Meghan Richter

Jun 15, 20208 min read

Homeschooling

"Children learn best through their everyday experiences with the people they love and trust, and when the learning is fun. And the best place for these experiences is outdoors, in the natural world." ~ Center for Families, Communities, Schools and Children’s Learning

"Children are born naturalists. They explore the world with all of their senses, experiment in the environment, and communicate their discoveries to those around them."

~ The Audubon Nature Preschool

"Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood. ~ Fred Rogers

Deciding to home school our children came as an easy choice for Omar and I. I, myself, had attended a very small, Christian-based, private school for 10 years and Omar was completely home schooled along with his 6 siblings. We felt similar regarding reasons to home school. The quotes above represent those feelings. We also knew we were willing to handle the challenges associated. And oh boy, are there challenges associated!

As with every aspect of raising children, educating them above and beyond character building, (i.e. reading, writing, arithmetic, etc) is supremely difficult and time consuming. I am sure there are some families out there who are homeschooling their group of 2, 3, 4, etc, and having a truly easy time. The children are eager to do their school work and their willingness to try is top notch.

Well friends, that is NOT my experience

I am here to relate to the Mom who feels like every approach she takes doesn't quite work. The worksheets, games, experiments, and projects she plans are rarely, if ever, received well or even tried by her students/children. I am here to relate to the Mom who aims to make learning fun just to have her young learners care more about silliness than following instructions. Or fighting with each other instead of listening to the cool facts their teacher-Mom is revealing to them about their planet, the world around them, etc.

When we decided to home school I thought it was as simple as picking a curriculum, creating a time and place to work on it together and then go forward without ceasing until we are complete.

At very first it was more like that. My two oldest were young and the lessons we were doing were more game-like and they were more willing to follow my lead, be in harmony and do the school work we had planned. I was very lucky to be introduced to a home school curriculum called Classical Conversations. There is flexibility within the curriculum for parents to go with what feels right for their family as far as what subjects to focus on and when. You can work the curriculum completely on your own with your children and you can use 1 or more curriculum's along with it. You can also join a local CC community in which you will meet once per week and follow the curriculum weekly. I was eager to join for a few reasons~ we knew friends there already, to make new friends, to have the classroom experience (listening to another parent/tutor and follow their instructions) and to give weekly presentations.

Weekly presentations is one of my favorite aspects of our home school community. I am not certain all home school communities include weekly presenting, but CC does!

www.classicalconversations.com

As the first two years came to a close, the ease of getting them to listen, follow instructions, participate in the lesson plan or even just be still and act like they're listening, also came to a crashing close. The schools days where circle time games, me reading stories to them, and going through the weekly memory work with them were then wildly rejected and finding things to fight about or distract each other with became center stage.

Honestly, I cried. I sometimes yelled. And I definitely thought I was a failure.

My initial reaction in life when this occurs is to pause, do something else (PRAY!) and see if an answer is discovered. I love to read when I have time and have learned that this is a bit of a Taoist approach. They teach, "when in doubt, don't. Wait. More will be revealed." In the actual moment, the "do something else" for us is usually chores. We typically have enough house work for me to easily give each child an age appropriate task. But, oh yes, there are many times when giving a chore is met with EXTREME resistance. Omar and I have a running joke about how we're stuck in a Star Wars movie and we're constantly up against "The Resistance!"

I have had to re-think, re-wire, and regain my perspectives, ideas and modalities regarding home schooling. I have also always included Omar in our family's journey of home schooling even if he is not at home with us during those hours. He grew up in a household of seven children, all of whom were home schooled completely, K-12. I have literally asked him, "What did YOUR Mom do when......?!"

And the answer was not what I would have expected.

It was not the need for a one-to-one talk between me and the child. Or between Dad and the child.

It wasn't a different curriculum.

It wasn't an earning and reward program. (Although, we do have that in place)

The main answer wasn't even changing educational approaches. (However, we have been sensitive to our kinetic learners!)

No, the main answer was to change MY point of view. Change what I saw as education and realize how learning really works.

I also began to allow myself to have a more long term goal vision. We had chosen home schooling so that we could work at our own pace, but I had not really given into that or truly discovered what that means.

I clung to quotes like these . . . .

"Children may be more capable of competent self-directed learning than we give them credit for." ~ John Holt(Author/Educator

"There is no school equal to a decent home and no teacher equal to a virtuous parent." ~Gandhi

"I let parent’s know that there is no way to mess up homeschooling as long as you instill a love for God and help them build their relationship with Him. They will be far ahead of other students if this is in place and will not fail.” ~Calente Tapp, HLA Admissions Counselor

Omar and I sat together on a few occasions before we were able to come up with what we felt was the best 'school day' plan for our family. First I had to admit what I was afraid of. My prominent fear is that they will not be able to catch up on math and certain sciences if they do not begin early and build consistently. Once I expressed my fear and heard it out loud I was able to see differently. I realized that I myself was horrible in math until about age 14.

