Judging Homeschool - Part One

One of the things I promised myself when we began homeschooling was that I would think about it a lot to make sure that it was really the right thing for our family. With five weeks under our belt and a two week break for the holidays, it has seemed like a good time to discuss with myself how things are going.

Fact #1 – We are doing just fine! I do not feel that by having my kids at home they are getting behind academically.

For Math we are staying on target with their school textbooks and supplementing with Khan Academy online. (Ellie is 94% done with Khan’s 3^rd grade Math, and Meg is 46% done with Khan’s Early Math, which goes through 2^nd grade).

With English, our family has always done a lot of reading. We are adding in grammar and memorizing, which I feel is great. And also some skills about summarizing and narrating – which drives Ellie crazy and will certainly help with essay writing. I’ve felt a little bit low on the writing side, but we are joining a “Great Books” seminar for the second semester that will fill in that gap for us.

Fact #2 – I was wrong about the school not getting enough done each day! There’s no other way to say it, I was just wrong! Perhaps not all the teaching was “on level” for my children, but the fact that elementary schools get through all those topics (math, English, social studies, singing, gym class, art, science, etc.) is downright amazing! Obviously my children never ate lunch – which is a problem – but 100 gold stars for all that other stuff. Whew! I cannot possibly figure out how to “get it all done” myself.

Our family has followed a monthly topic for our Science unit. We did Magnets in November, and Stars in December. We have done a few experiments, watched some YouTube videos, and made a solar system out of bouncy balls, but I don’t feel that my science curriculum is blowing their minds.

For history we are reading “History of the World.” I like the text, and there are some great enrichment activities to go along with it. I need to read ahead for the next semester so that I can schedule in more of the “heavily-prepared” activities. We’ve mostly been coloring maps, and I know they would like to do more.

For art, we have done two sewing projects. Um, that seems a little pathetic. Especially since we haven’t finished the second! Part of the problem is that we’ve gone to homeschool activities on “Art Fridays” and I don’t feel bad about having some Archaeology instead of Art, but I also need to do more with the sewing. Where is the time?

For service and family history, boy am I behind! We’ve done a little personal history, but not any family history. And we have not been to the Retirement Home at all. Outright fail there.

We are doing much better on being contributors in the home. The kids each help with a certain category of job all day (household cleaning, household project, laundry) and they also take care of their room responsibilities and fold their own laundry. They are learning how the machines work in our home, and learning to sweep, and vacuum, and wash windows. I never was a Saturday family cleaning kind of person, so this is much more “household help” than they were doing before.

Admittedly, we do have some much more productive scripture study in the morning. And this was an important part of us doing homeschooling. So, that gets a point there. We have more discussions on questions the kids have. They can find scriptures on their own. They memorize, and study both topically and chronologically. Don’t worry they also color and kick each other under the table. The point is that scripture study is going better, and is more useful than it was before. But is this enough? Can’t we figure out how to do that in the evenings as well?

Fact #3 – “The Vision” Hypothesis

This is my main thought about homeschool right now: I am certainly “doing fine,” but our family is sacrificing a lot for this. The girls have given up time with their friends, and great teachers and projects at school, I have given up time, many projects, and cleaning efforts (not so sad about that one) around the house, and Spencer has given up a lot of one on one time with his pretty cool Momma ;) . Honestly, Sterling comes out ahead because he LOVES being with his siblings, and gets picked up way more than when it’s just me at home. He also gets two naps. Hallelujah! Grant will be going to preschool in January, and is doing great at reading – which is my main goal with him. So, those two aren’t sacrificing much. But if the rest of us are just “doing fine” is it worth pulling them out of school where they are also “doing fine” and we’re not making those same sacrifices?

I am not sure, but this much I do know. Homeschooling for our family is only right if it goes “beyond”. And this is where I’m struggling. Part of me wants to cross all my t’s and dot all my i’s.  I want to be able to prove that I’m checking all the boxes off that will make their education what it should be. But I really can’t check off all those same boxes that they check off at school. There is one of me, and I don’t have the energy to do all that. So, if I am just trying to “replicate” public school at home, then this is a bad idea. I should send them back and let them have that great experience and figure out how to add my important “home” stuff in during my “home” time.

