Oh, Dearest Mother, Sweetest Virgin of Altagracia, our Patroness. You are our Advocate and to you we recommend our needs. You are our Teacher and like disciples we come to learn from the example of your holy life. You are our Mother, and like children, we come to offer you all of the love of our hearts. Receive, dearest Mother, our offerings and listen attentively to our supplications. Amen.



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ShawnaB
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Posted: Jan 27 2007 at 8:51pm | IP Logged Quote ShawnaB

I am curious how the homeschooling journey has changed for others over the years. I have personally seen a lot of change is the hows, and even the whys, of my homeschooling over the relative short period of 6 years since I first bacame a mother. Our family has grown quickly, and it seems that I am always changing the way I do things. Its easy for me to view these changes as a form of failure...like I just can't make things work the way I want them to. On the other hand, I know it is important to stay flexible and alway be re-evaluating what is working, especially with young children who's needs are quicking changing.

I think the first major change for me came 3 years ago, when ds was 3, and I discovered the Clarkson's book "Educating the Wholehearted Child." It was then that I really began to grasp that homeschooling was very different than "school at home." This was a shift, as I was trained as a PS teacher.

Then, a year or so later, I read Elizabeth's book which revolutionized the way I handle curriculum. I now have a literature driven approach, rather than an activity driven approach. That was freeing!

And now, with the addition of 2 new babies this past year and a half, who are cruising through all their stages and I find myself no longer with the luxury of quiet instruction time that I once enjoyed, I have needed to adjust my homeschool plan every few months it seems!

So I am curious...is this fairly typical? Have some of you discovered what works and then stuck with it? Or have you also needed to change and adapt with the years? Or have you done both??


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Posted: Jan 27 2007 at 9:36pm | IP Logged Quote Bridget

I have changed the way we do schooling maybe every six months. What you can do with morning sickness is much less than what you can do when the second trimester energy kicks in. The time you can spend really working with kids alters when your immobile baby becomes a crawler. We all know how fast that can happen. I can only imagine the challenge with multiples!



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Posted: Jan 27 2007 at 9:58pm | IP Logged Quote JuliaT

We have been homeschooling for 3 years. Every year, I have changed how we do school. I started out with The Well-Trained Mind. I knew that I wanted my children to have a classical education. But I found TWTM to be too rigid and suffocating to my teaching style. So we evolved into latin--centered classical education. I loved it, but it wasn't working for my dd. There wasn't enough time spent in the arts and this is where my dd's interests lie. So this past year we evolved into a mish mosh of CE and CM. We use mostly Ambleside Online. I should have known this wasn't going to work because I don't do well with schedules plus my dd has problems with just doing reading and narrating.

This now brings us to the present. I have just read Real Learning. I think putting a Real Learning spin on the AO reading selections might work for us. I have been dong alot of reading and I think my dd may be a Visual Spatial Learner. This explains why AO and LCE didn't work for her. So we are changing things again.

In a way this is frustrating. I would love to find a style that fits us and just keep motoring to that style. On the other hand, I am learning so much from all of the dabbling that we are doing in the various methods. I have heard it said that it takes about 2 to 3 years to find your groove when homeschooling. If that is true, we better hurry up because our time is running out. :)

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Posted: Jan 27 2007 at 10:13pm | IP Logged Quote lapazfarm

We change all the time! Why? Keeping it fresh is what it's all about here!And I don't look at those changes as failures at all, but growth!
That being said, our changes are not all that radical. Not like going from Seton to unschooling or anything like that. Just more like adjustments in our focus from season to season. Right now we are big into projects, while awhile ago we did a LOT of notebooking. Art comes and goes with the mood. Read-alouds happen more often at some times than others. We do all of these things all along, but just the emphasis changes.
Change is good!It keeps you young!LOL!

