he was 3 and again when he was 4. Neither attempt went well. He hated to write. People kept telling me why I shouldn't homeschool. Others would say things like, "Well, it's okay for YOU to homeschool because you're a teacher, but not just anyone should be allowed to homeschool." I didn't know how to reply to that for a long time.

We moved to Ohio, and I attended a homeschooling convention. There was curriculum everywhere. Several fabulous representatives spent time telling me why their curriculum was ideal. I finally settled on an all-inclusive curriculum called Heart of Dakota, and it included a very simplistic reading instruction book. Perfect.

And so our journey began. Lukas started kindergarten in our home in August 2006.

Homeschooling Series

I recently started following the blog of a fellow homeschooling mom who lives in Texas. We attended college together, and, while we didn't really know each other in college, she did know my husband, so we do have that connection. She recently wrote a series of posts on homeschooling that got me thinking about what people think we actually do. I know that I always thought that homeschoolers were weird before I became one (and maybe for a while after too), that they kept their kids in a neat little box so that they were unblemished by the world, and, like so many people, I thought they spent their days sitting in little desks plugging away with textbooks and workbooks all day long.

I am so very glad that isn't an accurate picture of our life, so I'm kind of copying Julia's idea and telling our homeschooling story. Go read about their journey with Julia at A Nutter Experience. I think you'll enjoy her insights, not just about homeschooling, but her other thoughts as well.

Come back for my next post about what I thought about homeschooling BEFORE taking the plunge. I'm embarrassed to say that my thoughts were somewhat typical American. Crazy. Nutso. Weird. Yep. That's what I thought about homeschoolers. You too? Good. I'm glad I'm not alone in this journey.I have found that few people lack a strong opinion about homeschooling. Come along with me throughout this series to discover how this homeschooling mom's opinion has evolved over time. Check back soon for another post!