A Homeschool Reading Conversation With the 11yo

 The 11yo and I discussed books the other day on a walk.

"You see, there are books you want to read, and books you should read.  Sometimes the books you want to read are also good books that you should read.  And sometimes they aren't.  Sometimes the books you should read are books you also really want to read.  And sometimes they're not.

There are books that are 'good' books because they are beautifully written, and explore themes in insightful or eloquent ways.  But you may not personally like those books.  You not liking them doesn't mean you shouldn't read them, necessarily, because they may very well be books that are worth reading.  Books that should be read.  Even if they aren't everyone's cup of tea."

I sympathize with the desire not to read those books.  It's a standing joke that the only way I ever got through Thackeray's Vanity Fair was by pausing periodically to smack it against the radiator.  There are some titles that I really don't want to read and probably won't just because they will utterly destroy me.  I put titles such as Toni Morrison's Beloved in that category.  But I don't not read those books because they're bad books.  They're excellent books.  Books that should be read, and that readers (shall I be daring?) have a responsibility to read.

It's true.  The way that good, true, beautiful things are guarded from one generation to the next isn't just by collecting them in hermetically sealed vaults, but by experiencing them yourself.  If you can read, and enjoy the delicious freedom of literacy and access to all the free books you could ever read courtesy of your library, I would say that you have a duty not to squander that gift.  Read the good books.  Hide the stories in your heart.

Image Credit Alfons Morales via Unsplash

48 Reading Comprehension/Discussion Questions Instead of 'Did you like it?'

Things you can ask a child about something they've read/heard read aloud...

1) Which character was the most like you?
2) Which character was the least like you?
3) If you were going to make a movie out of this book, tell me who you'd want to play (insert role).
4) What part of this story gave you the strongest emotions?
5) How would you describe this book to a friend?
6) Can you think of 3 words to describe the (bad guy/hero/etc.)
7) Would you be friends with any of the characters if they were real?
8) What was your favourite scene?
9) Did the author use any literary devices that you disliked? (Too much rhyming, cliffhangers, etc.)

10) Why did this book appeal/not appeal to the critics?

11) Are there cover blurbs from other authors?  Who are they?  What did THEY write?  Why do you think they liked THIS book?

12) Is this similar to anything else you've read?  How?  

13) Why do you think you picked this book up, anyway?

14) How do you feel about the cover art?  Do you think it 'fit' the story?  Why?
15) Did you find any spelling or grammar mistakes in the text?

16) Did the story ever drag?  When?  Why?  Why did you keep reading?
17) Did the author use any interesting fonts or designs?

18) Were there footnotes or endnotes?  Did you read them?  Did they answer any questions?
19) Who did the author dedicate the book to?  Why?  Who are they?

20) Is this a good story to read before bed?

21) Was there an introduction?  Did you read it?  Did it help?  Would you suggest people skip it?
22) Was there an appendix?  A table of contents?  Did any of that improve your understanding?

23) Is this the author's first book?  Tenth book?

24) Have you read anything else by them?

25) Were there illustrations?  Who was the illustrator?

26) Who was the cover designer?  

27) Did the title page give you any interesting information?

28) Was there foreign language in the text?  Did you look it up?

29) Did this book make you hungry, thirsty, tired, energetic, etc.?

30) Is there a sequel?

31) How many pages did you read in a sitting? Why so low/high?

32) How would you change the characters, if you could?

33) Did you think that was a good ending?  Would you change it?  How?

34) Did you ever cry while reading it?  Why?

35) Do you think the chapters were split up at good points in the story?

36) Why do you think (character) did (action)?

37) Is there any foreshadowing?

38) At what point did you think you knew how it would end?  Or was it a complete surprise?

39) Could this have been a shorter book?  Or did it need to be this long to tell the whole story properly?

40) Could this be a longer book?  Or would it drag?

41) Who do you know who would like this book?

42) If you met the author, what questions would you ask them?

43) If you could choose a soundtrack for this book, what music would you choose?

44) What other books could you compare this one to?

45) What did this author do really well?

46) What did this author do poorly?

47) Imagine you have a bookstore of your own.  What would you put in a window display to showcase this book?

48) If the author came to a party at your house, who else would you invite and why?

Videos and a new app for us!

We've been using the YouTube Kids App recently as an addition to our homeschool and we're really liking it!  Here's how we've incorporated it into our days.

The app is loaded on only one device, so it's easier for me to keep track of who is doing school.  I have an account set up for the 6yo and 8yo, and a separate one for the 10yo.  I have gone into the parent settings and switched the app to not show any video suggestions for the children, and instead I individually add videos to their playlists.  The app also allows me to set a timer but so far I haven't used that function.  There are no ads and no in-app purchases that I've noticed.

Once that's set up I ask the children for 8-10 subjects that they are interested in, and I take some time to go through and add videos to their playlists for them to watch.

And with that intro - here's a bunch of stuff we've been watching recently!

The Wind and Mr. Ug - A cautionary tale about Mobius strips.

The Stringless Yo-Yo!

A Hamster Running a Minecraft Cube Maze

Slowly reducing the size of a hole to see if a cat will attempt to pass through it.

The 10 best squirrel feeders

Waking up, working and going to sleep in Zero G

A tour of the Russian segment of the International Space Station

The science behind the name Pokemon

Working on the Mars Rover

The ISS crew conducts a spacewalk

How to fold the world record paper airplane

How to feed wild birds the right way

The ISS bathroom tour

English Heritage teaches how to make a cardboard sword

Some less serious, but still valid, reasons I homeschool.

 In an online group a woman recently asked why homeschoolers bother to homeschool anyway.  It's more work, isn't it?  It's time intensive and expensive and your kids don't go away so you're very stressed, yes?

Goodness, with that definition no wonder so few people are embracing it.

I fumed thought about this for a while and decided that despite my really wanting it to be so...no one magically knows the thoughts inside my head.  I actually have to communicate them.  I tell my children this all the time.  "No one knows what you're thinking!  Say something!"  Anyway, without further ado, here are some excellent reasons that I homeschool.

1)  I'm lazy.  Okay, not really but sorta.  Listen, I do not know how all you school parents do it.  Every year I hear about the lists sent out of classroom supplies you're supposed to send with your kid, the back to school shopping, the mandatory haircuts, the SHOES, people.  They have different shoes for inside the school!  What insanity is this?  More shoes?  They wear shoes to school then they change into OTHER SHOES??  Do you know how long it takes my children to find shoes???  And then nine months of packing food, checking backpacks for papers, dealing with homework, fielding emails from the school, getting the kids UP and FED and CLOTHED and outside in the blessed-dark-before-the-dawn for a BUS.  And then they come HOME again all upset about something or angry at Becky because Becky used to be their friend and now she called them a poopy head at recess and you're just like Janet, give mummy a break I am trying to make SUPPER.  And as if that isn't enough now you get to spend the whole night doing homework or mandatory reading or checking off book logs or something.  Baking for a bake sale.  Volunteering to do something or other with the PTA.  Ugh.  Or driving!  All the driving about!  The child forgets their mittens, the calls from the office "Oh, Mrs. Smith, Bobby doesn't have a lunch today."  Are you kidding me??  He left the house with a lunch!!  Where is his lunch???  Where is your coat, child?  Why did you leave it at school?  What is this fresh hell, here?  A class-wide Valentine's party and you must bring cards for everyone in the class!!  GAH.

2)  I'm really cheap.  I know the party line is that public school is free and homeschool is not free so you should use the perfectly good public school system but my experience has been Really Not Like That.  Sure, I spend money on school stuff, but man, I don't think it's anything like the public school parents do!  Every day you need food your kids will eat, that is acceptable to the school; I give my kids whatever.  Make a smoothie, kids.  Have a peanut butter sandwich.  Honestly, our whole house is covered in a microscopic layer of peanut butter, most likely.   Your kids need to be in clean, socially acceptable clothing, appropriate for the weather.  Not like my kids, who can sit around in a bathing suit in February if they wanted to.  A bathing suit, a top hat, and aviator glasses.  Under the kitchen table.  Your kids need all these supplies, they cannot, apparently, practice their cursive on the backs of scrap paper with the free pen the dentist gave us.  Every extra thing your child does seems to cost more money!  Gotta give a deposit on the instrument, buy the special tshirt, pay for the field trip, fill up the cafeteria card for those forgotten lunches, give extra pocket money for the overnight excursion, the obligatory purchase of school play tickets and fundraisers!  The fundraisers ALONE.  I do not want to sell cookie dough or pizza coupons or candies to anyone!  See reason #1 above!

