How I Homeschool

With so many families wanting to start homeschool because of the COVID pandemic, I wanted to add my thoughts to the many other resources available. 

Whenever someone asks about what curriculum I use, or what resources we use, I often tell them that the most important part of homeschool is prayer. No one else knows your children like Heavenly Father does. No one else loves them as He does. And He will help you know what YOUR children need. Every child, every family, every parent is different. There is no one curriculum that will work perfectly for every child. And that is the beauty of homeschool! 

I love that I can focus my efforts on my kids' individual strengths, interests, and passions. I can push them more in areas in which they excel and love, and carefully guide them through those topics that they don't enjoy or struggle with. We teach to their strengths, as it is in those areas that their ultimate life's mission will be fulfilled. 

I do a mixture of formal learning, unschooling, and self-learning. 

Here's what our daily schedule usually looks like: 
Our day always starts with prayer and family scripture study. Then we move on to reading time for about an hour, which is accompanied by some scripture journaling/stories/memorization, as well as language study (right now we are studying Portuguese because I have a deep passion to live in Portugal at some point in my life), a read aloud chapter book, and several picture books. Then we do whatever our subject of the day is for about 1 1/2 hours. The subjects rotate between art, history, civil rights, leadership, writing/grammar, science, and math. We also have an "outing" day. We used to go to museums or get together with friends, but that has been greatly limited due to COVID, and so now we have to be a little more creative with our outings. I also try to throw some service or kindness opportunities into our week. 

To get ideas for the subject area activities I use books from the library, look up ideas online, find other curriculums about that specific subject. I just pull resources from everyone and use what I think will be good for MY kids. On Saturdays is when I plan out our week for school time. 

That is all the "formal" school time we have. After lunch (oh, we always have a family read aloud book that we enjoy together at lunch and before bedtime), is self-learning time. We all have chores and projects to complete. The kids have individual reading/math lessons they will do on their own, along with a chore of the day. That is also my "mommy time." 

I can't speak enough of Mommy Time. It is an absolute necessity, especially if you are homeschooling four kids! You need a little quiet time where you can do your own thing--hopefully focused on your own learning. During the afternoon quiet time, the kids can focus more on things they love to do, like drawing, reading, piano practice, bike riding, crafting, etc. And I take that time to read classic literature, civil rights books, fun books, and also write or do family history or chat with friends. 

The kids all have a cooking night as well so they can practice those essential skills. Everyone does their own laundry and has a meal time chore for the week, in addition to their daily chores. Kids need to know how to work and contribute! 

After dinner we often play games, read books, go on walks, do family jobs, or serve in church callings. 

Bedtime often (not always) involves a song, prayer, and more reading. We read a ton! 

So that's our basic outline. One resource I will suggest is Leadership Education (https://tjed.org/). That has helped to guide us as we have set up our homeschool home. I hope this is helpful to someone that might be considering homeschool. 

You can do it! It is a ton of work, but so fulfilling. Not every day is successful, but you will see fruits of your efforts here and there. Don't give up. I might have one day out of the week that is truly successful, and that is good enough. I also change things all the time!!! That's part of the working process, just try out your ideas, see what works, and change what doesn't, and you will probably change it all again. My kids are learning that change is a part of life because we are changing how we do school often!