But!!!! if I can let go of checking off the boxes and do something "different" then I will be on the way to what I wanted to do in the first place. My main problems with this are:

1    1.  letting go of my compulsiveness and

2    2.  even managing to see a vision of what I want to be doing in the first place.

Sooooooo, the long and short of this initial analysis is that if I can find this vision, and let go of the “busywork” to embrace it, then homeschooling will be worthwhile. But how exactly do I do that???

Busy

The next question people ask me about homeschooling is: aren't you horribly busy?

The short answer to this is yes. I have to get up in the morning and get going. We do school in the morning. We do projects and quiet time (my writing time) in the afternoon. And then we still have the house to clean, and dinner to make, and diapers to change. I'm busy enough that most tasks are done in little spurts. I hope that if I do small amount each day it will eventually come to something. And we roll with that.

Of course, the long answer is that I was always busy. It was just with different things. Driving. Waiting. More cleaning than I do now. Now I am more busy with my children. With talking to them. With learning alongside them. The first week, as I sat thinking about this, I realized how gratifying it is. I've always struggled with my time at home. I've never loved cooking or been able to make it a hobby. I prefer keeping the house at level, and not getting into deep cleaning or organizing. I really don't like playing with the toys and kids. But this kind of busy and interaction with them feels good and enjoyable. After 9 years of mothering, I finally felt like I knew I was using my time for the right thing. And that is a relief. I'm okay with being busy that way.

As for interacting with the outside world, I still haven't got that figured out. More on that in my next post.

Curriculum and Schedule

One of the first questions I get about homeschooling is: What are you using for curriculum? This isn't too surprising since when I considered making the change it was one of my primary thoughts. After all, once you decide to keep the kids home, what exactly should you do with them? There are many different homeschooling paths, and ours takes a little from each method. I believe a lot in free time, and reading, and finding education in the ordinary. But I also believe in meeting goals and having rock-solid foundational knowledge. So, our morning is fairly "schoolish" and our afternoon is faily "run-wildish."

The kids wake up and while I read and exercise they get ready and eat breakfast.

We meet for family scripture study which consists of memorizing a scripture together, reading a scripture story, reading a section of the little booklets the missionaries hand out, and doing personal study (I encourage them to read at least one verse). They also color.

At this point, I finish morning household jobs, feed and water Sterling, and get dressed. At 9:00 Sterling goes to his nap, the boys go downstairs to play (they only earn iPad time if they play nicely without interrupting us), and the girls and I do math for an hour. We are using Everyday Mathematics from the school because I didn't want to buy a math curriculum for half a year, and we can get it from the school for free. I read the lessons for the week and pull out the activities I like, but I have yet to make a real long lesson of it. We also do the worksheets associated with those units. This takes about 20 minutes. Then, because I'm most nervous about math we do Khan Academy online for practice and Splash Math on the iPad (recommended to me by my cousin Laura). Ellie does a lot of multiplication drilling right now.

At 10:00 the boys get their 20 minutes each on the iPad. Grant does math, Spencer plays Angry Birds and renames all my files. The girls and I do "English" which consists of Grammar with "Well-Trained Mind," Spelling with "Spelling Workout," and "Handwriting Without Tears." We also have some creative prompts they work on at the end.

Then we break and do lunch and playing. Sterling usually wakes up at this point. Today Ellie made lunch while I did jobs with Grant and Meg. Every day they each get to pick which kind of job they are going to do based on who finishes their morning jobs first (dressed, bed made, teeth/hair, breakfast, room tidied). Because Ellie always finishes first she picks "project" - which is whatever random job is floating around in my mind. She's weeded, emptied the dishwasher, cleaned her desk, and made lunch. Meg usually picks "cleaning." Today that meant she cleaned the bathrooms with me. Grant always gets stuck with "laundry" which makes him cry until he gets downstairs and gets to turn the water on. He likes that.

After lunch we do "Special". On Monday we do Family History, on Tuesday we do Science, on Wednesday we do History, on Thursday we do Piano/Ballet, on Friday we Art (we don't do Math and English on Friday - and I hope to get some service planned for this day also).

Spencer and Sterling go to sleep again at 2 or 3. Before this happens we read. Grant reads me a book, I read him a book. The girls and I read together and then do "Dictation" and "Narration" which is mostly remembering what your read and understanding the story. Spencer picks his book, and we head up to naps. 

