On Thursday, Lukus and I have an appointment to check out a school for Taytem, and I have a lot of mixed feelings about this.  I know, I know, we’re devoted home-schoolers, but this isn’t any ordinary school.  This is a private, classical academy that only has two school days a week, with the rest of the week completed at home.  In a lot of ways, it’s like having the best of both worlds, but I’m still nervous.

See, the thing is, I had this wonderful image in my mind about home-schooling – an image that so many other home-school bloggers present so beautifully.  I imagined waking up at 6 a.m. with plenty of time to get my own stuff taken care of: time with God, working-out, a shower AND time to put make-up on, then breakfast ready for my family to wake up to.  We’d eat together, Lukus would read some scriptures before heading off to work, then the girls and I would do a couple of chores before heading outside for some sunshine and fresh air.  Once we’d expended a bit of outdoor energy and enjoyed some nature, we’d go inside with a pre-planned self-learning activity for Eisley while Taytem and I got through Bible, math and grammar.  We’d take a little break for a healthy snack, maybe play outside a bit more, then head back inside for Eisley to take a nap and for Taytem to work on history, science, Spanish and art.  Then Taytem would take a nap while I worked on my blog, got some laundry done and a bathroom cleaned.  I’d read a chapter in a book, study some photography skills or work on a design project.  Then I’d start dinner just as my girls were waking up and they’d get out some of their arts and crafts materials while I cooked a healthy and appetizing chicken bruschetta.  A day of wonder!

And it certainly IS a day of wonder – as in “I wonder how I pulled that day off that one time, but not anymore,” or “I wonder if that day will ever happen again?” or “I wonder if that day ever existed at all?”

But because Lukus and I are usually up until 12:30, and I literally cannot function without 8.5 hours of sleep, our day usually looks like this:  Lukus gets up at 6 a.m., works-out, then leaves for work at 8:30 before I’m even awake.  My alarm clock is Eisley, sitting in her crib saying, “Mama, I eat!  Mama, I eat!” with the same annoying urgency as a real alarm clock, except Eisley does not have a snooze button.  I drag myself out of bed and instead of taking a shower and changing my clothes, my day starts in p.j.’s changing a poopy diaper.  We wrap up “brunch” at 9:30 or 10, and my girls start whining and arguing when I tell them they need to get dressed and go play outside, because I have yet to have a quiet moment to gather my thoughts for the day.

Instead of going outside, they follow me around while I pick up the messes they left the night before, and after a few moments of this, it occurs to me that this is not my job.  I tell Taytem to take care of her messes and go clean up her room.  She whines.  Eisley, in the meantime, is thwarting my efforts and Taytem’s by dumping things out while we’re putting things away.  I find Taytem in her room, thirty minutes later, room untouched by cleaning efforts, and Taytem is cutting paper into teeny tiny pieces that will end up all over the floor.  Still in my pajamas, I’m about ready to give up on any progress for the day and I get on-line.  I check e-mails, waste time on Facebook, delude myself that I’m not wasting time on Pinterest, and read a couple of my favorite blogs – all while my children are telling me that they’re already hungry again.  I give them a lunch that is a compromise between healthy and what they’ll actually eat, then I turn on My Friend Rabbit for them to watch while I get the breakfast dishes washed.  Finally – one moment of progress!

While my children are occupied, I take the opportunity to start on my blog.  But Taytem has a honing device for whenever I’m writing my blog, and she heads upstairs to tell me she’s hungry again.  I swear, you’d think my child was Michael Phelps the way she’s constantly famished.  I tell her she can find her own snack, and please give me a few minutes to finish my writing.  She interrupts eight more times while asking about this or that snack, or if I can help her open something, or if she can just look at my blog.  Blogging takes about 5 times longer than it should.  It’s finally nap-time, and I manage to get the bottom floor of the house at least picked up, and by then, my 4 o’clock slump sets in that tells me I’m exhausted.  My shoulders start to ache and I get desperately sleepy.  I insist that there’s no good reason for me to be so exhausted, but my body argues with me and it usually wins.  This is a body chemistry issue that is being addressed by my doctor, so hopefully, this will not be the case for much longer.  In the meantime, I know I can’t take a nap or I won’t sleep all night, so I “rest” by watching Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, or “pinning” on Pinterest.  Then I accidentally fall asleep.  Lukus comes home to his wife in bed, just the way he left her that morning, with little evidence that she was ever awake at all.