3) I have things to DO!  I don't know where this idea came from that homeschooling means you are stuck in your house.  Honestly, the one month my eldest was in kindergarten was by far the worst month for staying at home.  I couldn't go anywhere!  I had to pick up a child at, like, 2:30 in the afternoon!  I was constantly checking my watch and got nothing done and was a stress filled wreck.  My children are home and you know what we do all day?  WHATEVER WE NEED TO.  We want to go wander around a museum for 6 hours, we can.  We want to sleep in until 10am, we do.  I need sour cream for supper and I forgot until the last minute?  We just...go to the store!  Whenever!  Doesn't matter!  I go to the dentist at noon, I visit the eye doctor at 2pm, we serve supper at 5, or maybe 6, or whatever.  Maybe it's a really good night for star gazing so we just don't bother going to bed until 11.  Doesn't really matter.  Are you not feeling well, child?  Well, fortunately I don't have to deal with an auto-call answering machine and attendance because, doesn't matter!

4) I don't like people.  No, okay, that's not entirely true.  I sort of like people sometimes, on my own terms.  I do not like being forced into a relationship with people.  I don't want to go to parent/teacher interviews and have someone tell me about my own child.  I don't want to meet teachers.  I'm sure they are very nice people, but I don't wanna.  I don't WANT to talk to Mildred, the woman who is doing the set design for the grade eleven production of Fiddler On The Roof, and who wants to borrow my sewing machine.  I already talk to so. many. people. all day, every day, and I just don't have any more spoons to give people.  No, I don't want to go to another meeting.  My life is meetings and paperwork.  No, I don't want to chaperone anyone anywhere, and I don't want to obsess about whether teacher Jones should get a mug for Christmas when really, the poor woman does WANT a MUG.

Some things the children have been occupying themselves with that aren't electronics.

The 8yo has been obsessed for weeks now with this book.  Each page contains instructions on something to do to it (scribble with wild abandon, take the book into the shower, tie it to a string and take it for a walk...) and after getting over the initial reluctance to 'destroy' a book, we have fully embraced the creative process!

In fact, the 8yo loved it so much I ended up picking up a newer edition for the 10yo - the new one is in colour.  Very similar types of instructions.

And here's another book by the same author that the 10yo has also been working through.  You're supposed to collect items from your walks that match the requirements on the pages.  For some reason this one hasn't appealed as much to the wild and crazy in my children.  It's still getting done, though.

The 6yo, meanwhile, is obsessed with learning how to sew.  This kit came into our house to further that desire and Mama is now the proud owner of a felt cat.  Hand sewn by her very favourite littlest person, of course.

Corn husk dolls, games that involve one person holding the hose while on the deck while the other people stand underneath and pretend it is raining, visiting the nearby creek where there are hundreds of tiny baby frogs, hatching out a monarch chrysalis, capturing a froglet and making a habitat for it, feeding it a cricket, and then letting it go the next day, helping to make gooseberry jam...

The 10yo is obsessed with The Mad Scientist's Club.  This is the complete collection, available through Purple House Press. 

Painting little wooden boxes, making origami yodas, learning how to crochet and making long crochet chains to leave all over the house, making bouquets of flowers for the vase in the bathroom, collecting seeds and planting them in pots...

 This odd, vintage racing game from France that the children are obsessed with playing right now.  

Filling a surprise care package for Grandma with candy and pictures, counting the money in their piggybanks and buying bubblegum with it, swimming in the lake, making a rock collection, practicing cartwheels, fishing off the bridge...

Reading my vintage Stephen Cosgrove collection, helping me finish an elaborate paint-by-numbers, lots of walks with the dog, picking raspberries, mowing the lawn, watering the garden, checkers and Chinese checkers and chess, making lemonade, walking to get ice cream...

There.  Doesn't that sound like a nice mid-summer?

Four Things I'm Complaining About (they are all about new homeschoolers)

You are looking into the maw of homeschooling, gazing into its dark soul, as it were, and you're bleating in every group 'help!  help!  I need to know what to do!'  Listen, dear, we're all doing that.  Everyone. Is. Doing. That.  This is what regular homeschoolers do every single year!  

1.  I really wish that people would stop asking, in almost every homeschool group I'm a part of, how to deal with socialization of their kids in September in the light of the worldwide pandemic.  Listen, these are your options:

a) you can meet with people.
b) you can continue to not meet with people, but interact with them not in-person.

So to recap, you can go see people/places/whatever, following the guidelines set out.  Or breaking the rules, I suppose, although I like to think this isn't what these parents are asking about.  Or, you can not do that, and rely on online classes, Zoom meetings, and whatever else is out there.

I'm not sure if all of these parents are looking for some unheard of magical third way to socialize that is neither in person nor through technology, or what?  Two hot air balloons side by side?  The tin-can telephone?  Yodelling?  Stop asking this question, though.  It's very aggravating.

2.  I'm going to say this one pretty slowly here, because I didn't realize it was a question that so very many people had, but here you go:

If your kid cannot do A, then you should teach them A, and not move on to B. Here are some ways that works!  If your 9 year old cannot read, as one concerned parent in a group recently mentioned, then what you do 'for school' is teach your child how to read.  No, put the geography curriculum down.

3.  For the love of pete can we all please agree to pause the conversation about how Tasha is going to get into college as a homeschooler?  Tasha is seven.

4.  Here is an example of something that is not appropriate for a homeschooling discussion group:

Hi, parents!  My name is Jeff Jefferjeff and I'm a licensed teacher.  Would anyone be interested in having me teach an online Zoom class for elementary students?

Hi, Mr. Jefferjeff!  Just fyi, this is a homeschooling group.  While homeschoolers come in all flavours, this may not be the best place to advertise your distance ed services!

More Links To Videos...

Here are some more videos we've watched recently.

Can you turn seashells into glass at home?

Dying fabric with houseplants. 

Solving the incredibly difficult vending machine puzzle box.  (Chris Ramsey uses some colourful language and 2 instances of innuendo.   It took me a minute to catch  them, but they were there. )

The process of learning to use a 3-D pen.

Myth-testing the movie scenes/pranks from Christmas movies. (To see whether you could actually shoot your eye out with a Red Ryder BB gun, they shoot a purchased cow eyeball. )

Time lapse of ants building a nest in transparent gel.

Sneaking peacock eggs under a turkey. 

Building the world's greatest cat castle

And then a Golden Gate Bridge for cats

A review of cat toys

Making a keyboard tuned to cat meows (we got a on a cat video kick)

A house filled with cat walkways

A truly amazing tree house

Repairing a broken butterfly wing

The Zipf mystery

Links To Videos For When You Can't Talk To The Children Anymore.

It is noon.  I have successfully done half a science lesson with two children who, I guarantee,  absorbed less than 10% of what I said because they couldn't keep their mouths closed to save their lives.  I think...maybe I was cut out for cloistered religious life and I missed my calling.  Here are a bunch of YouTube links we've recently watched...

This guy refined pure gold and silver from old jewelry and it looked very cool.

Ants eating a slice of banana.

And as a follow-up, ants eating a puddle of honey!

This guy hatched an emu egg in an incubator in his closet!  (Fyi- includes a dissection of a fertilized dead egg)

This girl completes the 'Wreck This Journal' books, and then flips through them.

The longest Rube Goldberg machine in the world turns on a Christmas tree.

Time lapse of what happens if you crack open an egg and then just leave it for a few weeks.

How to make clay from dirt.

Water mites swimming in a pond water sample.

Mantis versus spider, versus another, bigger mantis.  This did not end well for the smaller mantis.

Can a chicken raise a duck?

Viennese wild hamsters living in a graveyard.

Eleven incredibly fat racoons stuck in a porch.

A guy who owns a giant duck.

Turning a roll of tinfoil into a solid aluminum ball.

What if you put 1000 expanding dinosaurs in a bathtub?

What if you microwaved an avocado?  Or an egg?  Or a watermelon? 

A very odd British man put a GPS tracker on his cat for 24 hours just to see where it went.

Woodturning a burl into a coffee mug.

Simplified Homeschool - Morning Time.

