Posted in Lessons from Our Humble Homeschool

I've received a lot of pressure to mold our home school into a wonderful, hands-on, natural learning environment as opposed to a copy of a traditional classroom. Most of this pressure was from myself, some was from others. But I have found that as our personal circumstances have changed, so have our learning needs.

To begin with, we have begun our homeschooling walk in a state that has granted homeschoolers a lot of freedoms within our right to teach at home. We are not required to take standardized tests, turn in grades, or even keep attendance records. I LOVE this! It allows me to do my job (teaching my children) in the ways that are best for US without worrying about meeting the state's impersonal requirements. So we have tried many different approaches over the past 6 years with the goal of raising godly, intelligent children who love to learn. Just when I think I've found something that is going to work for our family, we have another major change in our lives and I have to switch gears again.

Currently, I have 6 children and a husband who is deployed stateside with the military. When my husband left, my responsibilities increased exponentially. Balancing homeschool with housework, meal prep, toddler care, yardwork, oil changes, etc. is quite challenging. We are also looking at the probability of moving to another state in the near future. We're not sure where we'll be, but very likely in a state that requires much more than we are accustomed to. In order to get "on track" before we make a major move, I have begun to keep more detailed records of what the children are doing. (Up until now I have just kept ALL their work in a file box. No attendance records -- we're always "here." No grades. My opinion is that if it's not A-level work, they didn't "get it" so we do it again.) This year I am grading their work and keeping records, although we still do it again if they don't get an "A." I am keeping attendance, marking them absent on days they were sick and we legitimately did not do anything that could count as a learning experience.

I'm also using ALL textbooks. Yikes! I used to desire to learn "naturally," without "artificial" textbooks or divisions of subjects. I am finding now that with all my other responsibilities I don't have time to make sure learning "naturally" happens. My children are too young to be independent learners. They still require a lot of my attention and instruction. And without the guidance of a textbook curriculum, I have found it impossible to ensure they are learning enough academically on a day-to-day basis. Life skills are easy to teach every day. So are character issues and even Bible study. But the academics will easily slip through the cracks without a solid plan. So I am unashamedly leaning on my trusted curriculum to guide us through our "school" day. I have found that when I use the curriculum to teach our academic core subjects, I am freed of the responsibility to research and pre-read materials from an assortment of sources as I used to do in the past. I have saved myself a lot of time and effort. I have chosen curriculum from a conservative, Christian publisher so I know I can trust the content. Using the curriculum also limits our school day to a designated amount of time, which frees up the rest of our day for other necessary and desirable activities. What "school" may lack in the fun department is easily made up for in family time later on.

Our home school looks very much like a traditional classroom this year. I am brushing aside all the pressures of what we "should" be doing, both internal and external, in order to do what is best for us. Hmm, "best for us"? Isn't that why we started on this road to begin with?

~Layla