And because I took a nap, I can’t sleep that night, and the cycle begins anew all over again.

I need help – professional help.  As in “someone else needs to help me educate my children at least two days a week because I’m mildly self-destructive and can’t seem to get my act together” kind of help.  So our appointment is on Thursday.  I’ll let you know if a maid that helps do the laundry and dishes is included in the tuition fees.  I’m guessing it’s not, but no one had ever heard of “two-day-a-week school” either, so anything’s possible.  Except me getting up at 6 a.m.  Apparently, that’s the one thing on earth that’s not possible.

This post is dedicated to my mother-in-law and my friend Christine who have both given me many resources and expertise in their years as home-school moms.  I have read a lot of books and blogs on the topic, but their wisdom has been invaluable.  It’s also dedicated to poor Mr. Richardson, whose bitterness and laziness as a teacher, while in no way implicates the thousands of other wonderful and dedicated teachers out there, single-handedly still managed to destroy my personal confidence in public education.  Thank you Mr. Richardson for helping me discover the joy of home-schooling.

Few people are undaunted by the prospect of home-schooling their own children.  First come the feelings of educational inadequacy:  ”I don’t know the first thing about teaching a child how to read!” or “I was terrible at algebra.  How could I possibly teach it?”.  Next come the feelings of character inadequacy:  ”I’m just not patient/organized/motivated enough.”  Then there’s the overwhelming enigma of trying to figure out what your child’s skill level is and what they actually *need* to learn any given year.  Once you’ve calmed down and realized that it doesn’t hurt to look into things, there’s the mountain of curriculum possibilities to pore over and try to figure out what appeals to both you and your child.  Just when you feel like maybe you can handle it, some veteran home-schooler comes along and asks you, “So what method do you plan to use?”  Not curriculum, but method – and you stare blankly and say internally, “Oh my gosh, what are they talking about?  I’m so not ready for this!”  Or maybe that was just me.

The good news about all of those things is, if you know how to read and how to add, you have all the educational adequacy you need because you’ll probably be learning just a few steps ahead of your child, which is totally enough.  Having a degree in education is absolutely necessary for school teachers who have a broad range of children in their classrooms with varying home lives, skill sets, behavioral issues, and physical and mental abilities all interacting in the same classroom.  But most parents have spent the first 5 or 6 years in being educated on their own child and have earned their own degree by way of experience.

If you’ve managed to get your child to the age of five all in one piece, you most likely have the character requirements to home-school as well.  It will be hard, there will be bad days, there will be crying-in-the-shower days, but then you will suddenly hear your child reading on their own for the first time and you’ll know everything will be okay – that is, if you believe in what you’re doing.

And figuring out your child’s skill level may come by trial and error, you may try some things that are way too easy, or you may be way over their head.  Just don’t go out and buy a whole bunch of curriculum and material until you have a solid idea of where your kid is.