I went to a homeschool meet-up today and found myself chatting with other parents about our methods of schooling.  As I was explaining our morning time it struck me that I wasn't being terribly clear, so I thought I'd re-visit my explanation, with a bit more success.

Morning Time is what I call our joint lessons first thing in the day.  This includes our memory work, Bible study and prayer, work with a globe, history read alouds, music, etc.  Honestly, all sorts of things.  I think I've read poetry during this time, screened a video, read Shakespeare, pulled out a giant floor map, completed puzzles,  listened to a piece of classical music, and done a math activity.  At it's most basic, this is just our 'all together' time for whatever we're able to do at the same time.

My children are 9, 7 and 5, so obviously there are some differences in ability,  which doesn't really matter with morning time because I make sure to have age appropriate expectations in place.  For example, I read aloud about the ancient Greeks.  The 9yo is able to discuss what he heard and sit for the reading.   The 7yo is able to sit for the 5 minutes and fidget with something.   The 5yo is able to be a not-disruptive presence in the room doing her own thing.

All of the lessons are very fast and repeated often.  We might recite a memorized poem all the time as we learn it, then less frequently as we get more comfortable,  and then periodically once it is learned.

A question I was asked today was what, specifically,  we are learning in morning time.  Okay, this is pretty fluid, but off the top of my head right now we are...

Reviewing days of the week, months of the year, names and order of the seasons.  (for the sake of the 5yo, essentially. )
Memorizing The Lord's Prayer  (done, but we recite periodically).
Memorizing the books of the Old Testament  (we are done up to Song of Songs).
Reciting the provinces of Canada west to east.
Singing and commiting a hymn to memory - Be Thou My Vision.
Also a folk song - Land of the Silver Birch.
Also the National Anthem.
Memorizing Psalm 23 (we're halfway done)
Reading books together - Story of the World volume 2, various other fiction and non-fiction.
The oldest 2 often read a chapter of a short biography out loud to me.
We might do an English lesson together, reviewing a grammar rule or a phonetic rule or something.
I read a verse of Mark, and we stop whenever we reach something to talk about.  Plus whatever rabbit trails we encounter.
Sometimes we do a group math lesson, often involving going outside.
Sometimes we do a group nature study lesson.
Sometimes we do a group art lesson.

I'm sure there's more, but you get the idea.  Stuff we do together!

Morning time sometimes progresses to a group activity such as going to swimming lessons, going to the church together to practice the piano, visiting the library, etc.

A great book on morning time is this one:

Now, how long does this all take?  Truthfully, the time we spend sitting together is possibly 30-45 minutes, and covers our bible, history,  geography,  etc.  It really isn't that much time.

HOW, in real time, does morning time play out?  I call everyone into the livingroom and make sure they are all sitting more than arms reach from each other, and also that they have whatever activities they need with them.  We open with a very short prayer, and then launch into memory work.  After we've done al, of that, we're sometimes just done, but often we're still good for a while longer so I will start running through readings.   Maybe a chapter of Story of the World will suddenly launch us into a conversation about calligraphy and I remember I picked up a book recently about that very topic and we follow a rabbit trail for a while.  Sometimes we bring out a dictionary to look up a word, or bring over a tablet to Google an answer to someone's question.  Occasionally I have to send a child to fetch a different reference book or a map from another room, but we try to stay together and focused in one room to avoid wandering.   Usually after 45 minutes we're ready for a break, but every once in a while I end up transitioning into our fiction read alouds.  When we're finished with morning time, that's it - I don't test and I don't do homework type stuff.

The rest of school is individual.

So there you go!  Morning time!

Triage Homeschool

A woman shows up in the ER by ambulance, accompanied by a slew of medical people, in the middle of a life-altering massive heart attack.

A man drives himself to the ER because he cut his hand and can't get the bleeding to stop.

A woman has her neighbor drive her to the ER, because she's 9 months pregnant and having trouble breathing.

You take your kid to the ER, because they fell off the play structure and keep wanting to fall asleep.

What do these people have in common?  When they arrive, someone looks at them, asks them questions, and figures out in the current environment of the ER, where their ailment falls on the list of important things.  This is triaging.  And man, it is a useful tool for us homeschool people.

The entire premise of triage is based on the very simple concept that reality exists.  There is not a doctor vending machine down the hall, ensuring that each person who arrives at the hospital can immediately see a physician, and therefore the limited medical resources must be alloted in a fair and life-saving manner.  The people who have the biggest crises get the first crack at the doctors.  If two identical problems show up, factors such as compounding medical issues are taken into account.  If everyone is identical, the person who got there first gets to see the doctor.  And so forth.

And that's why your child, even though they are your beautiful amazing child, or your husband, even though he is still bleeding and his hand really hurts, or your neighbor, who could be in early labour, are all going to get seen AFTER the lady currently experiencing a huge pulmonary event on the guerney.

Here's why this makes any difference to your math.

You exist in the reality you exist in, and although in some ways that reality can be changed or at least challenged, it exists, and it makes you, and your resources,  finite.  Which is to say that your hand may be weeping blood into a towel, but if there is one doctor, you will have to wait your turn.  And art history may be a very valuable topic and one you would deeply enjoy, but if your kid cannot read, then...priorities.   Triage, you see?

If you've ever worked within the confines of any sort of reality, which is a definition that applies to every sentient thing that has ever existed, then you fundementally understand this concept.  If you have a suitcase, and everything you need to pack must fit into that suitcase, then there may be things you cannot pack, and there may be substitutions that can be made, or compromises.  Not the red and the blue shoes, just the red ones.

In our own homeschool this has shown itself in multiple ways, primarily through the very beginning of a child's schooling.  Sometimes people are surprised when they ask me what my youngest children learn in school, or what math they take, or what science or whatever, and I respond that...they don't.   My youngest children do one thing: they learn to read.  That is my one and only goal for the children in their early years - to firmly understand the basics of phonics and be able to read at the level of about Frog and Toad.  That's it.  Because I have triaged our early education and the most important thing is to learn how to read.  You can't do copywork well if you can't read.  You can't read your instructions in your math book.  You can't entertain yourself so that I can help another student.  You can't do anything well.  So first, learn to read.  Then we'll worry about the rest.

Now, I mean, does my current 5yo 'do' other school?  Sure.  I don't count it as actual school or anything, but she likes to sit with her siblings and fiddle in a workbook.  I haven't enquired much but she seems to have mastered addition.   If she wants to play math she's welcome to it, but I teach...reading.  Period.

You'll notice away up there in the post that I highlighted how triaging refers in many ways to the current environment, and that's equally important.   You see, I know myself pretty well by now as a teacher.  I know how much energy I have and where my skills and weaknesses lie and what my budget is for supplies.  So I need to weigh my teaching desires against my environment,  or my reality.   Here's are two examples of how that might work for our house.

My husband is a minister, which means we're pretty swamped on Sundays.   Because of this, I know I can't plan to homeschool on that day.  If I worked outside the home Mon. - Fri., and expected to be able to utilize evenings and weekends to fit in schoolwork, that would be unrealistic.  Fortunately I do not, and therefore I have the time I have.  But I don't have unlimited time - I have family,  home, church, and personal obligations.   I'm not willing to forgo showering to fit in a geography lesson or refuse to talk to a distressed friend in order to teach the finer points of charcoal drawing.  So I have limited resources  (time is a resource, friends).

The other factor is that...who I am is another part of my reality.   I am anxious, I need a certain amount of sleep, I don't work well when I'm hungry, I need fresh air, I expect time in my day to read.  But also, I am not a fastidious housekeeper, my family is content with a simple meal, we own few things to clean, I have the luxury of staying home.  I am the sum of my strengths and weaknesses and oddities - what works for one person will perhaps not work for me.  But regardless of what the triage looks like for me compared to you, we both still exist in a 24 hr. day with all of its inherent limitations and we have to pick...what is most important ?

So here I am, with X obligations,  and Y resources.  X cannot be bigger than Y.  X must be equivalent or less than Y.  Ideally you want your obligations to be less than your resources because factoring in some margin to your life is going to ensure a much better chance of not going crazy, but at the very least,  you can't have X bigger than Y, because then we all know what happens. ..something doesn't get done.