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Posted: Jan 27 2007 at 10:14pm | IP Logged Quote Erin

ShawnaB wrote:
So I am curious...is this fairly typical? Have some of you discovered what works and then stuck with it? Or have you also needed to change and adapt with the years? Or have you done both??


Good questions Shawna,

When my dc were little I read lots of Raymond Moore and John Holt which influenced me alot and I guess in many ways still do. I have seen first hand with my oldest that unschooling does work. However as time went and I had more dc I realised that for our family we did need more structure and in fact needed to insist on some areas being done that otherwise wouldn't get done.

That was when I read about Charlotte Mason which I took and adapted to suit us. We also adapted some of Valerie Bendt's unit study ideas. So in the ways of curriculumn we have tended to stay pretty consistent in our philosophy and approaches. What would change and does fairly regularly according to pregnancies and growing needs/ages of children is the actual applications and focuses.

This year is the 'Year of the Written Word' I have a new kindergartener and my dd is in grade eight, so we really need to focus on this area as last year was the Year of .....ah, pregnacy, new baby and the big move.

See the focus is seasonal this year for you I would hazard it is the 'Year of the Twins'

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Posted: Jan 27 2007 at 10:53pm | IP Logged Quote Cheryl

ShawnaB wrote:
Have some of you discovered what works and then stuck with it? Or have you also needed to change and adapt with the years? Or have you done both??


I've been wondering this same thing. I've been kind of hoping that I'll find what works for my family and stick with it. I'm in the middle of my 3rd year homeschooling. I was attracted to Charlotte Mason right away and I think I read Real Learning early on. I started out trying that. I had trouble especially with nature study and narration, but looking back, kindergarten was fairly easy. I discovered FIAR and did that for awhile. I started doing other unit studies and tried a couple of lapbooks.

My second year started with FIAR and some CM, then turned into unschooling? as we had a baby, built a house and moved. This year I bought some CHC and have followed that. I started back with unit studies at the start of 2007.

I was just rereading the history and science section of Real Learning tonight. I was thinking ahead to next year (and beyond) and wondering how it will work out with all the different ages.

For example: We studied the human body when ds 8 was 6. Ds 6 and dd 4.5 probably don't remember it. Will I go back to it next year or in 2 years? or in 4 years? How will I choose what topics we cover and when? Also, if I were to follow the Real Learning booklist for an elementary student and two primary students at the same time, wouldn't that get confusing?

Sorry....I'm going off on a tangent here. I'm looking forward to hearing what others have to say.   

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Posted: Jan 28 2007 at 6:35am | IP Logged Quote Paula in MN

This is only our 2nd year, but we have changed our materials 4 times, I think. Some of it has worked for me, and some of it has worked for them. I think now we have it working for us!

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Posted: Jan 28 2007 at 6:29pm | IP Logged Quote ALmom

I'm into my at least 13th year of formal homeschooling, and yes, we change what we do in some significant way at least yearly and many times every 6 mo or so. Some of these changes have been good - necessary and healthy and some of them have been knee jerks made in a desperate moment. We've all learned something from even the worst knee-jerk change so I guess you survive it all.

I started homeschooling with the John Holt and the Moore books and we pretty much followed that idea for the first many years. (I was less laid back with religion as my religious formation was so poor and I was learning and sharing what I learned - but more me driven than child driven at the time). There were very, very few Catholic resources - and most of these were out of print or headed that way so I tended to scarf up whatever Catholic material there was.

Then something just pulled at my heart - God's grace/mothers intuition and I knew something wasn't right. We had a child with some learning challenges and a totally laid back approach wasn't going to cut it. We did more Montissorrish stuff and continued reading out loud. In those years we tried just about everything while looking for answers. We ditched what did not work very quickly. Our oldest got a bit lost in the process and it took us a while to realize that part of the reason she didn't seem to take much initiative (and we had some years where I felt like she just was not headed anywhere so we kept trying something a bit different and she also begged for structure which is why we became more schoolish with her) was that she too had some vision issues that needed correcting which we discovered when she was in her teenage years and dealing with some of the ups and downs emotionally.