And as for the method question, consider the method you want to use before you choose your curriculum.  A homeschooling method is simply the overall philosophy and approach you want to take in educating your child.  And there are many to choose from – some philosophies overlap, and most can be mixed with other methods quite well, but just as a start, here are some of the most popular methods:

1)  Classical Education

2)  Charlotte Mason

3)  Montessori

4) Unschooling

5) Unit Studies

6)  Textbook

Full disclosure here:  I am totally biased.  I am possibly in love with the Classical method.  I certainly think the other methods have merit, and to each their own.  But Susan Wise Bauer’s book, The Well-Trained Mind, in which she fully explains the Classical method, is seriously in the Top 5 Books That Changed My Life.  As a child, I wanted to be a teacher – until public school almost killed my love of learning and left huge gaps in my education.  The Well-Trained Mind reawakened my interest in education because it outlined such a logical, complete methodology for teaching and learning.  Not to mention the discovery that it was the method by which the likes of Thomas Jefferson, Michelangelo and other brilliant figures were taught.  Okay, enough of my romantic discourse toward this method – let me tell you what it is.

The Classical method follows a pattern called the trivium.  In the trivium, there are 3 stages of learning: The Grammar Stage, The Dialectic Stage, and The Rhetoric Stage.

The Grammar Stage (When the child is asking “What?”)

Ever notice how little kids love asking question after question after question?  What’s that?  What are we doing next?  Their fresh minds are hungry for lots of facts about their world – and once they’ve got a fact in their head, they love to repeat it over and over and over.  My 3-year-old once sang the ABC’s 14 times in a row during a drive to grandma’s house.  The memorization and repetition that drives us adults crazy is like candy to a small child’s brain – they love it!  This is what the grammar stage is all about:  offering children lots of facts to memorize, absorb and process.  They are not required to form any conclusions about these facts or interpret them in any way – they simply get to feed off of fresh, home-grown knowledge.

The grammar stage goes on for the first four years, and follows a chronological time-line of the four eras of history with all other subjects integrated with history.  For instance, in the 1st Grade, a child will learn the fascinating stories and facts about ancient history (Babylon, the Egyptian pyramids, famous Greek heroes).  While studying ancient history, the child will also be read a children’s translation of The Odyssey or stories from Egypt for literature.  In science, the child will experiment with the same science the ancients did – earth and physical science.  All subjects (except math) are connected to the historical time-line, preventing gaps in education.  2nd Grade would revolve around medieval history, 3rd grade would cover the Renaissance to 1850, and 4th Grade would be about modern times.  The grammar stage offers the answers to the child’s constant wonderings about “What’s that?  What happened next?”

The Dialectic Stage (When the child is asking “Why?”)

Middle school students are considered by many to be the most difficult students to work with.  It’s probably because they’re constantly asking “Why?”.  Why do I have to wash the dishes?  Why can’t I stay over at Rachel’s?  Why do I have to do biology when it’s of no use to me?  I’m not a parent of a middle schooler yet, but I’ve worked with them, and they can be exasperating because their natural, innate questioning of “why” seems like they’re just being contrary.  But in actuality, it’s a legitimate, God-given function of their brain.  They’re taking the facts they’ve been given and they’re now trying to process them and figure out how they make sense.

The dialectic stage in classical education encourages the middle school student to ask why and to process their facts.  Why did the Athenians put Socrates on trial for his philosophy?  Why did Michelangelo paint Adam’s finger in a limp, disinterested position on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?  Why did Dickens write so much about poverty? Why IS it important to learn biology?  The chronological time-line is repeated and all subjects integrated, just like in the grammar stage, but at a higher level and with provocative questions to satiate the middle schoolers need to know why.

The Rhetoric Stage (When the child explains “How”)

High schoolers have opinions.  Their natural inclinations have developed so that they have strong likes and dislikes, and often overly pronounced interests and desires.  The rhetoric stage acknowledges their innate need to be treated as an adult and allows them to express their opinions, feelings and beliefs.  The historical pattern will repeat all over again, but greater in-depth of course, offering a very firm foundation of knowledge.  But in this stage, the child is expected to not simply know a bunch of facts, or the reasons why those facts make sense, but rather to express themselves about ideas.  They are ready to participate in The Great Conversation, to explain their own ideas with confidence, and prepared to teach what they know to others.  They’ve asked What? and Why? and now it’s the parents turn to ask the questions and inquire, “How?”  How do you think people should respond to others who oppose their beliefs?  How does that music make you feel?  How do you know what “good art” is?  How do you address poverty in the world in a just manner?  How does biology explain or negate the existence of a god?