Here's an example of a Home School Day at our house

Wake up

Spend the early portion of the morning quietly reading or playing in harmony. (i.e. cards, board games, art with paper & pen/pencils, etc)

Boot Camp! (outside- rain or shine)

Prayer / Scripture (set intention for the day)

Qigong shaking

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, feet flat on the floor/ground.

Ensure your back is straight, with your butt tucked forward. Stand with your arms relaxed at your sides.

Shake your body gently, from the wrists, to your neck, to your knees.

Breathe in and out from your diaphragm.

10 Knees to Chest

50 Jumping Jacks

10 Push-ups

Run perimeter of the yard 2x

Brain Gym

Specific, various body movements that integrate the left and right hemispheres of the brain improving neurological function.

EFT Tapping (Emotional Freedom Technique)

Relieves emotional stress and physical pain through tapping on meridian points on the body.

Nature observation for 5 minutes

Each child is given a chore/task to perform inside

Breakfast (we review some of our Foundations Guide through Classical Conversations)

Creative time for 15 minutes (varies from child to child & day to day~creative imagination play counts!)

We then move into the portion of the day that is different each day for each child. I have tried multiple approaches in this regard. I find that if I give them each something they can do on their own and then work with them one-on-one with their more difficult tasks, we make more efficient progress. Like new Math concepts for instance; I literally have to employ my older children to 'babysit' the 3 year old so that I can have the one-on-one time needed for another child.

At this point we have not gotten very deep into any subject that is claimed to be important by a traditional school system. We study subjects that our children are interested in; for example Freedom is a "birder" and studies Ornithology. What we have decided to go "deep" into are the things we (Omar & I) believe are MOST important.

Homeopathy & Healing Philosophy & Scripture Home Economics

I came up with the idea to use the 24 week basic sentence per subject formula that Mrs. Leigh Bortins (creator of Classical Conversations) used to design the Foundations curriculum. I applied that to the subjects above. I picked 24 important things to know about Homeopathy and healing through alternative techniques. (I covered 2 of those in the description of our Boot Camp;

Brain gym and EFT tapping!) I literally wrote it out in pen to figure out what my top 24 blurbs would be. Here are a few to give an example:

Homeopathy & Healing

Week 3: Q ~ What does Cold Exposure/Ice Therapy do for you?

A ~ Cold/Ice Therapy boosts your immune system and circulation,

strengthens your cardiovascular system, and teaches your body how to handle stress.

Week 4: Q ~ What is Homeopathy?

A ~ Homeopathy is the treatment of disease by minute doses of natural substances.

Week 6: Q ~ What remedy is typically best for body ache, pain, or bruise?

A ~ Arnica Montana

Week 21: Q ~ What are Bach Flower remedies?

A ~ Bach flowers are extreme dilutions of flower material transformed into a tincture.

(aka: liquid)

Week 22: Q ~ What is the Rescue Remedy combination?

A ~ Rescue remedy is the combination of Cherry Plum, Clematis, Impatiens, Rock Rose, and Star of Bethlehem

I want to interject here that I appreciate studying Homeopathy because in doing so we are studying Chemistry and Latin!

I, again, used that same formula for the Scripture and Philosophy.

Philosophy/Scripture

Week 2: Q ~ What does Proverbs 23:7 say about thinking?

A ~ "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he."

Week 20: Q ~ What is the Law of Attraction

The law of attraction is the attractive, magnetic power of the Universe(God) that manifests through everyone and through everything. It is part of the creative power of the Universe (God). The law of gravity is part of the law of attraction.

Home Economics is mostly chores and character building which tends to include the above examples for Scripture & Philosophy. We also allow our children to work with us on fun household projects like cooking, baking, gardening, maintaining the property and helping to care for our family pet. They learn a lot about the aspects of each that they didn't realize. Which is also a part of the Philosophy learning~ nothing you set out to do will cease to teach you new things. Especially when you're open to it.

I take one day at a time. I follow my heart, my intuition, my gut~ I honestly have spent so much time talking with God~ I know those feelings are His wisdom guiding me. That doesn't mean I don't make mistakes. I make tons! And truthfully, mistakes are mostly character related. I am impatient. I am annoyed or frustrated with the lack of response. I speak to harshly in that case. I rarely say that something like giving a child an assignment they couldn't handle was the mistake. No. The mistake was how I mishandled the angry child that got upset about the assignment he couldn't handle.