Homeschool Reflections, After Year 1

 As a mom who never wanted to homeschool, I am thrilled to say we survived our first year, and plan to do it again next year!  Hooray!

Our daily homeschool set up included:

• a math session with Dad (Singapore curriculum) usually in the morning before his work meetings, and then math homework to be completed independently  

• a ‘morning meeting’ including a Bible verse, hymn, and poem, which actually happened about 50% of our ‘school days.’  Seeing the kids’ excitement at picking out a poem and then taking turns reading it out loud was an unexpected highlight

• a review of memory work from our Classical Conversations curriculum, sometimes just me reviewing material, sometimes watching a youtube review guy, sometimes googling random stuff from the timeline song… you never know.

• a time of reading and writing and grammar concepts - which looked different for each kid because of grade levels.  For Simon: we were focusing on handwriting goals and chapter books.  For Gwen: she was learning to write paragraphs and essays and diagramming sentences. Both kids had weekly spelling lists and quizzes.

Every Wednesday we gathered, 9am-3pm, with our Bloomington homeschool community, called Classical Conversations, where the kids each attended class taught by a parent tutor and 6-7 classmates.  I attended their classes too, switching back and forth, helping with art projects, science projects and (Lord help me) tin whistle practicing.  We all looked forward to “Community Day” each week to see our friends (Mom friends too!), get out of the house, and remember how thankful we were that we didn’t have to do this everyday like our before-lives at a private school!  The memory work for the week was introduced by the tutors, so we always had new things to learn about Math, Latin, English, History, Timeline, Science, Art and Geography.  The BEST thing was the curriculum is already set and given to me - so I don’t have to figure out what to teach during the week for all these subjects!  The other BEST thing is that our curriculum only lasted 24 weeks and finished on April 19! So with standardized testing and tying up loose ends, our summer break started the first week of MAY!  Yay!

Classical Conversations and Singapore Math were great curricula, but it didn’t take all day every day. Each week we had extra time - lots of it.  What did we do with it, you ask?  Here are some of the highlights:

• Discovering our world and history through arm-fulls from the library- especially nonfiction picture books. We had lots of good times reading books on the couch together.

• Sewing, baking and building 

• Laundry skills

• Cleaning and household help

• Museums and plays and the MN zoo!

• Sports with dad, soccer and baseball

• Music with mom- basic ukulele, singing harmony, rhythm, lots of listening

• Church - Wednesday night programming and Christmas Play for Gwen

• Travel (California, Florida, and lots of Kettle River)

• Kettle work and play - chopping wood and starting fires and building forts

• Book club (Gwen hosted her own) and bike rides (Simon takes about 3 a day in nice weather)

• Cross country skiing at Wood Lake and 4 downhill ski days at Hyland

• Volunteering at CAPI food shelf and FMSC

• Piano lessons for Simon and a serious puzzle habit for Gwen

The hardest part of homeschooling is being all the things all the time: parent, teacher, decider of the plans, referee of the fights, accountability holder, coach, and nurse.  Decision fatigue and planning fatigue and being an INTROVERT were regular struggles for me.  Shout out to my incredible husband who LIKES to cook dinner, reinforces respect for my role, and doesn’t get mad when he finds me exhausted and emergency-napping.  My weekly Bible study group and fitness classes at Lifetime were also game-changers for me. They gave me a place to go and be myself apart from my kids.  I am happy to report that my kids and I have both grown in maintaining peaceful household routines and relationships.  

The second hardest part about homeschooling was the kids being at different grade levels.  Enough said.

I can say with confidence that the pros outweigh the cons, and that homeschooling is our healthiest school option in this season.  Praise be to God for this gift!  We fall short, but we are loved, and his grace is sufficient!