In the interim of trying to figure out how to work with all these things (and there wasn't a whole lot available then, either), we kept trying something new, searching for answers, etc. I had 4 years difference in age between the 1st and second child and the second child had a lot of struggles so it didn't really work to combine them in very many things - but read alouds we did in abundance. It was during these years that I began to really doubt if we really knew what we were about - our oldest wasn't showing interest in reading much of anything still (except pic. books) and our next wouldn't even pay attention to anything for more than 5 minutes (a very good day indeed). We tried every curriculum, suggestion, philosophy out there (at least at the time), I think.

We discovered the 2nds difficulties and how to correct them - and by then had 5 or 6 children (with 5 having many of the same problems) so vision therapy became much more important than any particular educational plan. We focused on therapy for a number of years, just hoping to somehow make sure we met the letter of the law for education. It was very scarey - but we made it with workbooks, textbooks, lesson plans for those who were past therapy and continued our reading aloud for everyone (the one constant in all our years of schooling) and continued with the Holt/Moore ideas for all who were under 7 (the age at which I must report in our state - still keeping it very, very light when I had to have some sort of attendance/proof of attendance). It also took some very creative dancing to make something "count" for the in therapy school age children for whom we were required to report to the state. We made the decision with these, that we were not playing tug of war with our children's eyes and didn't see much point in making a lot of visual demands until the problem was resolved - so we were really, really stretching things to come up with 3 subjects ( we never would have made the 3 hours requirement) Somewhere in the process, I picked up the book "For the Children's Sake" and it resonated with me. Somewhere in there we attempted unit studies - the "ABCs of Christian Culture" had just come out, along with a unit study on Ancient Egypt. We tried these with limited success at the time. We learned a whole lot about the eye-brain connection and the way the eye works, however. My oldest began asking for more and more structure - so we experimented with canned curriculums for the first time. We had a couple of really tough years until we found the balance of structure and flexibility that worked for her. Presuming that this might also help the others, we added in more structure for everyone. At the same time, I was feeling exhausted and wanted some bare minimum for children - CHC came out with some of their programs - but all my school age children were too old for the materials - eventually we used them with our youngest and then, as they developed materials for older children, we began using some of it and still do with some of mine. With some of ours we found ourselves ditching the textbooks more and more and to be quite honest, I really didn't concern myself with much beyond reading, writing, arithmatic and religion with my elementary aged children. One basically taught himself everything he knows - don't even know when he learned to read.

Now we are almost finished with therapy for everyone and for the vast majority the eyes are functioning properly, so we are coming full circle back to our initial vision of what homeschooling was "going to look like in our house" but modified by what we have learned in all our trial and error. While I still agree with Moore, I now know that certain problems are very real and no amount of waiting is going to resolve them - and correcting these are easier (much easier) when caught early. I know what to look for now for at least the vision problems. I also know that anything can work well with different children in different circumstances. I know that it is important to switch promptly when something is dragging a child down - but that sometimes a child can simply have a confidence issue that is further aggravated by switching (ie I cannot do anything) so I am more cautious about discerning in prayer and hopefully will remember to never do anything in a state of panic. I also know that we can recover from any number of mistakes - so this helps keep the panic at bay some. I also know that I have to reign in my own perfectionist tendencies. In the early years, everything available in science that I came across stunk - so we did nothing. I have learned to accept that something is better than nothing and doing something while looking for something better is better than stagnating in avoiding a subject that isn't inspiring anyone. I am no longer afraid of less than perfect textbooks as a temporary and interim tool.

