A Day in the Life of a Homeschool Family

I field a ton of questions about homeschooling these days. It's different. It's not well known unless you're in the community. Everybody does it differently. Each state has its own rules. Each family has its own reason for choosing homeschool as an education model. School started the third week of August and we are now sitting in the middle of October. We've had time to settle down and in to our homeschool life leaving me time to jot down some of the swirling thoughts I wade through daily.

How'd we get started?

My husband and I were dead set against homeschooling due to what we'd seen it produce. One family out of we will just say A LOT, impressed us and got it right from our perspective. But those odds were not in favor for saying we ourselves thought homeschooling was the best route to education. We moved states so that our children would have a great public school education. We all have lots of ideas about life and family before we have to deal with them ourselves. Enter our asynchronistic oldest child. Didn't talk at all until 3.5. Still has trouble with mechanical functions at age 9. But this kid's brain. Whoa. He remembers pretty much everything he's bothered to research. I didn't realize how different this was until he entered Kindergarten at the best public school in our state. We had a fantastic teacher. He had a great time with the kids until he just got bored. Put yourself in his shoes. Could you sit through 9 months of "learning" stuff that you mastered a year or so before with a happy heart? So for first grade we met with the principal who was progressive and a breath of fresh air (and reassigned schools a few months later to fix another school) and decided on a game plan. He talked us out of trying the gifted program because it didn't exist at our school and once a week we would put our kid on a bus across town for a few hours of a gifted class and then back on a bus to come back to his regular school. He'd spend just as much time on the bus as in the gifted classroom. OR if he tested in the 98 percentile, he could enroll in the gifted magnet program again across town and go to school full time there. It being our responsibility for transportation. In both of our minds and the principal's mind, that defeated the point of living in our tight knit community.  As did private school. Who has money for that and would it solve our boredom problem? Probably not. Having friends and a life in our little community was the ideal goal. Dual enrollment became our plan. Mornings at home because that's when he would have to sit through the stuff he already knows and go to school daily at lunch time and do the "specials" for the rest of the school day. That wasn't the solution for this kid either because well bullies, new principal, and nothing done to solve the problem. Enter second grade, full-time homeschool with dual enrollment for PE and Science Lab. Seriously, this school has a Ph.D scientist full-time on staff with a sweet set up with things like drones and 3D printers. We lasted a quarter with all the back and forth between half day kindergarten with my younger son and sitting in the car with him for half an hour or 45 minutes four times a week for these classes. And again my son was bored. After letting go of public school being the answer for my asynchronistic child, and embracing homeschooling, our year for second grade was beautiful. We dove into subjects of his interest like world history and physics and reading classic literature. His emotions were no longer raw and destructive. Instead he became a pleasure. Like a little human being instead of inflicting terror on me when things were going to hit the fan. He gained confidence in who he is with having a safe and positive environment. Not being ridiculed for being different than the rest of the wolf pack. He was on stable ground. Our mornings were a beautiful bonding time for us. We found the answer for this child, homeschooling. But that didn't solidify in my mind that it was the path for my younger child.

Our younger son is a brilliant builder and naturalist. He is, hands down, the kindest person I know. He loved going to school to see his teachers and friends. Learning he didn't care about, it was all social for him. That's fine, just how kindergarten should be in my mind. Remember, I mentioned the best public elementary school in our state is our local school? It's very driven by test scores. Your worth as a student is based on how you do on those tests. Towards the middle end of Spring one of those tests happened. An oral test in a group with a stranger administering it, determining how well the student was doing in kindergarten. Sure that seems the best way to approach testing with 6 year olds. She said tongue in cheek. My child froze and was embarrassed and scared of the stranger and didn't pass the test. Big shocker. Ask him to do the same test with his fantastic teacher and not in a group and he would have aced it. He did it at home every week for his homework. Do you know who started to feel bad about himself and that he was a bad student at the early age of 6 because of a badly administered test? Not to mention that there is a five year range of acceptable brain development for learning to read. But common core curriculum does not account for child development and that is a discussion for another time. Children do not need that kind of pressure when they are just being introduced to formal learning. So then formed solidly in my mind that in order to protect that kindness and an eagerness to learn, he too, would no longer be learning at a school building.

I spent the summer worrying about figuring out the best system for homeschooling my boys together. It would be much different than just having one with complete guarded time we experienced for second grade. I had it all figured out what we were going to do and have changed course since August! Ha. That is the beauty of custom education. You do not have to stick with a method if it's not working out for your child. So what are we doing?

Here's a rundown of our homeschool life.

We are not morning people. My littles get up somewhere between 8 and 9 in the morning. I do not wake them up because I'm sleeping until they do. I have found they need space and time in the morning to wake up, so they go to their playroom and spend an hour or two building and playing in their imaginary world. They come down for breakfast at some point when they decide they are hungry. After breakfast, we start our learning time. What we do is based off of weather, moods, and if we have anything scheduled outside our home for our day. Because I've given them the few hours to play before learning time, we don't take breaks for play during learning time. We spend a few hours immersed in our subjects. And then back to play time. Play time always means playing, no screen time. And screen time is asked for much less than previously. I have no answer for this other than possibly suggesting they need less decompressing from their days. Our days are not dictated by another's schedule and it leaves all of us more rested, peaceful, and having the energy to do the extra fun trips and things on the weekends and not have it feel like a chore. There is no homework. We accomplish what we do and pick up where we need to the next day. Or give it a break for a bit if that's what needs to happen. The atmosphere of learning in our home is not one of tedious tasks but engagement and excitement for what's next or new. We've settled into learning through story time. We read aloud scores and scores of books. And listen to multiple audio books a week. Sounds like it's all warm and fuzzy? For the most part it really is. We all love it.