It isn't like we can cram 25 hours of work into the 24 hour day, which is a thing that shockingly large numbers of humans seem to be unable to wrap their heads around.  You get 24 hours.  I mean, you can PLAN 25 hrs. of stuff,  but what will still happen is at the maximum 24 hrs. of stuff will get done...and 1 hr. will remain to haunt the next day.  Some people live their whole lives in this state, and enjoy it.  Some people live their whole lives in this state and dread it.  Some people triage.

You plan out the 24 hrs., and you don't plan any margin, and then something happens  (life advice!  Something always, always happens) and now you're even  more behind.  "why????" you wail "for I planned unto myself verily the perfect number of things!!!!" Ah, my sweet friend, you neglected to take into account...reality.

Reality is that when my child is 5yo, I can do...1 reading lesson a day.  Sometimes I can do other things,  but the very most important thing is one reading lesson.  If all is going well and suddenly there's more margin available then the next most important thing gets done, and so forth.

It's shocking how little we can actually realistically get done.  If you want to work well, and you want to work with multiple students at different levels, while also doing other things in life and not facing each day with dread and exhaustion,  your realistic list of school might be small enough to shock you.  For example, I can manage two outside the house things at maximum for my children.  They are already pre-decided: piano and swimming.  That's it!  My children cannot do one other thing!  This is what I have the ability to handle, and I know this.   And so when I tell myself    'I have space for two things', I know I must pick the most important things,  I can't pick the soccer lessons and drawing classes, because those are not in the first triage tier.

This all seems like something you shouldn't say, because it seems...obvious but also potentially hurtful.  At the same time, speaking from personal experience, almost every single time I've been overwhelmed by school it has been because I haven't had my priorities straight.  I've tried to put too much in one day, I haven't factored in what I need for myself, I haven't admitted that cleaning my house when it is totally destroyed from weeks of ignoring it while forcing us through some aspect of school I've deemed crucial was one thing too many.  I have refused to admit that I can only do a very little bit. 

And so I go back to the beginning  and I look over it all and I say ' Shakespeare is wonderful,  but you can't read him aloud right now, and read Beowulf.  Pick one.'

Pick.  Choose. Prioritize.  Triage.  Hard, hard reality for us all.

Imperfect Education and Curriculum as Inspiration

My 7yo and 5yo are working through a nature study book, slowly but surely.  It's published by a Mennonite company called Rod and Staff.  Now, Rod and Staff is reputable, and their products are included in the syllabi of equally reputable producers of boxed curriculum (Memoria Press, for example).  Despite this - I find myself pulled up short multiple times by what seem to be glaring errors, or at the very least omissions, in the text.  Here's an example:

"Most countries in the world have four seasons."

(A true or false question, which is meant to be answered as true, I assume, although there is no clear answer to this, which is its own problem.)

Now, DO most countries in the world have four seasons?  That's a good question.  (The World Atlas tells me that there are 195 countries in the world.)  Four-season countries generally exist within the northern and southern temperate zones, and wet/dry season countries within the tropical and arctic zones, but there are exceptions.  Has Rod and Staff counted the countries falling into those categories and tallied up that a substantial majority (hence: 'most') of them have four distinct seasons?  (I could not find anything online that showed me a list of countries existing in entirely temperate zones but that doesn't mean a list doesn't exist somewhere.)  What about countries such as Russia, for example?  Russia has southern areas that would certainly experience four seasons, but also far arctic reaches where there are only really two seasons - one of light and one of dark.  Does Russia count as one of those 'most' countries?  No matter what the answer is supposed to be, it isn't found in the actual chapter on seasons, either, so a student would be unable to answer the question!

How about this example:

"Weeds are harmful."

Harmful to what (or whom) exactly?  This is terribly vague and also uncompromising at the same time!  The milkweed isn't damaging to the dozens of insects it hosts, although humans can't eat it...

Believe it or not, I would still recommend this nature study program, even with its errors and omissions and general confusions, although with one very specific caveat.  That is...to Use The Curriculum As Inspiration, Not Law.

I struggle to think of a more generally damaging word in the English language than 'perfect'.  What is perfect?  Who is perfect?  None of us, certainly, and nothing that comes from us either - no word, no thought, no idea, no invention, nothing.  Nothing that has its start in human hearts or through human design has any claim to the word, frankly.

And I think we all know this, deep inside ourselves, on some obscure un-thought-of level.  When we say the evening was perfect, that the beloved is 'perfect for us', that the sunset was perfection - we have an unspoken agreement that we mean not perfect, but amazing, wonderful, awe-inspiring, unreachable, glorious.  Not perfect, though, which is a realm set aside for only the divine.

Despite this knowledge, we really do seem to expect perfection from the education we provide for our children.  And this expectation can only lead to disappointment.  Patterns of Nature isn't perfect, and I recognize this, which is why Patterns of Nature isn't law in my house.  It's an inspirational curriculum.  If some part of it doesn't suit us, or I disagree with it, or even if I just think it is suspect or irrelevant or boring or whatever, I am the teacher, and I can choose to gloss over that section or to explore it deeper and use it as a jumping off point for our own discussions.

I used to be concerned with finding the perfect curriculum, years ago, and I think others must struggle with that as well because I see a lot of social media posting from homeschooling parents asking for advice on curriculum.  Often they aren't concerned with cost, or with faith/secular issues, they just want a 'great' curriculum for their children.  I know, and you know, that the curriculum they choose will fail them in some way.  It will contain errors, it will be too hard, it will not be rigorous enough, it will ask for too much writing, it will use examples that everyone finds dull...there will be something.

So, (you think, feeling that deep irritation you feel when someone presents a problem and no viable solution), am I am suggesting that you just use anything at all to teach you child?  Why, not at ALL.  That is not at all what I'm saying!  What I am saying is that there will be issues with every curriculum you have available to you, and that it might reduce a lot of heartache to simply ask yourself, when you come across a problem, 'Self - can I live with this problem?'

And your answer may change through the years, as well.  At the moment we use a handwriting curriculum that is not fantastic.  The cursive is slightly different than what I learned, and so I often struggle to teach it because I'm always 'making mistakes'.  The texts are long and not interesting to my 9yo, and sometimes the copywork is on one page and then the space to copy is ON THE OTHER SIDE of the page, if you can believe it.  Man.  These are not small problems!  But.  The curriculum has things going for it.  For one, I own it.  That's no small potatoes around here.  I don't need to research it or find a distributor or find money to buy it.  Also - the topic of the texts is nice.  It's about birds.  The 9yo may not find birds riveting but at least neither of us finds it crude or offensive.  At this point, I'm willing to use this curriculum because it doesn't offend me, and it is paid for.  It's Good. Enough.

Perhaps it is best you hear it now, if you are early on in your homeschool journey.  You are not the perfect teacher, and your child is not the perfect student.  You will not teach with a perfect curriculum and you will not cover everything you ever wanted them to learn or be exposed to.  You will miss books.  You will not do all the interesting crafts or trips or experiences you dream of.  You will make mistakes, and they will makes mistakes, and some of the mistakes you will learn from and some you will make best friends with and just keep repeating over and over again.  It is quite possible that, no matter how wonderful you believe your curriculum or method is, your child will 'graduate' not knowing a preface from a suffix, will detest graphing, will not be able to draw a recognizable figure, will be unable to play any sport well, will prefer television to books, and will tell you, to your face, that they think homeschool was 'a bad idea'.

By all means, search out the good curriculum, and reach for the ideals, and strive towards the finish line, but do so recognizing that in this, as in all areas of life, you will never fully accomplish your goal - there is no end to learning as there is no end to parenting, and no end to marriage, and no end to spiritual growth - except a final end.  And in recognizing that no one curriculum will fulfill everything for you, and that you may very well find aspects of many curriculum to be valuable and wish you could 'piece together' what you like from each (you can, by the way), hopefully this feels like freedom to you.  It IS freedom!  Because it is true.  If what you have is okay, even if it isn't perfect, then let yourself have the freedom to embrace it, to adjust it, to make it yours - faults and all.

Division of Topics

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Generally I divide things we consider learning or have the option to learn into four categories, and treat the different categories individually.

1)  Topics we are both (teacher and student) interested in learning about.  

Obviously, if we're both on board with a topic, this is where we shine.  Sometimes one of us is on the edge of being interested, but can be convinced by the other.

2)  Topics the teacher is interested in, and the student is not.

