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More On Homeschooling...

Our Philosophy & Curriculum Choices:

Keep in mind this was written almost 18 months ago and some things have changed but this was information I wanted to transfer and save here.  Thanks for reading!

Let me start by saying that this works for us and is not a formula but an example of how you might think about schooling in a different way. My starting place was Raymond and Dorothy Moore. Mrs. Moore has since passed on but their work is being continued in Washington state. Their background is Seventh Day Adventist but their philosophies are not related to their religious preference. I questioned that until I started reading and what they had to say was totally logical and their study of God's Word on the matters involved in forming these philosophies are quite sound. That being said, they are the authors of Better Late Than Early - a book that discusses the importance of letting our children grow at their own pace and not trying to force our children to learn and grow up too quickly. Another book of their's on our shelf is the Successful Homeschool Family Handbook: A Creative and Stress-Free Approach to Homeschooling. I think this book is a must especially for those in line with unschooling and Charlotte Mason. The third book of their's on our shelf is Minding Your Own Business: A Common Sense Guide to Home Management and Industry. They are proponents of teaching your child to manage a home business. They divide their learning structure into three areas - Study, Work and Service. To find out more about their resources and philosophy you can visit www.moorefoundation.com .

A second source for our philosophy formation has been Charlotte Mason. I am currently in the process of reading her 6 book series and a book called The Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola. Karen has taken on the task of bringing back the original series and providing American HSers the opportunity to benefit from this childcentered way of teaching. Other books that are offered by modern day authors include books by Catherine Levison called Charlotte Mason Education: A Home Schooling How-To Manual and More Charlotte Mason Education. All of these resources and much more can be found on the Andreola families site at http://www.charlottemason.com .

We have chosen not to use a set full curriculum because that does not work for JoNathan. He is not interested in sitting with a full set of workbooks all day or being on the computer for long periods of time (Switched on Schoolhouse). I do not like many of the full curriculums because they are structured like public school and we pulled the kids out of public school because we did not like the format among other things. Our learning takes place every waking hour and throughout weekends. We love the work and service aspect of the Moore Foundation and encourage and participate in such activities every chance we get. The children have chores and routines. They serve in small ways in our church and community. As they get older we are going to encourage Cottage Industry (even Mommy is preparing for a home business as the children grow older and more responsible) My friend Rosie, the one who taught the breadmaking workshop, has encouraged me very much in this area and has offered to help us get started with ideas and skill training when we are ready.

Instead of set curriculums we use a few basic resources and unit studies. We have chosen Saxon Math for our children because it teaches a very thorough math range and ensures that we are covering all the basics. The curriculum runs from Kindergarten all the way through senior in high school. We also use the Learning Language Arts Through Literature curriculm for Language Arts because it is in line with the Charlotte Mason Philosophy of great literature and small lessons. We read books to learn about language and history. We read biographies to learn about important people in history and science. We subscribe to the idea of a "Twaddle Free Environment". We do not waste time with bad literature but focus on classics and informative books. There are no basal readers in our home and when we read we choose to read an entire work and not just a small piece of the work (as basal readers provide). The children are encouraged to read from encyclopedias and research resources, too.

The last "workbook type" resource we use is a Bible curriculum called Explorer's Bible Study. It offers different age series beginning with the Bible Beginnings for ages 4-6, Bible Foundations which is an overview of the OT and NT for ages 7-9, and Bible Quest (JoNathan is in this series) which covers Genesis through Revelation over about a 5 year period. They are still completing the series and adding new books each year. We have found it very Biblically sound and it allows for a great deal of discussion and interaction between JoNathan and Dan and myself. I highly recommend this series.

We use an Italic Handwriting series by Getty and Dubay for improving handwriting and teaching writing. They offer a book for each year of school through the middle school ages. The children write in a daily journal (Emily draws pictures in her's) and keep a nature journal. We encourage entry in local writing contests and work with the children on storytelling and verbal expression through the Charlotte Mason idea of reciting and summarizing. JoNathan is given writing prompts and copywork throughout the week.

Everything else is done using unit studies for social studies and science, tons of reading and researching, field trips and practical hands-on activities. The kids help in the garden and the kitchen. Dan has been teaching JoNathan woodworking and safety with tools as well as other building and practical life skills. He has learned many science principles in this format.

Lastly, we are incorporating a bit of the classical philosophy in teaching foreign language (spanish and sign language right now), Greek and Latin roots for understanding our language better and the reading of classic literature. We use logic exercises, too. Our favorite book that has taken us in this direction is a book by William Bennett called The Educated Child. We recommend anything by William Bennett in the realm of character development and education. He is a very knowledgeable man and has written some awesome resources for Homeschooling use.

As you can see, we are quite eclectic in our way of doing things but this is how our children are learning best and we make changes as they need them. As they grow we try new things and let them choose some of the things they would like to study (not totally because they do need some basics that are required by our state such as language arts, spelling, citizenship classes and mathematics). We know that some things cannot be taught in unit studies and must be done in a more formal way such as the mathematics and language skills but we try not to overwhelm them with too much sitting and writing time.

I will share some beginning reading things separately from this post because we have our own way of doing this and it will take some explanation. We buy many of our books and such from www.christianbooks.com or www.gwbc.com . I have put some of our favorite site links in the lefthand column under Favorite Sites for anyone interested.

We schedule our day based on Charlotte Mason's short subject blocks and we spend time outside collecting and observing nature. Davy and Emily are still involved most of their day in active play and game time. We read books every day, together and alone, and allow time to explore the world around them. JoNathan, unless he has piddled away his work time, only spends from 15 to 30 minutes on each subject and takes breaks to go outside and get snacks throughout the morning. The afternoon is spent with resting time and quiet reading. Our day is quite scheduled because my children function well with a schedule. They know when it is snacktime, storytime, lunchtime and naptime. They never have to ask if they can play in between work and meals because they know that is totally permitted. They watch very little television (about one hour a day) - and that is usually videos or a chosen show on PBS like Between the Lions, Clifford, Zoom or Zaboomafoo. They can watch a movie on the weekends. Weeknights are spent in familytime. We eat dinner together and play games together. They have a set bedtime routine so they wind down and get ready at an appropriate time. They get about 10 hours of sleep a night.