And there it is – The Classical Method.  It’s very structured, it’s kind of intense, but it’s also structured to follow the natural development of a child’s mind.  It offers a solid foundation of knowledge without all of the gaps of skipping around through history and literature, but it’s not merely about knowledge.  One speaker at a homeschool convention expressed how the Classical model follows the biblical model shown in the book of Proverbs – first we must desire knowledge, then understanding, then wisdom, precept upon precept, line upon line.  The Classical model certainly seems to develop that concept in a practical way.

But it can have it’s drawbacks, which I will address next week before we get into the other methods of homeschooling.  What are your thoughts?  Do you use a particular method in your homeschooling?

Yesterday, I wrote a post about nearly reaching my wit’s end with motherhood.  Needless to say, the very thought of starting our home-school year was almost enough for me to break out in hives.  Last year, I began my home-school adventure with my then-4-year-old daughter, Taytem.  Taytem is very bright and was anxious to start school, and we didn’t have much else going on at home, so I figured, why not?

Well, there’s a reason that most 4-year-olds aren’t ready to start school even if they have the intellectual capacity for it:  they simply don’t have the physiological capacity.  Any Montessori or Charlotte Mason expert could have said, “Well, DUH! What were you thinking putting a 4-year-old behind a desk for a couple hours on end?”  Actually, probably anyone could have said that.  But I, nevertheless, had a vision, and my vision was very exciting.  For a 30-year-old anyway.  Not so much for a 4-year-old.

Taytem sat at her school desk each day, apparently with an invisible vibrate button switched on.  She interrupted me constantly during lessons, she dawdled, and the girl who had been so excited to start school was already groaning about it within weeks.  Somehow, even though I had wanted to make school an exciting adventure, something to enliven our somewhat dull days, instead I had managed to destroy the spirit of learning.  In one semester, she had at least finished her kindergarten math book and had taken to reading like monkeys take to eating fleas off of one another, but “doing school” was torturous.  I simply had not expected that to happen, but after that single semester, we quit doing school and I resignedly told her “you’ve graduated from kindergarten,” before she reached complete burn-out.

But here we are again, a new school year upon us, Taytem’s reading everything in sight, and it’s just too sad to imagine wasting her learning potential right now.  But I simply was not inspired to do school this year, and couldn’t imagine a way to do things differently than we did last year.  Putting her in school was not an option Lukus and I are comfortable with, so we decided to give it another go around, a bit more relaxed in our expectations for what school “should” look like, and hope that one year’s worth of physical development would be enough to bridge the gap from our failures of last year.

As of right now, we have only two days of the home-school year behind us, but I’m beginning to feel hopeful.  With our new schedule board in place, I had a plan, but simultaneously, low expectations.  Somehow, the day went absolutely splendidly, and perhaps it’s the sheer surprise of having a successful school day, but right now, I’d place it in my top 10 favorite days of motherhood, The First Day of the First Grade.

Here are some things that I spontaneously tried out that seemed to make a huge difference in how our day went.  Some may seem obvious, but the obvious sometimes escapes us stay-at-home moms when we’re living minute to minute in the chaos of our living rooms.  Though I know I’ll have to stay on my toes to keep things interesting and light-hearted, I’ll probably be leaning heavily on these practical tips throughout the year.

1)  Once breakfast was over, I had Taytem dust the living room (she relishes chores, lucky me!) while I spent some focused, one-on-one time with Eisley.  Playing with my youngest first thing satiated her intense need for mama.  Previously, I had tried to get started on school and gave Eisley toys to keep her occupied, and I played with her in spurts when Taytem wasn’t directly needing me.  Meeting Eisley’s needs first was pleasant for me, as well as making the rest of school time go by with less distraction from a frustrated, neglected toddler.