If I want to us to cover something and the child does not, how I handle the situation depends on the topic.  Is this something that I really think the child will enjoy once they get into it or am I going to have to cajole, which I dislike?  Here's an example:  let's say I have purchased a fun puzzle book, and I know that we would enjoy solving the puzzles together, but the child says they are not interested in that at all.  Firstly, sometimes the idea has just not been presented at a good time - maybe they had an argument with a sibling or read a tense part in a book or are frustrated with their craft - and if I offer on a different day, I will get a different answer.  This lasts over the long haul, by the way.  It took me almost a year of offering the Spiderwick Chronicles to my 9yo every single library trip before he ended up picking them up and devouring all six books in about two days, and then watching the movie with us (and explaining all the ways the film was wrong).  Persistence matters. 

Let's say I have tried a few times and this idea is just not catching on.  I find at this point I can encourage simply through doing it myself.  "You don't want to do this puzzle book with me?  Do you mind if I start it on my own, then?"  Often I will start working on something and because my children naturally want to do whatever I'm doing, they gravitate towards me and interact with the activity they thought they didn't want to do.  

If there is a lot of push back, I will occasionally offer compromises to get us over the hump of starting a new thing.  Maybe you can just sit in the room with me while I read aloud, but you can do whatever quiet thing you like, including reading your own book.  Maybe you can help me do a single puzzle in the puzzle book, and then in return I will play Lego with you for 15 minutes.  Sometimes this works, and sometimes it doesn't.  When starting a new book recently, I set up the playdough in the livingroom for the two girls and the boy had a huge Lego castle kit to work on, and because I allowed those toys during read aloud time, I managed SIX chapters of the novel, which took well over an hour.

3)  Topics the student is interested in, and the teacher is not.

This is the perfect opportunity for independent study, in my opinion. We are not clones of each other, and some people enjoy different activities from other people, and that is why it is okay to go do the things you want to do without expecting others to have to do those things, too.  So after setting my children up with whatever they need to do the thing they want to do, I leave them to it. 

"You would like to weave?  I don't particulary want to weave something right now.

Do you have a loom?  Do you need any help?  Alright, you're all set, enjoy your

weaving and let me know if you need me."

That being said, there are compromises to be made!  I've sat through my share of tea parties and puzzle box Youtube videos and games of hide and seek where I am always 'it'.

4)  Topics that neither teacher or student are interested in.

Ah, and this is where it gets tricky, because these topics exist.  So I approach them wondering if we actually really, truly need to look at them, and if so, at what depth.  Is this a book that we're reading because we were told it is a great story and we both detest it and it isn't getting better?  Or are we talking about, like, ALL OF MATH?  The book, well, we can just not do it, and that's fine.  No one will read all the books, good or otherwise, that they 'should' read over a lifetime.   Math, on the other hand, well...we need to cover that whether we want to or not.

If we've established that we have to do the thing neither of us wants to do, we use two techniques to get through it.  First of all, we try as much as possible to make the very best of the situation.  We outsource in fun ways, we encorporate games into the topic, we make this as appealing as possible.  Music playing!  Lots of treats and things to look forward to if we succeed!  As much applause and admiration for our bravery in facing the thing we do not want to face!  Lots of admitting to each other that we both detest this but let's soldier on through anyway because this is One. Of. Those. Things.

Secondly, we try and pinpoint exactly what we dislike about the idea of learning it.  Is it that the lessons are very complicated?  Then perhaps we can simplify.  Is it that the books we're using are awful and dull?  Let's try different books.  Any and all suggestions are worthwhile.  What if we only did ONE math problem, but did it the best we could?  What if we set the timer for FIVE minutes?  We could do anything for only five minutes!  This book we've been looking through has a test and you don't want to take the test?  What if I just only read the questions out loud to you and you answered orally instead of writing it all down?  Would that make it better?  Then let's do that.

Alternatively, I have actually just ignored a topic with the idea that we would circle back to it at some point in the future with a fresh outlook, and then discovered that the child naturally picked it up by themselves.  This happens to me quite a bit with the two oldest these days.  They didn't want to do the thing, but eventually they decided to do it on their own, and learned it just fine, and I didn't really have to think much about it at all.  This is why I often review topics I think people may know already, and skim through lessons, because my children have a habit of going off and learning something on their own, and when it comes time for me to teach them, they already know the thing.

"Oh mom, I already knew that about Lillian Thrasher!  Did you know that she..."
"Actually, the volume of the cyclinder is found by..."
"I think if we need 1 cup of the flour and only have the Tbsp measure we could just..."
"Hey, this reminds me that..."

Sigh.  I can't teach those kids anything.

The Power Of Curated Conversation

I mentioned in a previous post that I use the concept of invitational presence to invite my children into a family lifestyle of learning, and how that has proven to be a pretty successful teaching tool for us.  But it is a very overarching tool, not a terribly specific one.  If you want to know HOW I homeschool, I think I would have trouble articulating our methods very clearly.  What I can do, with slightly more success I think, is to outline some of the more daily tools we use to encourage that invitational presence, and to encourage learning in general.

1. We Have A Lot Of Curated Conversations.

So, there are many times I speak to my children without a topic of discussion in my mind, obviously.  This isn't that.  This is intentionally building time into our days and weeks to discuss specific topics with a specific child.  I sometimes prepare (in a very general way) for the conversation.  For example I might mentally outline some of the key points I want to touch on, stories I want to share, facts that might be of interest related to the topic, etc.  Here's an example to illustrate what I mean:

Let's say I want to chat about birds with the 7yo.  I arrange a time when I will be with just her, so that we can have a conversation about birds.  I go over in my mind some of the things I'd like to touch on such as...

Our birdfeeder and why I put out the food I do.
Why the lady one street over gets so many more birds at her feeder than we do.
The new birds we've been seeing in the area - where are they coming from?
What happened to the birdsong of spring and summer?

When we walk out together, I will say something like "I really wanted to talk to you about something I've found very interesting".  I use 'I wonder' or 'Have you ever wondered' questions.

"I wonder what happened to the birdsong we used to hear so much?"
"Have you ever wondered why I use black oil sunflower seeds in the feeders?"

Often the conversation will go in wildly different directions from where I anticipated it would go.  We might discuss the seeds in the feeders, progress to suet balls, then to carnivores and herbivores, then to the food chain, then to human impact on agriculture, then on to how a supermarket is organized.  Unlike normal, fun, average conversations I just have regularly with my kids, these curated conversations are more intentional, so I do try to bring us back on topic gently when we drift off.  I might say "There's something else I wanted to talk about in regards to birds!" and then start discussing the next thing.  But I don't force the conversation, and if we're just not going to be able to talk about whatever it is today, then that's fine too.  We play it by ear.

Now, where do the topics come from?

Often I pick topics based on whatever I am currently interested in.  We try to cultivate a spirit of curiousity in our homeschool, and that includes the parents, so often my husband and I are on some 'kick' and want to share our excitement with the children.  I try to keep in mind what I've mentioned before about being the best teacher of the things you love.  If I am passionate about birdfeeders right now, then let's talk about birdfeeders!  Alternatively, I'll pick a topic based on a current interest of theirs, if they have a really driving desire to master something at the moment.  Surprisingly, I don't like to choose child-led interests mainly because if a child is interested in something you cannot keep them from learning about it - no child needs an adult's encouragement to talk about or learn about a subject they already love.  These curated coversations are my opportunity to introduce NEW topics of discussion and open up new pathways as alternatives to thinking in the same patterns.

How long do these conversations last?

As long as we like, really, or have time for.  But there is a 'sweet spot', I find.  Too little time and you don't really get the creative, thinking juices flowing and get to dig into a topic.  Too much time and the challenge of thinking has tired a small person and people might start to think of these conversations as dull.  The amount of time will vary, but I wouldn't say less that 15-20 minutes would be of much value.  You're aiming for about as long as an elementary school lesson.

When the talking is over, what next?

I believe in the ideal of a Great Conversation - the great minds throughout time all working on problems and thinking thoughts and passing down information and ideals to future generations.  And introducing the children to this Great Conversation is one of my joys in teaching, really.  To this end (although it doesn't always work out this way) I try to really integrate our conversations into our daily life - make them flow seamlessly into our family, so to speak.  Going back to the bird discussion - this would be the time I'd go to the store with the child to buy seed, this would be the time I would pull out relevant books, or even make a new design on the strewing windowsill.  And I always try to make the conversation a multi-day thing; I don't want to talk about birds and then stop talking about birds.  I want to talk about them and then talk about them again and again and then mention something we talked about a week from now and then call a child over in the library to see a related book, etc.  Even if only one 'official' curated conversation happens, the outcome of that conversation is, essentially, that now we can include 'birds' in our list of things we might discuss periodically.

