We are adding to our list of “H’s” around here. To homesteading and horses we are also adding homeschooling. DS will be starting kindergarten next year and, after much prayer and deliberation, we have decided on homeschooling the kiddos.
I homeschooled while I was going through heavy chemotherapy as a third and fourth grader and again in high school to accommodate a very intense horse showing schedule. For my elementary schooling, my parents just used the program that my normal school was using. In high school, I attended a cottage school 2 days each week and they supplied the curriculum. Now, as I have started looking around for curriculum ideas for my kids, I have been overwhelmed by the number of options. There is sooooo much out there!! It is crazy!
There is also the issue of fitting “everything” in. Our state requires a specific number of total hours of school per year. Within those hours, you must cover mathematics, science, reading, writing, grammar, spelling, history, and civics. At first, I started panicking – how on earth was I going to cover all of that and do all of the farm and house work and not go crazy.
I prayed and researched and prayed and compared and prayed and talked to current homeschooling families and (in case I forgot to mention it) prayed. 🙂 Somewhere in there, I got REALLY overwhelmed! Then I read a tiny book, The Unhurried Homeschooler, by Durenda Wilson. It changed my thinking. I would highly recommend it to any parent and especially to those homeschooling or considering it!! The basic premise of the book is that by slowing down and reassessing what homeschooling really means, we can give our kids a better and more enriching homeschooling experience and a well-rounded education.
After that, I started thinking about what my kids like to do now. They both love workbooks, like beg to do them, and would happily do them everyday. They also love to sit and listen to me read books.
So that’s what we are doing next year. I ordered a bunch of workbooks covering math, spelling, writing, geography, science, etc. for DS and preschool basics for DD and collected a bunch of books for reading aloud together. 4 days each week, after all the morning farm and house chores are done, we are going to spend about an hour doing workbooks with breaks according to their attention spans, followed by one-on-one time to work on hands on math and phonics. (I have to split them up for phonics because DD memorizes things very easily. If I let them do phonics together, she would memorize everything that DS read and then I would have to find new readers for her in a year or so.) So one gets a snack, while the other works with me, then we switch. That should give us about 45 minutes before lunch for music, art, science experiments, or catch up. After lunch, we will snuggle on the couch for 45 minutes to an hour of reading time. Then, free time for the rest of the afternoon! The other week day is open for field trips, group activities, extracurriculars, etc.
Wish me luck!
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