Classical Education in our Home part 5: The Homeschool Mom

Homeschooling is more than just keeping the children home for school.

A homeschool mom is

ACTIVE

Pursuing her own education

 What do you want your children to learn? 

I wanted my children to understand the times and the world they inhabit, the result of a classical education, so I had to learn to understand them myself. Part of learning classically is having a large view of history, philosophy, science, and God. Does that sound like an overwhelming task?

It can be if you let it. So don’t let it be overwhelming! Trust God to teach you what you need to know when you need to know it. Learn along with your children.

Remember, learning is a building process. You can’t open up your head and pour information into it any more than you can do that to your children.

                Layer upon layer upon layer.

Start with what you already know – if you’re like me, it’s very little – and then look ahead to the next thing you don’t know.

I didn’t know the timeline of history. Okay, I knew the Middle Ages came after the Roman Empire….and that’s about it.

So I bought a copy of Diana Waring’s “What in the World’s Going on Here?” tape set – it’s an overview of Judeo-Christian history. I listened to it a couple times, but never used it in our homeschool, because the children were too young when we owned it. But it opened up doors for me – it gave me the overview of history that I had been missing.

             It was the hook to hang all my other history learning on. That's what an overview is good for!

                

Every subject was like that. I was a babe teaching babes, 

but at least through educating myself a step ahead of my children, I wasn’t going into that woods completely blind.

Classical Education in Our Home part 4: the method

I won’t share our mistakes

except to say they were many

…and rose mostly from my pride

and trying to jump in with both feet.

But

I did learn something very important from my mistakes:

Children are living, growing, developing people.

Not mini-me,

Not monsters,

And not perfect.

Children learn things in small doses...

…liquid drops melting into their mouths and running down their throats…

...a bright cherry-red drop of Rome, a blueberry drop of Latin, a strawberry drop of prime numbers…

...drops and layers growing into a stalagmite...

A foundation of knowledge.

Knowledge of simple things that the child builds on as experience widens.

Rome wasn’t built in a day,

children don’t learn everything in one year,

or one exposure.

Repetitio Mater Studiorum.

...repetition is the mother of learning...

I learned to bake with phyllo. Lay down the dough, spread the melted butter, another layer of dough, another layer of butter.

Layer upon layer, until you have a single whole.

 

That’s the method when teaching children.

Year after year of layers and the children start making connections between the familiar pieces.

Things make sense.

The foundation is firm.

The early years – basic stuff – the grammar, the mechanics, the what of language, math, science, history.

Spelling, phonics, reading.

Counting, number relationships, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division.

Nature exploration and much time spent outside experiencing sights, smells, textures.

And the who and what of history. The early years are for biographies and historical fiction – learning about people.

The middle years – building on the foundation – the logic, the why…

Grammar, classical languages, logic, more reading.

Numbers play games in algebra.

Science separates into different disciplines.

The why of history: why did these people do what they did? What else was going on?

The later years – getting ready to branch out – the rhetoric, the how…

Learning to take ideas, analyze them, examine them, judge them…how do they relate to each other? How do they affect me and my life?

Critical thinking about science. Does this make sense? How and why?

Knowing what happened in history and why; but how could these things happen, and how can we influence our world for the better?

The method

the discipline

the learning

evolved over time…

...but the joy came in bright flashes

when we made connections

to the learning

to each other

and we know

this moment is forever.

Classical Education in our home part 3: answering the call

God calls.
We listen and respond, right?

How many times does God’s call go unheeded because our first reaction is fear?

What if I can’t?

What if they won’t?

What if I’m wrong?

But where God calls…

…where God calls He equips.

HE equips.

Internet searches are fine – if you know what it is and how to use it. This was 1996. We had a computer, and email. But the internet was in its infancy back then.

But a friend had heard of this school in Pennsylvania

…and one in Idaho…

Classical Education was finding its feet in private schools.

Some say it had never left.

I found Calvert School. I found Greenleaf Press.

We started our second year of homeschooling armed with a desire to educate our children

…differently…

We read. I studied.

God brought Charlotte Mason to my attention.

I studied more, adapted, made do with a small, very small, budget.

Veritas Press. Memoria Press. Sonlight. Susan Wise Bauer and The Well Trained Mind. Tapestry of Grace.

I studied history, Latin, math.

I dove into the Bible.

I learned the things I should have learned in those naive years between 12 and 20.

A plan developed; a method.

My poor children. Guinea Pigs, all.