Easing into Homeschooling

It is a 90 degree day, and the children in our district went back to school today. I remember wanting to wear new clothes on my first day of high school (1983), so I dressed in a fall outfit comprised of a wool argyle sweater and corduroy pants, with penny loafers, of course! I was sweltering hot all day. Very uncomfortable. I think kids in the present era might be allowed to wear shorts to school. I hope they did today!

I was going to wait until after Labor Day to start our homeschooling, but since the streets were quiet and devoid of the neighborhood children Beezy usually plays with, it made sense to go ahead and ease back into our lessons. And this way we can be finished by early May. After my whole foray into researching unschooling and practicing natural learning over the summer, am I going to do anything different this year? Yes and no.

I kept a notebook all summer of our activities, and certainly there was much learning that happened naturally by simply living life and doing the things we enjoy doing. Beezy attended three vacation bible schools, went to the pool often, and played with many friends, including having lots of sleepovers. We had two family reunions and visited my husband's dad in upstate New York. We watched movies and played video games. Beezy participated in parks and recreation activities such as gardening, cooking, crafts, and a week of a special program at our library. She continued with the dog obedience classes begun in the spring and is still working on her 4-H program book for her dog project. Beezy and her dad played a lot of board games together, and math skills were reinforced this way.

While she did read some books over the summer, I didn't think that enough reading progress was happening through "unschooling". We go to Mass every week, but I feel that more is required to really learn about our Catholic faith. Weekly religious education classes at our church will begin next week. As Catholic homeschoolers, religion must be the center and foundation of our studies and our life. Also, math is one of Beezy's strengths, so that subject needs more formal attention to maximize her skills. I will continue to keep a record of all of our activities in my small, leather bound book.

What we did today was very simple. I have all of the books we will be using for the year already collected, except for whatever we may check out from the library. This way I can relax, knowing that we don't have to get every resource out and start using it now. We have the whole year ahead to explore...

Formal lessons will be worked into the day, not as a set schedule, but in the context of a natural and relaxed rhythm. With my recent exploration of the French way of life, la joie de vivre, it seems most logical to structure our days around meals! This probably seems obvious to some, but my family had habitually become grazers. I would often have only coffee for breakfast, and then a very small lunch, snack throughout the day, and then make a nice dinner, later snacking some more. But even sitting down together for at least one meal a day was not consistently happening. Now we are eating a real breakfast, a substantial lunch, and a lovely dinner. I am not snacking, but dessert is allowed, and usually I have one or two squares of Ghiradelli chocolate a day. I am paying more attention to eating slowly and really tasting and savoring what I put into my mouth.

We did a little homeschooling after breakfast. While I prepared lunch, Beezy played "girl games" on the laptop, which I am assisting her in learning to use. She also played outside. After lunch we did more lessons, then walked the dog together as a family. Beezy and I ran an errand, and then we played together with Monster High dolls. After that her dad read to her.

We began and ended our homeschooling with prayers from the Catholic Treasury of Prayers. I read the 20th chapter of John to her, and we prayed the first Sorrowful Mystery of the Rosary, the Resurrection, using a book of Our Lady's Rosary Novenas. Beezy worked on her dog project book, which uses writing skills, and read the first story in the Ginn classic reader, We Are Neighbors. I began reading the historical novel, St. Elizabeth's Three Crowns, to her, which I will sometimes have her narrate. That was it for today, just a gentle beginning to get back into the swing of things. Oh, and the soccer season began last evening, which covers physical education!

The difference in approach this year is mostly one of attitude rather than methodology. The focus is particularly Catholic, and I am not going to allow myself to feel pressured to achieve specific academic goals. There are no check lists or a scope and sequence curriculum to follow. We will live and learn at our own pace, with no separation between "school" and "home". Learning happens through the rituals of family life, and my goal is to make that life one of beauty, elegance, and refinement, celebrating tradition and experiencing joy in the smallest details. God alone, with a little help from the French and the Blessed Mother, is my guide.

What Is Natural?