Now, as I said, that's an ideal follow-up.  Sometimes I do nothing but have a conversation.  Sometimes I have the conversation and then periodically more conversation and then it trickles off.  Sometimes we have already read books about a subject and then we have the conversation.  You get it.

So there you go, another odd little tool I use in our school days.

The Impractical Practical Handicraft and Frankly, Why Bother?

I mentioned in my first Learning Notes post of 2019 that the 7yo was learning to knit with two needles, and the 5yo was knitting on a circular loom.  And while this seemed pretty, I dunno, normal and standard for me, it occurred to me afterwards that this was probably not, in fact, normal and standard.

Here are the sorts of handicrafts I teach my children, as part of our school day but also just as part of life:  sewing by hand and with the machine, finger knitting, spool knitting, and eventually two-needle standard knitting, cross stitch, practical pattern design, wreath making, flower arranging, decoupage, bird house making, and so forth.  Additionally we work with watercolours, pastels, coloured pencils, and other such art mediums, and we work in the kitchen together canning, drying, fermenting, baking and so forth.

In this day and age, all of that sounds like I'm preparing middle class Victorian children for a life of social rounds and playing the pianoforte.

So that's the 'What'.  And this is the 'Why'.

To start with, I teach these skills, to some degree, to my boy and girl children.  This isn't a gender thing.  I don't teach the girls to sew and cook and the boy to fix the lawnmower.  Although if I knew how to fix the blessed lawnmower rest assured I would teach them all that as well.  No, I am an equal-opportunity task master for the most part, although I won't go into detail with a lesson that the child has no interest in.  The 9yo wouldn't enjoy a flower arranging class, for example, but I will still give him a basic lesson so 'clump everything in a fistful into a vase without enough water' isn't the default.  Here's a few tips to make the flowers last longer and look nicer.  Here's why I'm using this vase and not this vase over here.  Additionally, age does play a role to some degree.  The 9yo is strong enough to knead bread, and the 5yo is not, so he would get to knead bread.  The 7yo is focused on artistic, detailed tasks.  The 5yo has the energy and enthusiasm.  The 9yo is more advanced intellectually.  The 7yo can be patient.  And so forth.

These handicrafts are not useless, I think.  I've derived a great deal of enjoyment over practicing them myself, and I think my home looks nicer because of it, but beyond that they've also proven really useful over the years.  I could make a quilted table runner for a bridal shower when I didn't have enough money for a nice gift because I knew how to quilt.  I could take advantage of the bounty of free apples in the neighbourhood because I knew how to can them.  I could save a child's pants for a little longer with a quick patch or button.  I sewed my own wedding dress and then knitted scarves for each of the people who helped with my wedding planning.  These have been useful skills for me, not outdated nonsense.

I also think that above and beyond their usefulness they serve as an excellent teacher of patience to children, of the joy that comes from working at something and getting better at it, in a much faster and more tangible way than you get with more academic subjects.  You don't really get better in the same way with math, say, or grammar.  You learn more, and that's nice, but if you can knit, then in a relatively short amount of time you can make something impressive that will leave people saying "really?  You MADE that!?"  And that's a good kind of positive reinforcement for a child.

It's also strengthing fine motor skills at an age when handwriting is forming.  All of those little hand and arm muscles, getting stronger and more flexible right when they need to be.  And it develops hand eye co-ordination.  And spacial reasoning.  And problem-solving skills in general, really.  Handicrafts develop a child's sense of proportion and beauty and art.  They help tie in history lessons in a real and useful way and make the lesson 'alive'.  They capture the imagination and at the same time they reign it in a bit.  You want to make a hat?  This is the real world.  In the real world this is how you make a hat.  This is how long it takes.  This is how much it costs.  You can daydream about making a hat all you like, but if you really, truly want to make it, you have to learn how it's made and what that takes.  I tell you, reality is not a subject taught nearly enough in this day and age.

For us, then, I suppose it is both a practical and a creative outlet.  These things they are learning to do are fun for them, for the most part.  Sometimes, as in lessons on how to clean, they are less than enthusiastic.  But even then - learning how to do something that has to be done that you don't want to do is a very good skill to learn.

Finally, I love to teach the children and it's my joy to be able to do what I love.  But I don't fold up into a neat square and get stored away when I don't have my 'teacher' hat on.  I have a life of my own, and interests, and skills, and I want to share those things with my kids.  I enjoy these things, and when you really love something, it makes you the best teacher of it.

Invitational Presence and The Reluctant Scholar

The Graphics Fairy

I really wanted to talk about one of the techniques I use when homeschooling, one of the most valuable tools in my toolbox, actually.

So, I've noticed that there are some common issues with educating children regardless of how you choose to do so, and one of the main ones is probably how to convince a reluctant child to do the thing you wish them to do.

Now, it's not particularly surprising to anyone who knows me that I am stubborn and recalcitrant at the best of times myself, but also that I am very much a 'path of least resistance' sort of gal.  Frankly, if there is going to be a fight involved, I'm not likely to travel far down that path unless I feel very, very strongly about the issue.  My husband and I joke that our parenting philosophy can be summed up as 'is this the hill you want to die on?'  And sometimes, friends, Romans, countrymen...it is indeed.  But far more frequently the answer is a resounding 'no'.

All that being said, if one of my children is reluctant to do some sort of schooling I am pretty likely to say 'meh', and let it go.  And frankly, 'meh' is its own successful schooling strategy in a lot of cases!  But there are some times when the hill really must be taken, and into the breach we must go.  I struggled to think of a good example of this sort of situation in order to illustrate my technique, but here's what I've come up with.

Suppose you have a child who is a reluctant reader.  Now, I mean exactly what I say here, not a delayed reader with an educational difficulty or a reader who is below 'grade-level' but is enthusiastically reading all sorts of things, or even a reader who is slow and plodding but consistent.  I mean a child who can read well, and does not wish to do so.  This might take the form of a child who chooses books that offer no challenge at all simply to 'get through' the work, or a child who opts to do almost any activity besides reading, or a child who shrugs and looks bored at any request for them to choose a book to read, even when presented with many interesting materials on topics they are currently very enthusiastic about.  

The methods I've seen in regards to handling reluctant readers fall into two categories - convincing and force.  Under convincing you have such options as 'Come on, just one page and you can go play', 'If you don't get this done you'll fall behind', 'just pick a book please, so we can get on with our day', etc.  Under force you have 'Well, you have to read for 30 minutes, so pick something or I will pick it for you', 'no tv until you're done your reading' and 'You have to, so no arguing!'.

Now, there may very well be success to be had with any or all of these options, or many more beside, but as I said, I don't want to argue.  I'm not a fan of having to wheedle my children, frankly.  Maybe I'm just lazy.  And yet - my children should read.  They should pick up books and read them for knowledge and enjoyment and of their own free will.  They should, at their own pace, progress in reading levels and in skill until they grasp adult language and are able to converse in society at a good level.  I wish these things for and of each of them, and I am not alone in this.

So what to do?  Well I came up with an idea recently about this, and I suppose it is based somewhat on the idea of 'being a good example'.  We all tell each other these sorts of things all the time, frankly, to 'be a good example', or praise someone for 'being a good example' and so forth.  When you're homeschooling your children (or even if you're not) you are one of those 'good' (one hopes) examples.  What do your children see YOU doing?

The more I thought about this good example philosphy though, the more I realized it didn't fully encompass what I was trying to explain, so I've come up with the term 'invitational presence'.  To teach a child something you wish them to know is a process that has many paths, but to illustrate a life has just two - you can live in the world and hope your simply existing sheds some light on the truth, or you can invite others into life with you.