2)  Instead of school first thing, we headed outside.  Conventional school routines are “school first, play later,” but I recalled how much pent-up energy Taytem had during our morning school times that I chose a different route.  As soon as Taytem finished dusting, I took the girls outside for a walk/bike ride around the block.  It turned into a nature scavenger hunt, and by the time we got home, both girls were worn out to just the right degree to actually want to sit down for a bit.  Nature has an amazing calming effect on children, and not only was Taytem much more focused for school, but even Eisley just plopped down in a corner to read board books during our entire math lesson.

3)  I had planned “activities” for Eisley while I did school with Taytem.  Well, if you count an alphabet DVD as an activity.  But I also had a designated time for her to color, then put that away and got out play-dough.  Switching up the available activities kept her satisfied, even if she didn’t want to do that particular activity, it was as if it was enough that I’d offered something and she was okay with going off to find her own thing.  I periodically sat and paid attention to her throughout the school time, but mostly she was pretty content since she didn’t have to fend for herself on entertainment.

4)  I changed up the venue with every subject change.  Math was done at Taytem’s desk.  English was done sitting side-by-side on the daybed.  We read our history lesson on the front porch rocker.  Science was in the back yard.  Spanish was conducted during lunchtime as I taught her the Spanish words for the foods we were eating.  Changing up the venue every time was hugely preventative to Taytem getting twitchy.

5)  Of course we took snack breaks and had recess, but also between subjects and venue changes, we took a break every time, just to shake out the wiggles.  We sang a wiggle song (which Eisley happily joined in on), or I’d just let Taytem run around the house a few times.  I didn’t let her get into any toys though – I wanted her to know that it was still school time, but just getting up to stretch and shake things out was great.

6)  I kept the lesson MUCH shorter than I had the previous year.  For some reason, I felt compelled last year to stretch Taytem’s capacity every time.  Yeah, I’m not sure what I was thinking either.  But now, even though we still had a few minutes left over after our English lesson, and she still felt like continuing, I stopped when one page was completed or one chapter was read instead of trying to cram in as much learning as possible.

7)  One particular subject that Taytem had trouble staying focused on was history.  It was just too much sitting and being read to.  Instead, we alternated reading.  I’d read a paragraph or two, then she’d read a paragraph.  Reading all on her own would have been too exhausting, but she would have been bored if she had to sit and listen to me the whole time.  It was the perfect balance.

 I literally reminded myself to smile a lot more often than I felt like smiling and I upped the tone of my voice to sound a bit perkier than I’m known for.  It made me feel a bit more cheerful (being a melancholy myself), plus, Taytem enjoyed a more enthusiastic teacher. (Ha!  I just viewed my post, and instead of an “8″ and parentheses, WordPress put in a smiley face.  How appropriate!).

9)  We’re not going to do school every day.  I mean, she’s five!  Three days a week will be plenty for a couple of years, I think.  Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays will be school days, and Tuesdays and Thursdays she and Eisley will both go to a Mother’s Day Out program.  And once she’s old enough, we may look into a local private program where she’ll attend classes Tuesdays and Thursdays at a Classical academy (since we’re big fans of the Classical method), and I’ll continue schooling her the other three days.

Like I said, our days have gone beautifully – and that’s taking into account the fact that Taytem had completely woken up on the wrong side of bed on Monday and was a total crank that did NOT want to do school that day!  I thank God, because I honestly believe He was giving me these tips throughout the day, because I had not planned a single one of them.  I was approaching the school year with a lot of hopelessness and cynicism, and had no idea what we were going to do that day.  But Lukus and I had prayed about it, and I just knew I had to dive in.  I know there will still be bad days, but I’m confident that at least there’s a strategy in play that will make for mostly good days ahead.

Any of you home-schoolers have some other tips on home-schooling with toddlers around?  Have you had to completely make-over your entire approach to home-schooling?  Good luck to all of you starting the school year at home!