Today many people, disillusioned with the American Dream and the frenetic pace of modern life, are making intentional efforts to live more simply and naturally. Some of these people are homeschoolers. So many people are unhappy, going through the motions of what "normal" people are supposed to do, how they were conditioned to think they should live and what they were told they should want from life. If they finally reach a particular goal, or find the right career or the right mate, they will be happy. And then they still aren't. So they set their sights on acquiring the next possession, pair of shoes, degree, or wife that will be the right fit, the missing piece. And they get it, and their life is still devoid of meaning. The restlessness never goes away.

Maybe my own restlessness led me to study unschooling. Maybe I was thinking that there should be more, somehow, to our days. Sometimes Beezy would ask to do school, impatient to get started. Sometimes she wanted to do more than I had planned. But sometimes she wanted to do something different, something that didn't seem to me to be as high a priority; so I would say we had to focus so we could get school over with (now that's telling, isn't it?), and then she could do what she wanted. I came to feel that our lives revolved around our school time, even though it was a comparatively short time during the day.

Then last Valentine's Day, I let making valentines and baking shortcake be the priority. We had so much fun, and that day is still a shiny one in my mind. Why couldn't every day be so joyful? Of course, not every day is a holiday. Or is it? Holiday. The combining of two original words: "holy" and "day". Holy Day. 

Yesterday Beezy had a "true or false" quiz in her 4-H project book. She caught on to the idea, but I could tell that while she knew the information, the phrasing of the statements was confusing. It didn't immediately occur to me that she had never taken a test, so this was a new experience. Then I had a distant recollection of feeling confused myself as a child taking such tests. Remember multiple choice questions? You might have known the answer if you hadn't been confused by sorting through all the choices. I don't think tests really show what a child knows, how well she knows it, or how well she thinks through a question. In college, I always preferred essay tests. I could usually be sure of having something to write. I could show what I knew, rather than be exposed for what I didn't know. A true or false test shows relatively nothing about what Beezy knows about dogs.

I really hope that homeschool curriculum tests aren't like this. If they are, I can understand why unschoolers are reviled by school-at-home methods. That being said, there are 100 ways to skin a cat, right? (Isn't that the weirdest saying?) Homeschooling, no matter the method or curriculum used (or not used), is a lifestyle. It gives families greater freedom to be who they naturally are, to become the people God created them to be. If we don't get bogged down by arbitrary requirements and someone else's schedule, or even by our own. What if every day could be a holy day?

Polish.

Today I gave myself a pedicure on my balcony sanctuary. Simply having a balcony sanctuary, especially on a lovely, mild, sunny June day, should be good enough to make anyone happy. But I was in a funk today. The week started out with a bit of a traumatic experience. We were at the Renaissance Faire on Father's Day, and "Great Aunt Flo" decided to visit. Luckily I was wearing dark-colored shorts. Such a thing has not happened to me since the 7th grade! As usual, my period wiped my energy out this week, and I didn't feel like doing much. One good piece of advice I learned in Al-Anon was, "Do the next right thing."

Yesterday I did the wrong things. I drank too much coffee, ate too much sugar, and was up not feeling so well in my stomach in the middle of the night. So I began today with an oatmeal breakfast and ginger tea with honey. I would care for myself better, I vowed! I threw in a load of laundry and hand washed a belly dance top I will need tomorrow. I polished my toenails, finally having enough regrowth on the big toe where I had the nail surgically removed. I knew that feeling prettier and not wanting to hide my feet would cheer me up. I also colored my hair to cover the grays. I still really, really didn't wish to practice dancing, but I made myself while my family went to the library. I do feel better. I also helped Beezy with her 4-H dog program book, which I really had no desire to do either.

I had a choice. I could continue to feel overwhelmed and unmotivated, or I could push through the blue fog and carry on. I could take some time to read something edifying, write in my journal, eat healthy, do a little housework, talk to my husband, water my flowers, and bring some joy, even if I had to drag it by the ear, into my day. The sun is still shining as it is going down, and I have the peace of knowing that the day was not wasted. My daughter will read to me tonight, and I'll read to her, and we will say our prayers and go to sleep. Simply abundant. Life.