Here's how this technique might work in our example of the reluctant reader.  You can read in front of your child, visibly preferring your book over other options for entertainment, perhaps even carrying a book with you, and you can ensure that book is one that is eminently shareable.  Maybe funny stories you could chortle at and then say 'oh, listen to this!' and read briefly aloud from.  Or facts that might be compelling.  Or even (shock!  horror!) a children's book!  You can invite your child, with excitement, to help you choose YOUR next book. You can make the trip to the library or evening reading together a treat, however that might look for you (I'm a fan of silence and gummi worms myself but to each their own).  When you read in front of your reluctant child, they see you, doing that thing they do not want to do, albeit a good thing and one they are at least exposed to.  When you invite them in, ask them (in actions, mostly) to join you in this excitement, to help you, to journey with you instead of on a parallel track on their own, you encourage relationship.  

So now what you have is not just a personal habit of reading, but a family culture of reading.  You are the Smith family, and you read. You read together.  You help each other choose books and you share snippets that other might enjoy and you have infectious happiness at the thought of making each other laugh or think big thoughts.  You encourage the finding of interesting things in print, and you comment, aloud, at the smells in bookstores and how great the endpapers look, because you are the Smiths.  And the Smiths are readers.

This technique, like all proper education, takes time, and it takes patience.  And what if you are not a reader yourself, you might ask?  What if reading isn't YOUR thing?  Ah, but homeschooling is at its core, an acknowledgement that learning happens everywhere and is not confined to a place called school.  It happens throughout our days and throughout all of our days, until the end.  A teacher who is done learning, is dead.  Consider your child's reluctance to read an invitation to you, and your response to that reluctance an invitation in return.  This is not a negative!  This is good! So many times we cannot see the problematic educational trees for the forest, and yet here you have recognized one of those trees, and you have a game plan to focus on.  This is not failure, my friend, but the very definition of success.

Homeschooling Soft Start - Aug. 26th

Tomorrow we're doing a 'soft start' of school.  This means, for us, that we're going to do Morning Time.  It's going to be horrible, as any homeschooling teacher can tell you.  You can pray for me, if you like.

Here's what Morning Time will consist of, according to my carefully planned schedule.

Morning Prayer

Hymn Study - We're actually going to work on The Doxology

Bible Read Aloud - We are reading and discussing Mark 1:1-3

Memory Work - We will do memory work that encompasses SK-Gr. 4, so we're memorizing days of the week, months of the year and the first two lines of The Lord's Prayer.

Christian Biography - The 9yo will read aloud the first page of St. Augustine of Hippo biography in Ten Boys Who Made A Difference.  The 7yo will read aloud the first page of the Anne Lawson biography in Ten Girls Who Used Their Talents.

Group History Read Aloud - We are reading the first half of chapter 1 in Story Of The World volume 2.

The 7yo also has her piano lesson, and the 9yo will do his piano practice for 15 minutes or so.

The Great 2019-2020 School Year Curriculum Plan

After quite literally months of planning, here is the plan.

Christian Studies

We're going to read through the gospel of Mark this year.  We're also using the 'Ten Boys' and 'Ten Girls' series by Irene Howat to read biographical sketches of great Christians through the ages.  The 9yo and the 7yo will both be reading the stories and talking about the questions at the end of the chapters.  The 5yo will maybe tag along or maybe not I'm not sure.  Certainly not in any formal capacity.

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For memory work this year all three children are going to memorize the Lord's Prayer, (the 9yo has this somewhat memorized already, but I would like fluency), and the 9yo will also memorize the names of the books of the Bible.  If the 7yo finishes the Lord's prayer I will start her on the books of the Bible as well.

History

We will be reading through Story of the World Volume 2 together, which focuses on Medieval history.  We have multiple extra books to look through on different Medieval topics.  It's possible we will try things like Medieval cooking, attempting an illuminated letter, discussing the monastic movement, etc.  With SOTW2 as the spine, we'll see where our history studies take us.

Geography

We're going to take a world focus this year with Rod and Staff's curriculum Homelands Around The World.  We'll supplement with studies on real life missionaries we know and love and pray for.

Art and Music

The two oldest will be working with piano.  The 9yo will progress from Miss Judy teaching at the church to an instructor at the conservatory of music.  The 7yo is still with Miss Judy.  For Art we will be using this book:

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Science and Nature Study

The 9yo will be studying astronomy this year.  We'll use Exploring the Night Sky as our spine.

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We have a Celestron Telescope for observation and will likely supplement with several other books on stars, space and astronomy in our library.  We'll also be reading D'Aulaire's Greek Myths at the same time, tying in the stories that named our constellations.

The 7yo and 5yo will be using Rod and Staff's Patterns of Nature as their guided nature study.  This is technically a Grade 2 level book, which will make it right on the ball for the 7yo and probably too much for the 5yo, so I'll be adjusting expectations.

Mathematics

The 9yo will get Gr. 4 Rod and Staff math, the 7yo will get Grade 2 Rod and Staff math, and the 5yo will slowly finish the first book in Gr. 1 Rod and Staff math.  This will be supplemented with math games, and the I Hate Mathematics Book and whatever else we feel like doing.

Language Arts - Copywork and Recitation

The 9yo and 7yo will be copying from A Child's Garden of Verses this year and will choose poems from there to memorize.  Undoubtedly my children will be forced to listen to me recite The Swing over and over again.

Language Arts - Oral and Written Narration and Dictation

We're starting with Volume One of English For The Thoughtful Child.  Realistically this is only for the oldest two but the 5yo will tag along.  I have some nerves about this program being 'enough'.  So we'll see.  I may (probably will) supplement somehow.

Language Arts - Grammar

The 9yo will work on Rod and Staff's Grade 3 Building English.  By far this will be our hardest subject.  The 7yo and 5yo will not have anything in this subject area.

Literature

We'll stick with our 30 minutes of independent silent reading a day, because that works out well.  The 9yo and 7yo will also have assigned reading, although I don't have the list of books ready yet.  There may be literature guides, although I haven't actually purchased any so, sigh, who knows.  It's possible.

Reading

The 5yo is finishing up Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons.  She'll practice her reading with Bob books and early readers as she progresses this year.


And that's sort of where we are with the planning now.  I have photocopying and laminating to get done, and one large purchase still to make, but I think....dare I say it?  I think I may be almost ready.

Summer School!

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Usually by the end of the school year, by which I mean May, we are D.O.N.E. with anything even vaguely educational.  I certainly don't mean we are actually actually done the work I'd scheduled for us to finish that school year, but we just have no more brain space for one more lesson, one more fact, one more anything. 

So, because we homeschool, we just sorta...stop.  At some point I throw my hands up in the air and from that point forward whenever someone asks how 'school' is going, I laugh and explain that...it isn't.  Going, that is.  It isn't going and hasn't been going for a while now.

So this is all fine and well for us and the children.  May is half-hearted schooling, then June is totally void of anything intentionally educational at all and is usually filled with travel to see family and go to meetings.  But then here is the part where May come back to bite me.  Because after June comes July.  And July has two things against it.

1)  July is very hot.  And we are not a hot weather people.  No we are not.
2)  The children have exhausted the exciting novelty of 'vacation'.  And they are bored.

Here we are halfway through July and I know what the solution is, and it is restarting school.  So today, with a chorus of groans accompanying me, I pulled out a few small things to do, to start to ease back into school.  We had a family book study that was still unfinished, and so we heard a short chapter of that and then everyone did truly awful narrations.  And then we heard three short history chapters and looked at the map to discuss where all of these places were.  Where was Charlemagne coming from?  King Alfred and the Danes?  Who are these people?  Where were the Danes?

Of course, learning happens without books, obviously, and we do plenty of 'learningish' things all the time as a matter of course.  We've been playing math games and raising plants and monarch caterpillars, and we've been reading lots of books and finally finished a huge 1500 piece Van Gogh puzzle.  We've gone on trips and done woodworking and researched lots of things we're interested in.  We've heard plenty of audio books and new music and seen educational shows and gone exploring and swimming and so forth.  But those things are life for us, and when I refer to 'school' I mean more intentional learning.

So here is the plan for the remainder of July - slowly, slowly, finishing up the things we didn't quite finish last year.  And then hopefully August I can use as Review Month, because I'm sensing that will be very much necessary.  In September, with six weeks of reintroduction under our belts, we will be ready to launch into a new school year's work.

Of course, this is The Plan.  And who knows what the reality will end up being.

14 Things You Can Do In Homeschooling When You Just Can't Even.

Yeah, like it looks like this even when things are going well.  Right.