Why did we change:

child was floundering, frustrated or asking for structure. Sometimes they would tell me, sometimes I would simply notice something was not really working.

discovery of particular things our children seemed unable to do at first - even our 2nd grader had difficulty cutting with scissors and was still not using a fork(no matter how often we practiced) until the eyes were corrected. We didn't do a lot of crafting, though children would dictate stories to me. They would not draw, cut or otherwise - we did some great play doh creations of the insides of critters - wish I'd thought to photograph them and would now that we have digital cameras!

the number of children and the limits (as well as the wonderful blessings that came with this). When there were only a few children, it wasn't hard to let children dictate stories. We even made very elaborate, sewn books from these dictations that are personal treasures. However when I had 6 and none of them would write or even draw a picture on their own, I simply did not have enough of me to take personal dictations from every child, every day. We had to come up with some other way to have a tangible record of our learning. (Now, most people with 6 will have children old enough to help and some who obviously write their own stories or at least draw some pictures and mom will not be doing hours and hours of therapy per day with children - but that was my reality, so obviously we had to make adjustments). We did have children working with helping each other. The 2nd child has an empathy for her brother who has had the biggest struggle with vision (we have done therapy with him twice and know there is something else going on). She can help him in ways that do not challenge his confidence and there is a bond between them that nothing I did or could do would have created - but it is there. We certainly see the great benefit to both children in this and use it.

realization of my own limitations and stresses - I needed to be a good wife to my husband and a mom to my children (toddlers included) and not just teacher, a support and guide to my teen, while still doing what was necessary to make sure the basics took place and our environment was full of richness. At the same time I had to be the therapist for most of my children. Whatever did not stifle a child and provided the easiest means to this end became what we did for some of those years. Because of my personality and my children's request, we looked a bit more schoolish for a while. In our circumstances that served a purpose. However, we ditched whatever did not work and substituted freely and stayed in close communication with all of the children so they too had input into what they did and how. During those years, I would not have had trouble with a child running with any kind of schooling - some of mine just did - others needed some framework (so schooling in my house became very different for each child). I would notice imbalances and specify work in an area of neglect (so the science fan never had any assigned science, but he was required to do some sort of minimal reading (I counted science books as reading but also wanted him to branch into other areas -so he might read a biography of a scientist, etc. and writing practice. For those who would not touch or read any science, I found the best textbook I could with the idea that they would at least become familiar with the vocabulary (and elicited dinner conversations from the only 2 people in our house who know anything about science - dh and science fan) and anything was better than absolutely nothing.   We tried to do crafts all together (and generally tried to make these around the church calendar or as part of therapy but I did not kick myself if this didn't happen a lot. Nor did I force it if children resisted.

Changing circumstances in the family - new baby, toddler, health problems, overriding needs of particular children for my time and attention, learning difficulties - Now we are coming full circle again - two of my children who had vision problems that are now corrected show a lot of initiative and tend to learn easily on their own. My oldest who wanted a real set structure is in college. We are now back to asking and looking at ways to be less schoolish (I have ordered Elizabeth's homeschooling book and been perusing MacBeth's sight so that we have ideas on how to go there without my disorganizational tendencies. We have only discovered this site in the last few years as it never occured to me to use the internet for schooling, we did it so long without a computer and computers are notorious for creating eye strain). One child is still struggling with some things, so I am ditching textbooks for him ASAP - except in Math and looking into neuronet as a possibility for helping him overcome his difficulties. I do remember 2 years of virtually no academic demands on my 2nd dd as she tried to overcome her difficulties and we are very likely to go here with this child. For my younger ones, I've been perusing the Montissori sights again (and thrilled at what seems to be available on-line for free - it was too expensive to get very many things back when I did stuff so I requested a catelogue and imitated materials as much as possible). I probably won't change what seems to be doing OK until after I have read and researched a bit and we'll ease gently into any of these kind of changes - but for the things that are a total disaster anyways, we're trying something else now and will adjust until we find something that will work. My older children are happy and content, we have successfully come out of the teens with one and our next teen is so far finding smooth sailing - so I have a lot more emotional reserve. My toddler is becoming a pre-schooler and all those projects don't seem quite so overwhelming. I've been looking back at some of the stuff that I did with my oldest and thinking it is not impossible to do this again with the children at home - plus I have a high schooler that loves this kind of stuff and really wants to help do this kind of thing with her siblings. I need to make sure her academics leave her time for this as I see this as just as important - so we are juggling and re-evaluating.

