Here we are with the first transcript of our August “Homeschool Chat”, a week long conversation that attempts to answer and discuss a wide range of questions submitted by parents. I give my thoughts and ask other homeschooling parents to contribute their feedback as well. It will likely take several posts for me to transfer information from social media stories to blog post form. So stay tuned for additional transcripts covering more of this topic, as well as: keeping it engaging, our current curriculum choices, and eight(!) different homeschool methods.
The notes below discuss homeschooling through difficult seasons, balancing homeschool with daily life, and easing into a school year:
I start every Q+A by saying I am not here to
convince anyone to homeschool. I’m not
trying to win you over. I say this in love:
I don’t care if you homeschool your kids.
They’re your kids. Educate them how you
see fit. It would be antithetical to the
concept of homeschooling if I thought we
should all teach our kids the same way.
So I don’t do these homeschool chats to
fight for the cause. I do them to help people
who are considering homeschooling or just
starting out or who simply need some help.
If you follow along just out of pure curiosity
with zero intention of every homeschooling;
that is totally fine with me. It’s okay to
simply be curious or learn about something
for the sake of learning it. It doesn’t have to
become your passion, pursuit, or identity.
Again it would be antithetical to
homeschooling to say otherwise.
The first question we are answering is:
“How do you keep going in the ups and downs (Ex: pregnancy and newborn phase)?”
My reply:
I had challenging pregnancies with various health conditions, lots of appointments, and a lot of time spent in bed or hugging a toilet.
So I made homeschooling as easy on myself as I possibly could. The first time around I relied on a Montessori subscription that came with the materials I needed so I wouldn’t need to piece anything together myself or run to the store for supplies. I paired it with a few very basic workbooks to get in some letter writing practice and other general kindergarten skills that I felt he was ready to begin. They were not fancy or particularly creative. They just got the job done. The Montessori stuff was the hands on portion of school. We didn’t do any elaborate activities or go on many field trips. We weren’t doing involved unit studies or beautifully laid out poetry tea time. I just did the best I could. He also had plenty of time
to simply play. I read to him as much as I could.
And you know what? He loved it. He was happy to be with me. We got to soak up every minute of time together before his brother arrived. And hey, he learned to read too.
When I was pregnant with my third child, I basically applied the same strategy: Open and go curriculum. No complicated projects.
When I was too sick to even manage supervising the book work, we would take the day off and add it to another day of the week.
Sometimes that meant that our school week looked like: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday… But guess what? That’s okay.
For the newborn phase, we were completely off from school. I intentionally planned a three month break (essentially a summer break) for my “4th trimester”. This means we still had a 9 month school year. We completed our curriculum.
And we were all able to just focus on adjusting to our new life, enjoying time with a new baby, getting as much rest as possible, etc. Personally, I would not recommend that anyone try to homeschool when they have a newborn. Just take the time off. A few months off is really no different than what a standard school calendar allows from June-August anyway. Why add stress in such a season?
And here is another angle to consider in this discussion: When I was too sick to walk across the room… completely depleted and struggling… I was SO GLAD that I didn’t have to get a kid out the door in the morning. I didn’t have to sit in a drop off line for ages barfing into a bucket. I didn’t need to race from a doctors appointment to pick him up on time. I didn’t need to remember permission slips or lunch money or make it to a teacher/
parent meeting. I got to set a slow reasonable pace for us. We could stay home whenever we needed to. I could teach him from bed. I didn’t have to follow anyone else’s schedule. I honestly don’t know how I would have physically handled it if we hadn’t been
homeschooling. I know that may be hard for someone with smooth pregnancies to fully understand; but truly, in my situation, I don’t know what I would have done. Sometimes I think people unintentionally slip into the assumption that homeschooling would make everything harder than “just enrolling them in school”. But is it? Is sending them to school always easier?
Because it’s not just enrolling them is it?
School attendance comes with all kinds of work that homeschooling doesn’t require.
I also think it was an enormous blessing that we didn’t need to deal with any adjustments to a new school/teacher/classroom when they were also experiencing such a season of change at home. And remember you don’t have to follow a traditional school year. You could have a baby in October and take off school until January! What a gift!
Answers from other parents:
“Sickness and injury will enter at some point and you just need to take the break fully without guilt. Heal and then move back to it when you’re ready. Even if this means Saturdays or into summer/winter break. Organize your year without set dates for breaks. Flexibility of mindset and physical days is necessary.”
“Break it down to what is doable on a daily basis.”
“Be flexible! We do year round homeschooling so it gives us a ton of wiggle room. We have taken months at a time off from homeschooling during difficult pregnancies, sickness, c section recoveries, and the early baby months. We’ve chosen to test our kids at the end of a regular academic year and each time they have tested well beyond their grade level. We don’t force school and just incorporate into the natural ebb and flow of life while prioritizing relationship first. You’d be surprised how much you get done when you just take it one day at a time.”
“Enjoy the moment. Focus on reading stories and bonding. Also keep baskets or bags of coloring or non messy activities for little ones for when the weather is bad.”
Emmy Goulet 