Homeschooling
I never intended to homeschool. Or teach. It was the furthest thing from my mind. I was not an easy person to convince.
But our lives rarely play out the way we think they will.
After reading everything I could find on homeschooling way back in 2007, I identified most with Charlotte Mason and her philosophies.
But if she was training children with a railroad as a visual to get them down the path, we were dancing across the meadows Sound-of-Music style. No experience. Starting at this point and then moving to that thing. And then remembering what we hadn’t covered. What worked with my daughter, never worked with my son. So there was a good bit of starting and starting again. Not to say that it was a failure or a waste. Just not as orderly as my personality would have liked.
The best years, the ones I look back on with fondness, were the ones where we did projects. Projects that were messy and took weeks. I liked piles of neatly done work, so it was hard to let go and do these projects. But I remember my daughter lying in the hall on a huge piece of paper tracing in all of her bones on a paper skeleton and labeling them.
The weeks we spent drawing animals that lived in the rainforest and making a large collage of them. I had that for years and years. And only recently (when we downsized to an RV) did I let it go. But not before taking pictures of it.
Letting the kids build an Eiffel Tower out of Legos and have a french dinner at home because we were studying world geography.
I love poetry teatime, books of all shapes and sorts, history – more than I thought was possible, nature study, discussion, handwriting, other times and cultures and documentaries.
My current influences are:
- Bravewriter (Julie Bogart)
- Read Aloud Revival (Sarah Mackenzie)
- The Morning Basket (Pam Barnhill)
- How to Teach your Children Shakespeare (Ken Ludwig)
Please join me as I talk homeschool and discuss all my favorites – from books to podcasts to new ideas for you.