Do you have a curriculum service you follow?

I do not have a boxed set over arching grade curriculum for 1st and 3rd grade. I do not stick with one method of learning. I am an eclectic homeschooler because my children are not at one grade level of learning. We use Five in a Row, but my kiddos would mutiny if I read them a book five times in a row. They rarely tolerate a book being read to them again. We use the book list and read the book and discuss the book and maybe use the suggestions in the manual if it will engage them further. That being said, we have finished books manuals 1 and 3 of the FIAR curriculum since August. Each book is supposed to last a school year. We follow the Charlotte Mason idea of reading aloud and having the children sit still and listen actively and nature walks with journaling occasionally. We have three different math workbooks: a hands' on method, spiral learning method, and a common core method. We have a Latin program from yet another company. And our science books from another. Their favorite music is classical. We are neither project or unit based learning. My kids like to have a smattering of subjects going on or they lose interest. We use the library a lot for books and learning sets and also their classes.

Socialization

The question of learning to work in groups or with others comes up very often which is the essence of  what people mean by socialization, I think. My kids have to work well together daily with their play time and their school time. Other opportunities to be around other teachers, adults, and kids are found in our neighborhood homeschool group, through field trips, library classes, and our city does a monthly homeschool class for kids with a teacher at the learning center. We also live in a small community with a huge emphasis on family and kids. There are lots of friends to play with in our hood. My kids go to two or three library classes a week where they are working in groups to build projects and then present their project to the class. They also participate in Scouts. They've done lots of sports. We are taking a break from that for now. A positive to homeschooling socialization is that they are not bound by their grade for social learning. They are around older and younger kids and adults which mimics "real" life.

Will you put them back in school?

I'm particularly asked about putting my oldest child back in when the other students grow up and catch up to his learning level. I don't think they ever will catch up to him. Not to sound snobbish, but the kid gives me a run for my money and I'm no slouch with information. If he decides to go back, then we will respect his autonomy and make a game plan for him.
 My younger son is a brilliant builder. He fixes my sprinkler system when it's broken without help or prompting. He just takes care of it. He is always inventing, playing with circuits, and coming up with new ideas for creating. He has an inane sense to create, solve problems, and build. We have a crafting and material area for his daily creations. If he decides public school is what he needs, then we will respect his autonomy and make a game plan for him as well.
I'm not foolish enough to say it will never happen. I just don't see that it is their path for the near future. And as an Army brat who doesn't know what it is to make and keep long term plans, we take it one day, semester, and year at a time.

At the beginning of the school year I was feeling overwhelmed with finding which nice box of homeschool we are. Just like we didn't fit the box of regular school there is no homeschool method in which we fit nicely. I made a list of desires for what I wished our learning environment ideas and principles to follow. My list was a page and a half. A sprinkling of them are:

* to maximize our time for experiences. Take lots of field trips.
* to be student interest lead so they have more stake in the game and desire to learn
* to have a relaxing attitude and approach
* to enjoy our time together and not get caught up in labels and what everyone else is doing
* to ignore negativity and stop feeling the pressure to prove our choice. Focus on the positive.
* to be relational. With each other and with our friends and the outside world.
* to live from a place of rest.

I carry a heavy weight on my shoulders. I'm responsible for making the decisions, not dropping any education balls, and making sure we have the materials we need for learning. There are tons of homeschooling resources online and wading through the freebies, art projects, science experiments, story books, maps, holiday/season crafts, and which type of homeschool philosophy you follow can get one weary. I don't get many breaks mentally or physically. My house is always in a stage of chaos from school materials and projects, or chores just not getting done. When I take a step back and reflect on my goals for our learning atmosphere, my head stops swimming a bit. I'm still learning to keep what fits and discard something that is good but just isn't best for my kids' interests or skills. Daily I have to talk myself down from the overwhelming pressure of performing or feeling that we are not doing enough. We are. Our learning time doesn't have the bounds of Monday - Friday. It is a lifestyle. We are having experiences. Last week we went with our neighborhood homeschool group to the local university and had a private class with an Entomologist in his lab. My children think this is a normal experience for young kids. Tomorrow morning we are going to the Planetarium at a college an hour away with a group of homeschooling families in our valley. Last month we spent two weeks volunteering a our neighborhood historical farm. We visited the local art museum and multiple community events that in the past we just would have been out of energy for attending. We haven't taken advantage of travelling whenever we want and not based on school vacation time yet. But that perk will prove itself worthy when we do get to experience it. My children have ongoing imaginary stories that they enact with their toys and their outside sand box play yard. My children are building a tee pee in our backyard out of our sunflower stalks from our garden. Life is full of wonder and learning experiences. Our choice awards us the time to study the world and make the world our classroom.