My own lack of knowledge. I cannot just go on a nature walk and talk to my children because I do not know the parts of a flower, or the names of the trees and the reference books frustrate me. I need something that talks down to my level for me - so in these subjects, when the chips are down and time is pressing, we do rely on some textbooks - even if it is so there is something at my level that I can read quickly for info. In areas of greater confidence, history, for instance, we always seem more free wheeling unless a child specifically requests a textbook (yes, my oldest did this and I hated the the venture and would accomodate in a slightly different manner if any of my others make the same request. I also don't think this child would request a textbook again. ).

availability of resources and limits of finances (at the beginning we didn't have a computer - but then again there probably wasn't anything on-line anyways as personal computers were not very common and were very expensive. Digital cameras were not even known - nor were music downloads, etc. Seton was the only homeschool provider we knew of when we started. I know we had been homeschooling a number of years when our administrator spoke with the founders of Our Father's House and MODG as they were just starting out. At first, once they became available, we went wild with catelogue providers (the first Catholics we knew of trying to provide resources to Catholics). Then when we hit the expenses of therapy, and trying to get diagnosis, then we had to strictly control what we spent and just made what was already around work or made it ourselves. Other years we had significant funds to spend - but a new problem. There was so much out there and we had no way at looking at it before purchase (seemed so overwhelming after years of no choices anyways), so we bought some stuff we never used and some stuff that we used but it hardly justified the expense and other stuff that was well worth every dime. We also went from having a local public library that was well stocked with classics to a library that was ditching these and replacing it with twaddle combined with the difficulty of loading all the kiddies in the car to go to the library and then keeping up with them in all the different sections of the library. Initially, I had relied on the library for my classics - buying occassional ones that my dc read and re-read upteen times. Now my purchases are mostly these very kind of books as they are no longer easy to get at the library - classics, etc. so that I have them conveniently available. Surprisingly we found a lot of our best buys in terms of Catholic books at Friends of the Library - don't know how Al libraries ended up with books that Northern Catholic schools were ditching - but we scarfed them up at 25C. We have gone to museums, wildlife refuges, etc. and taken advantage of whatever educational programs they have. We have also discovered free orchestra concerts (and the wonderful thing called ushering to get into the more expensive ones, at least for older children). I don't have access to a Tridentine Mass or Byzantine. We don't have a fantastic Suzuki program here - and these teachers won't take children until almost the same age as traditional teachers anyways. Plus we ran into difficulty with expense - there aren't any locally competing suppliers of instruments - most violins here are either bought in Asia by Asians going home for a visit or brought in with significant mark-up from Atlanta. Most used ones are basically altered for fiddling. When we checked into harp, we found that these are purchased from Chicago and unavailable in our area (harp is simply not within our means for a long time to come so the child is taking piano for now). Obviously, what we are able to do for ours in terms of music instruction is a whole lot different than what someone in bigger cities have available. We don't sweat if we must forgo lessons for a few years in order to make sure we have a roof and food - obviously that is not part of God's plan for our family right now. We do live near many sites of Civil War action and have tried to take advantage - we're still learning a bit about re-enactment. The Civil War reenactment that we went to was a bit of a bust historically - rather humorous as the Confederates won that battle (though in reality it was a small skirmish that ended in a draw) and not much for historical information - but great for looking at horses and talking to people who probably still fly the Confederate Battle flag from their homes !

I learn something new every single year and every child is so unique. I am in the midst of changing things once again - not sure what next year will look like around here.

This is an interesting thread.