At this point the kids can go downstairs and do whatever they want except fight or bother me. I get about 2 hours to write upstairs while the little boys sleep. That's on a good day. After writing, it's dinner and finish up the jobs time. 

I still haven't figured out where to fit my big extra jobs like doing the budget or going grocery shopping. I also haven't figured out how to balance our "schedule" with extra items that get thrown in the week of. There were some activities this week at the co-op, but I didn't know how much I wanted to give up at home to go there. I'm not sure. I still can't decide. I also have a dentist appt tomorrow, so we'll see what happens with that. I have not one clue how to go Visiting Teaching. And I am trying to get some friend time in as well. 

So, that's our basic schedule and curriculum. Next, I want to talk about what has been good and what has been bad.....

Homeschool

This week our family began homeschooling. Some of my greatest advice regarding homeschooling has centered on staying in line with specific goals. Before we began, Justin and I made a list of what we wanted to accomplish with homeschooling, and I am trying to check in with those goals and make sure that the process is successful and purposeful for our family. I decided I would try reporting online because for the many years I considered homeschooling I wished and wished to be able to see inside others' experiences with homeschooling. Maybe I can provide that for someone else here.

First of all, for clairification, reasons we DID NOT choose homeschooling.

1. Bad Schools - Our family lives in the boundaries for a great school. Our kids have wonderful friends with good values and had fantastic teachers. They had access to excellent programs and learned many  wonderful things. When we made our choice, it was not between bad and good, or right and wrong. It was a decision of "better for our family right now."

2. Common Core - I don't have a problem with common core. Shoot me.

3. Those crazy liberals! That crazy curriculum! - Nope. Never had a problem with this. We love meeting different people and learning about them. We are great with figuring out how to hear things at school and come home to learn how that fits into our belief system. Plus, our kids are in elementary school, and this just hasn't been a problem.

Reasons we did choose homeschooling.

1. We have goals for our children beyond academics. Look, I loved school, and I was good at it. Achievement in school is big for us. Doing your best, going to college, learning, learning, learning! But there is so much more to life. I want my kids to learn so much more. Cooking, cleaning, sewing, taking care of family. And I just don't think this is less important, even though as a society we turn down our noses at it. I want my children to find proficiency and value in the tasks they are going to be spending their whole lives doing. I am glad I passed on AP Chem exam, but I still hate cooking with everything in my soul, and it is part of my life three times every day. Oh, the horror! I have a friend who loves cooking because it is Chemistry. How cool is that? I want to give my children more to find in these realities of life.

2. School eats up time. Sending my children to other people for five days of a seven day week and seven of the thirteen hours they're awake has never sat well with me. Add to that increased homework and I start getting a little grumpy. Add to that the fact that - of necessity - the teacher must share her time with 30 children and I begin to change my mind about the efficiency of the program in using all that time I'm handing over to them. We can finish academics in the morning and then use our time for other learning. We can do extracurriculars without running around with our heads chopped off. I do not want to plan my family's life around the one hour left to us each day when school is finished with its requirements. Free time! I truly think my little cherubs need some free time to imagine and create and play. And more then 15 minutes to eat!!!! What is up with that? They are children, and they are so smart. They learn through discovery and excitement. I want to give them time to do that.

4. We value family relationships. My children are so grumpy and tired after school (and starving) that they take it out on each other. Also, they have begun to buy into the idea that their friends are cooler than their siblings. I want my children to be best friends with each other. If I'm going to birth them, they better darn well love each other. This is probably the biggest one for me. We do have access to a homeschool group here, and we have already used it for week one. I have arranged for beloved school friends to have regularly schedule play dates. We will be going to volunteer with the elderly as a service. We are not going to sit home and stare at each other all day. But our primary relationships are with our family members. Already the conflict in our home has been greatly reduced.

5. We believe in spiritual education. The world is a heavy place to live, and there is so much garbage. I want my children to obtain a spiritual education that receives just as much emphasis as their academic education. As a recent conference talk says: I want them to be prepared in a manner that was never seen before. I've always loved the idea of the Jewish Yeshiva (which I'm probably spelling wrong) where children are taught about Faith throughout the day. We now start our days with a devotional and personal scripture time. We discuss at length those questions I always brush aside at bedtime because I'm exhausted and don't want to talk to people under the age of ten anymore.

Well, it's late now, so I will have to give my update on week one another time. Plus, the baby's crying....