My first year of homeschooling my children, I was afraid to commit to anything. We were homeschooling because there was a global pandemic and school schedules were unreliable. Our children needed consistency, and we knew the only way that would happen was if we pulled them from school and created consistency ourselves. Which meant I became their teacher. This situation left me unwilling to commit to expensive curriculum or specialized programs. I wasn’t confident that homeschooling was for us, and didn’t want to spend large amounts of time or money for a temporary situation.
That first year, I dug into my old teacher tricks. I looked up the state standards for my kids, and planned units around them. I was afraid of them falling behind their public school peers. I was constantly asking other homeschool families what they were using or doing and playing the comparison game. That’s an exhausting game to play, friends. Every seasoned homeschooler will tell you that there is no comparison in home education, because every family and every child is so unique. You can study the same topics, and the kids will retain and apply that information in their own unique ways. This was a hard one for me to accept. I still maintained a public school mindset of testing, and standards assessment. Yes, the kids are unique and that’s amazing, and the curriculum should be flexible, but every child also has the same benchmarks, and those matter. Or so I thought.
As that first year came to a close, we had come to appreciate many things about the homeschool lifestyle. My younger daughter was thriving under our care. The consistency of providing a stable environment was exactly what she needed. I also think she needed more of us. My older daughter was adjusting. She still missed the people at her school, but she didn’t complain about our new home routine. The next goal was to build her social circle back up, so she could feel seen and loved outside of home too.
So, we homeschooled the next year too. This was when I realized that homeschooling was likely to be our path for the foreseeable future. If that was true, then I started questioning my current teaching method. If returning to public school wasn’t likely, then teaching by the standards wasn’t necessary, which opened up an overwhelming amount of curriculum sources. I also felt comfortable deviating from state standards because my school district allows homeschoolers to test with the public schools every spring. My oldest tested that first year, and her results confirmed our decision to homeschool, while bolstering my confidence in curriculum choice.
Which brings us to every homeschool family’s great decision: choosing a curriculum. I was willing to invest in a great option for our family, but I had to find what that was. I was intrigued by Gather Round and their whole family unit study approach, as this closely matched what I had been doing on my own. My husband wasn’t convinced this was best for us though, so I kept looking. We tried some sample units from The Good and the Beautiful. I love their overall philosophy towards education, but we found some of the science units that we tried to be lacking in content. A friend gave my their kindergarten math book, and we have been enjoying that. I found myself overwhelmed by trying to assess the quality of the subjects and units online. I know many families use these curriculum and love it. It just didn’t seem to match what I was looking for.
The harder part was that I couldn’t define what I was looking for. I didn’t want a boxed curriculum. I wanted something alive- hands on. I definitely didn’t want a textbook that the kids would never look at again and would want to sell as soon as they were done. I started thinking about buying good quality books that would invite them into history and science. My kids love to read. It’s hard to keep enough books to satiate their curiosity. We frequently visit the library. I knew some well chosen, interesting books, would excite them for school. I didn’t know how to identify these books, but I wanted to try.
Since I was still trying to figure out our curriculum, but knew we needed a stop gap for the in between, I signed us up for Easy Peasy’s free online curriculum. It was enjoyable, and gave us daily guidance on what to do. I supplemented and took content even deeper by adding library books. Having this daily rhythm also gave me time to figure out what I wanted for my kids’ education before I invested in anything. I’ve said it before, and I will continue to say it: the best thing you can do for yourself and your kids is figure out your educational method. What are your goals? What do you want them to achieve, and receive from their education? Once you’ve identified these, it’s time to read up on popular educational pedagogies, such as unschooling, Montessori, Waldorf, Classical, Charlotte Mason, unit studies, or eclectic. Knowing which method works for you and your kids will help guide your homeschool and curriculum choices. I cannot stress this point enough.
As I read about and learned about each method, there were parts from nearly all methods that I valued. I discovered that Charlotte Mason approach aligned most closely with what I had naturally desired for my kids, except she had names and labels for my ideas. Hello living books! My hunch that I could provide a strong education by providing interesting and well written books for my kids was correct! Charlotte Mason also relies on time outside, something that we were already doing, and was also important to me. Overall, Charlotte Mason checked more of my desired boxes than other pedagogies, so I began to learn more about this method. The more I learned, the more I bought in. It’s simple, rich, beautiful, and customizable while still challenging students.
Now that I new which method I wanted, curriculum choices became easier. Many of the popular ones were eliminated. I went back to my original idea of choosing living books to create my own curriculum, but this thought again overwhelmed me. Then, a friend told me about Ambleside Online. As I explored their website, I found a treasure trove of curriculum waiting for me. The wonderful advisory board members had spent who knows how many hours of their own free time to assemble a living book list for 12 school years. Beyond that, they had broken the books into a 36 week plan, detailed down to the chapter (or page number) of what to read when. I found science, history, geography, and literature all planned and waiting for me! Even better, art study, composer study, physical education, and Shakespeare were also included. These were subjects I felt inadequate to teach, and regretted that my kids missed this part of public school education. I don’t feel that way anymore. My kids are learning music through piano lessons, composer study, and monthly folk songs and hymns. They study three artists, their works, style and paintings in depth every year. Ambleside Online has even empowered my to teach my 8 and 10 year olds the biographies from Plutarch’s Lives! My kids truly are receiving a rich, beautiful, full and wonderful education. I believe they will know stories of American and British history better than they would have learned from their elementary school, simply because that is not the goal of the state standards. That goal is to memorize for a test and move on. By living through the historical events with the historical characters, the past becomes more alive and easily remembered. My girls beg to read some of their school books now. (There are still books or subjects they don’t care for, though few and far between.) The change among our family has been beautiful. School is a peaceful time of discovery and expanding our minds. We can easily pack our books and take school on the road, or to a park for the day. School is now a part of our lives, rather than fitting our lives around school. Perhaps my favorite part of embracing the Charlotte Mason method has been that I am spending my money on books that they will be able to read again and again. I’m not buying workbooks that they begrudgingly complete and then throw away. I invest in the books that my oldest will need for that year, and then they are passed down to the others. My money goes much further, enabling us to do more trips and excursions, all while providing a full, challenging, and satisfying education to my children. I’m truly thankful we found this lifestyle, and I’m eager to see what the future holds for us.