Janet

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Posted: Jan 29 2007 at 7:13am | IP Logged Quote LLMom

We have changed from unschooling/CM to a prepackaged curriculum for the last two years. Why? Well, as my family increased (and rather quickly), I needed something for them to do that wasn't so mom intense. Now, with the youngest being almost 2, I am thinking I can wing it again next year.

I think the change for us has come because of the differnt seasons in our life. You can do things quite different with only a few children, or children farther apart in age or only high schoolers etc. I am sure we will rearrange things again as everyone ages.

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Posted: Jan 29 2007 at 10:29am | IP Logged Quote saintanneshs

Lots of changes here, Shawna! Funny how as a PS teacher you can get into your groove and just stay with it for the long haul (if you choose to), but as a HS mother you have to do just the opposite! I think I came into this with the PS mentality (lesson plans written way in advance, no room for spontaneity, pretty-rigid schedule, etc.) It's no wonder I've had to make many changes!! This is a whole lot harder than PS teaching ever was!!

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Posted: Jan 29 2007 at 3:22pm | IP Logged Quote Bookswithtea

Some things have changed, but a lot has stayed the same. I was drawn to both CM and unschooling at the same time. I dropped unschooling in the first year...just didn't work well with the temperaments in my home. I seem to flop back and forth between modifying CHC, modifying Sonlight, and modifying FIAR, depending on the ages of my children and how much time I have for reading aloud before a baby or toddler starts crying. I'm pretty much incapable of using anyone's premade schedule, but cannot function without one, either. I still basically cover the same types of material for each grade level, and use the same phonics and math materials. Some years are definitely more relaxed and some years feel a bit more schooly, but it seems to work ok over the long haul. I guess I won't really know for sure till I've graduated a child, though!

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Posted: Jan 29 2007 at 4:14pm | IP Logged Quote Angel

We've made many changes, but seem to always come back around to some of the core beliefs we started out with: we want to nurture our children's interests and abilities while giving them a solid foundation in skills.

Now, how to go about that... that's the kicker. We started out unschooling, but the WIDE variance in my oldest's abilties and some behavioral difficulties have meant that I have really had to question everything I once thought about methods in order to meet him where he is. I still don't know if what we're doing is totally right for him, but it does seem to be what we come back to, time after time: we read a lot of books, and I require some skill work in workbooks for him because he likes/needs the structure. When we were unschooling, he would totally avoid anything in the least bit difficult. I couldn't see totally leaving out math until he was 14 years old and decided he wanted to go to college (and that's the road we'd be on if we were unschooling right now), so I've made a few requirements. But we try to balance those requirements with some child-led learning as well.

In recent years I've discovered Montessori and tried to implement it in our home as well. I was led to Montessori primarily by my 7 yo daughter's trouble with math workbooks, but I'm convinced that Montessori is extremely valuable for my under 5's as well. The only problem: I tried to implement Montessori when we were in the process of moving, and then in my twins' first year. So it hasn't really worked, because I can't figure out how to twin-proof a Montessori environment. (Personally, I can't figure out how twin toddlers do not 2x the damage, but about 10x of the damage, of one of toddler.)    But I do think it's something that we'll pursue in the future, because my 7 yo gets more out of Montessori activities than anything else, and I've seen the fruits of the method with my 3 yo, and when my twins aren't demolishing the house, they do enjoy doing many practical life activities -- such as sweeping, wiping, etc. I'd love to get them to ACTUALLY SIT DOWN ON A MAT occassionally, instead of what they're doing right now, which is unloading our religion bookcase, which I've picked up at least 30 times in the past 2 days.

Anyway, I guess the short answer is, I still believe that the end of education is to help a child become the person God intended him or her to be. But our methods have changed considerably over the years!

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Posted: Jan 30 2007 at 5:04am | IP Logged Quote Erin

Angel wrote:
We've made many changes, but seem to always come back around to some of the core beliefs we started out with: we want to nurture our children's interests and abilities while giving them a solid foundation in skills.


Well said Angela

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