Our Homeschool Year...So Far

Fires. Covid. Shutdowns. Violence. Protests. Elections. Murder hornets. Black Plague squirrels.

2020 was nuts, and 2021 is looking like it might also be considering a bid for craziest year in recent history.

I was going to say widespread alien abductions were next, but I am pretty sure that other life forms are staying the heck away from Earth right now.

Did all of these reasons influence our decision to return to homeschooling this year? Sure, I would be lying if I said they didn’t contribute.

But fear does not a good decision make.

So, why is our boisterous family choosing to return to homeschooling?

Well, one big reason is that we actually like it. We like getting to set the pace, to take a day off to spend in the sunshine instead of the days off being for cruddy weather. We like making sure that our kids are exposed to all varieties of cultures and walks of life, in a much more inclusive way than some of our local schools are willing to do.

We also actually like each other, and getting to spend the extra time together isn’t a burden for us. Although we have certainly missed our community this year while we practiced pretty strict social distancing.

Finances also played a big decision in our decision. With our third kiddo reaching full time school age this year, tuition at a private school was going to be awfully tight.

Oh, and also, #2020.

So, what have we been doing, exactly?

Here at our messy--I mean, lovely homeschool in 2020-2021, we have chosen to embrace several homeschool philosophies that really all fall under one big umbrella homeschool philosophy: Flexibility.

Well, more like Flexibility and Books.

My husband and I were both early and avid readers as children, and still are today. Our kiddos seem to have all received pretty healthy doses of that particular gene, which actually makes learning super easy and fun.

Our oldest began reading just after his third birthday, which is in November. We were in the car and he read a street sign out loud to me.

...I immediately went home and removed his Christmas gift checklist from the fridge.

He was reading Little House on the Prairie on his own at four and a half, true story. There is no magic formula for this, I did nothing beyond the usual working on the alphabet and encouraging him along the way. He is in the fourth grade now, and he absolutely knows more about most things than I do.

Our middle now can breeze through chapter books as well, and is learning to pick up the non-fiction sometimes, too, just to catch up to his big bro.

Our youngest is just about to start reading fluently. He can read many sight words, and can write phonetic (if incorrect) sentences. One day, it will click and he will just be able to read.

All this reading has made this school year go much more smoothly.

My husband and I are very much of the mindset that the kids need to learn how to learn. Basically, we give the kids the questions they need to find the answers to, the resources to be able to learn the answers, and say, "GO!" Frequently, the kiddos come up with questions of their own and just keep on going.

We do a bit of child-led learning.

If something has caught their eye, then we let them go for it. If one of them can acceptably answer some key questions on a topic he hates and he would rather go learn about this other historical figure instead, awesome.

We do a bit of unschooling.

With homeschooling comes more free time. There is a lot of exploring to be done!

A key component to unschooling is a term referred to as strewing, as in the parent has subtly strewn about the home things for the kids to discover and learn from. An example might be our decks of Black History Flashcards from Urban Intellectuals, which I just casually left lying out in the dining room for them to find. I have also gotten books about different perspectives on American history or influential LGBTQ+ leaders and “accidentally” dropped them in the kiddo’s spots on the couch. My husband and I refer to this type of selective strewing as "subterfuge." :)

We follow some common core curriculum maps.

I don't follow lesson by lesson what our schools do, but I do build our year around the essential questions in each subject they should be able to answer.

We utilize some structured resources.

We really like and recommend paying for IXL, an adaptive practice site for all the main subject lessons grade by grade.

We are also using Khan Academy math this year (free) for some structure in our math lessons, and I bought some Beast Academy books for fun.

(We love books!)

"Living books" are a very Charlotte Mason and Montessori approach, which we have completely embraced. Someday soon I will count how many books we have, a number I am sure to be equal parts proud and embarrassed of! It's nearing the gajillions. We are also typically library regulars, but with the pandemic I have been grateful for our own extensive home library.

Who knows what next year will hold.

But when it comes down to it, being able to have the flexibility to ride out the storm that was this school year was invaluable for our family.

...Oh, and also probably our Goodreads goals.