I love home-centered learning. I can remember attending a homeschooling conference where a speaker said, “you’ll never find success if your reason for homeschooling is simply to not do something the world is doing. You have to anchor your why in what you are doing.”
This really struck me. We don’t homeschool because of all the issues with compulsory schooling- although I certainly see enough issues to make me to stick with homeschooling even on the hardest days. We homeschool because we love spending time with our children, and we want them to live a life rooted in beauty and goodness that can be seen through a lifetime of learning. Homeschooling has allowed me to read more, explore more, and bond more with my children than any other activity we’ve done together.
But with seven children, four of them school-aged and 2 more ready for preschool learning, I have to be extremely intentional with our time together. Personally, I subscribe to an eclectic learning style that tends to be a blend of the Classical, Charlotte Mason, and Unschooling homeschool methods. For us, that looks like following a spine from Classical Conversations, using books and hands on learning to support what material we’re discovering, and allowing for deviations from our focuses as my children’s interests lead us in different directions.
Example:
We begin with history, and follow a 3-year cycle.
Year 1 we study ancient history and world civilizations. In this year we also study biology, botany, and zoology using unit studies and nature study. We will also look to fine arts and study ancient, gothic, and renaissance art, as well as world geography.
Year 2 we study medieval to modern world history. This is hugely expansive, and so as we repeat the cycles, I go into more depth the 2nd and 3rd rotations. In cycle 2 we also study ecology, astronomy, and physical science. In fine arts we look at Baroque, Neoclassical, and Romantic periods, and we go further into world geography and the changes in the geopolitical environment through modern history.
Year 3 we study US history. In science we look at anatomy, chemistry, and biblical cosmology vs. the secular scientific study of origins of the universe. In fine arts we study modern art and look at modern composers, paying special attention to artists and composers from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. (I work hard to find rich and diverse sources for our history, art, and literature studies- while I do this with each cycle, I find it to be far easier when studying the modern era.)
My favorite resources for these are Story of the World for history, The Good and Beautiful for science unit studies (all except Biblical cosmology), book lists from The Peaceful Press, Stories of Color, and Heritage Mom Blog (all on instagram).
We make all this happen in a pretty orderly fashion. Each day, every child does math and reading/language arts. For math, I use Saxon math for all grades, and for reading/language arts I use IEW- the Institute for Excellence in Writing. We also read stories from The Golden Children’s Bible that correspond to our weekly Torah portions. (We follow the torah portions outlined at virtualhousechurch.com)
After we’ve done math, language arts, and Bible time, we rotate through a loop:
Monday: History- we read a chapter from Story of the World, identify the locations in that chapter on an atlas, review places we learned about previously, and do a hands-on activity. We may also do a notebooking page, do some research if the kids have questions, or make an addition to our history timeline chart.
Tuesday: Science- we do a lesson and experiment from one of our Good and Beautiful unit studies, sketch or draw from what we’ve studied, and read picture books that relate to the story. We recently bought a Yoto Player for our children- it’s an audiobook player for children with no screens and no ads- and it has options to buy science focused audio-stories. We are enjoying the Brain Bots studies of the human body on the Yoto as we sketch our way through the systems of the body.
Wednesday: Fine Arts- we read folk tales and fables or works from authors in the period of history we’re studying. I include our family poetry tea time on these days, as well as an artist study and a composer study. We spend the entire Wednesday listening to good books, drawing or painting like a famous artist, and listening to good music. We spent the first portion of this year listening to indigenous American fables and folk tales, and we’re beginning to listen to early American folk music and hymns.
Thursday: Nature Study- we loosely follow the guides from Treehouse Schoolhouse. I simply choose a lesson from the current season that best fits what’s happening on our farm and the other things we’re studying, and we follow that lesson. This might look like a nature walk on our property, a sketch or collage in response to what we’ve seen, and a notebooking page with lots of facts we’ve discovered, or even a cooking project with something from the farm.
We don’t do school on Fridays, because we’re preparing for Shabbat on Saturday. Our Fridays are spent cooking meals for the weekend, cleaning the house, and tackling small projects around the house. I consider all of this to be life-learning: we pay bills, clean out the fridge and assess what we have and what we need, write the menu and the grocery list for the next week, get laundry folded and put away, and finalize the big projects we need to tackle on Sunday. This lets us enjoy a full day of rest on Sundays, and it keeps my children in a mindset of working hard and planning with the reward of rest always ahead of them.
I do have a high schooler in my homeschool now- and her work is much more intense than what is outlined here. She’s studying traditional logic, Spanish (from an old textbook of mine), AP US History, Physical Science, Algebra 1, and American Literature and composition. She can do much of her study independently, and I just plan to spend 15-30 minutes with her on math and composition. Otherwise I’m available to her for discussion and reviewing her work throughout the day, and she studies in the same room with us as I read and review with her younger siblings.
My goal as I teach each of my children is not to ensure they have every single fact we study memorized, but that they have an impression of the big picture on their minds. As we repeat each cycle, more details imprint on them, and their own curiosity often directs us to learn more. I also tend to find that when we follow their interests, our discoveries are more likely to stay with them- so I encourage my children to ask questions and I try to offer them opportunities to research and create presentations for the family based on their findings.
Our days aren’t perfect and smooth-flowing, but they are definitely guided and predictable. And because they know what we’ll do each day, it’s easier for me to keep us on a general track week to week, month to month, and year to year, even when we have to make shifts due to family circumstances.