Sometimes it is expected, planned even, and sometimes it completely sneaks up on you, but if you are your child's teacher there will come a time when you just can't manage to teach in the style you prefer.  When (not if) it happens, you'll try and muscle through, and you will fail at that, and it will make you even more miserable, and then you'll panic, and imagine the children are falling behind.  But I'm going to sit with you here and tell you right now

Everything Is Going To Be Fine.

When I had my third child, I was trying to 'do kindergarten' with my then-four-year-old.  In hindsight this makes me laugh, but at the time I was very earnest and serious about it all and would have been terribly offended if anyone had suggested that 20 minutes of formal kindergarten a day was unnecessary when one was as ill as I was.  The techniques I used there to muddle through were very different from what I did several years later when my father in law had a massive stroke and lay in a hospital 10 hours away from us for a month before he died.  During that time we went through our savings traveling back and forth to him three times, and the reduced finances combined with the stress and uncertainty of the time and just the sheer amount of time in the car made my standard methods of homeschooling impossible.

These two occasions come to mind easily because of their enormity, but actually there are plenty of times I haven't been able to teach how I want.  The days I've spent cleaning in preparation for a visit, the illnesses that sweep through a house every fall, the emergencies that crop up, even the days I slept so poorly the night before I could barely see straight and yet...there's school to do, and I am in charge, so if it will get done, it will only get done through me.

 - Of course, if you enjoy an unschoolish sort of learning style, you won't necessarily have a schedule to interrupt.

 - Of course, if you are not going through a rough patch but entering a whole new season of life (becoming a foster parent, giving birth to a special-needs child, battling a chronic illness, beginning an entirely new lifestyle, etc.) techniques won't be a long-term solution; you will need to reevaluate your entire plan.

 - Of course, not everyone is going to make use of everything, and I teach a 9yo, a 7yo and a 5yo in a mix of Classical and Charlotte Mason styles so if you teach a 16yo with unit studies, then my suggestions might be of limited use to you.

Are those all the caveats?  I think so.  So here you go - 14 things I've found helpful in homeschooling when you just can't even manage.

1) Take a walk.  Call it a nature walk or a learning walk or an adventure walk or a ramble or a hike or whatever you please, but put shoes on people and walk around.  If there's a destination, that's great, and if there isn't, that's also great.  If you can't go for a walk, go outside to the garden.  If you can't go into the garden, sit on the front steps, or on the balcony, or at the park.  Or drive to the park for that matter, and wander around.  The children will probably mention things as you walk, but if they don't, you can if you like.  Talk about how that cloud over there looks like an elephant, or how you just saw a pack of ants go by with a dead caterpillar, but if nature is not so much your (or your child's) jam, then talk about the motorcycles on the road or the stop sign or whatever you like.

2) Play the Five Senses Game.  This one is good as a conversation starter as well.  If you're walking, find a good spot to get off the road/path and tell everyone to close their eyes and explain what they can see/hear/taste/smell and feel.

3) Ask 'I wonder' questions.  Instead of feeling the pressure to spew forth information, ask the children what they think is happening around them.  "I wonder why the flowers over there are so brightly coloured?" might get such responses as "So the bees can see them." "Because that lady painted those flowers." "So no one steps on them." and my personal favourite "I dunno."  You can respond how you please.  Often my children will run with this and start arguing their individual points, and I just respond with encouraging noises and nodding.  Don't feel obligated to have all the answers.

4) Examine one square foot.  Especially good if what you have is a very tiny outdoor space for looking at nature - everyone lays down on their stomach on the grass and peers at the tiny hidden world in front of them.  How many plants can you count?  Are there any creatures in your square foot?  Any teeny flowers?  If you have a magnifying glass, this is a good place for it, but the naked eye will see plenty.  This is also doable with house plants, by the way.

5)  Explore with errands.  Certainly don't try and do this with every place on your list of errands, but at least one time, explore around when you're at a mandatory stop.  Go down every aisle in the grocery store, slowly pushing the cart, even the aisles you need nothing at all in.  We have plenty of medical appointments, and there is one building in the nearby city where I have taken the children up to the top floor on the elevator, and then slowly descended the staircase, floor by floor, looking all around.  I can tell you there are two water fountains, and some planters, and one big window up at the top where you get a great view over the rooftops.

6) Go to the library and just sit.  This is such a foreign concept to parents, but really, bring your child to the children's section, wave your hand around and say "Look.  Look at all the books."  And then find a chair and sit.  They may come sit with you, or go colour a picture, or pull a bunch of books off the shelf and talk too loudly (the last two appear to be the main library behavior concerns, in my experience) but really, the majority of children are not likely to be destructive.  Loud, yes.  Destructive, no.

7) Read in full view.  Do this at the library, if you're there.  Say "I am going to get a book and read.  You may get a book too, and join me, and we'll read together!"  And then sit down with a book, in the library, and read it.  In full view of your kids.  Or you can do it at home.  You can pile a bunch of pillows behind you on the sofa and announce "I'm going to lie here quietly and read for twenty minutes if you would like to read with me.  But I am not doing anything else until the twenty minutes is done."  And then, read.  It will get easier.

8)  Share your interests.  I enjoy cross stitching and my 9yo son saw me with my craft and decided to try it as well.  So I shared it with him and taught him the basics and he happily cross stitched things along with me.  If you are overwhelmed and stressed and worried and pressed for time, don't try and learn a new thing to teach it - teach what you already know and love!  Much like reading, you modeling your interest in an activity is significantly more compelling to your children than any persuasive argument you put forth.  They want to do what YOU are doing.

9)  Share your chores.  I say this with some trepidation because this one can backfire in some situations.  I personally don't like cooking with my children (although I occasionally do, just so they have some kitchen experience and don't grow up to be awful spouses), but that is because when I'm in the kitchen I am focused and trying to get through the work as efficiently as possible.  But when I have been in seasons of needing to focus on my house and not on formal schooling, I have found having a child tagging right along beside me through the day to be invaluable.

10)  Watch Judiciously!  The party line is to separate a day into 'educational stuff' and 'television', but that kind of black and white thinking is unhelpful and wrong.  There's plenty of interesting, educational media out there.  Youtube videos and tv shows and documentaries and so forth.  Our public broadcasting stations have documentaries and shows on all sorts of topics that appeal to the children - whale watching and exploring great museums around the world and the science of light and on and on...watch tv when there is something worth watching and don't feel bad about it.

11)  Outsourcing education.  By this I mean using whatever resources you can to help you teach.   Audio books aren't exactly the same as you reading a book aloud, but they are helpful and portable and sometimes you can't BE there to read aloud.  A math computer game isn't a math curriculum, and it isn't the same as you teaching math, but it is a great fill-in.  Think of these options like the supply teachers of the overwhelmed homeschooling world.  My 9yo son plays a math game for 30 minutes a day but on a day when, for example, I am really sick or knee-deep in paperwork, he might play for an hour, or an hour and half.  Who cares?

12)  Get into strewing.  This is an unschooling practice of leaving out books and learning materials where kids can find them and explore on their own.  After years of trying this technique I have finally hit upon making a simple book display on a windowsill in my livingroom.  Every once in a while, when interest runs low on the previous display, I pull a bunch of books on whatever topic takes my fancy out of our substantial shelves, and I set up a little display.  I never mention it - the children find it in due time - and despite these books being ones we've had for ages they are always pounced upon as new treasures.  Sometimes I will also pull out a card game or puzzle we haven't seen in a while and just put it on a table.  Inevitably someone will start it or ask to play a round.

13)  Bring me the (insert latest interest).  The 7yo likes making clay charms, the 9yo is obsessed with Lego, whatever they are doing, sit down and join in.  "Tell me about what you're making." is all you need to say and you will be inundated with more information about the latest craze than you ever thought possible.  You may be on your third day after surgery and stuck on the sofa but "Bring me your Lego and you can tell me about what you're making these days" will, I absolutely guarantee you, have the affect of starting a conversation that will never end.  On hour eight of a car trip, saying "So I remember you started talking to me about that book/video game/whatever.  What did you say your favourite part was again?" will fill your hours.

14)  Embrace independent work.  A workbook that someone will enjoy and do, even if it isn't exactly what you want to teach, is better than no work at all and you upset because 'everyone did nothing'.  My children are practically incapable of doing independent work it seems, but I can still send them off to set the stove timer for 30 minutes of silent reading, and know that even if it ends up being a magazine or a Garfield comic - they did read for thirty minutes.