A Long Overdue Homeschooling Update
It’s been awhile since I talked about where we are in our homeschooling efforts. My children and I have continued to work every day in spite of the move to a new house and the construction going on as we finish our basement. It’s been wild, actually!
To refresh your memory: I have a son who is 9 and a daughter who is 5 ¾ (she’ll be 6 in December). We decided to homeschool for practical reasons, including the less-than-stellar public schools in our area, the price of Montessori or private education, and the fact that I’m a Montessori teacher.
As time has gone on, my reasons have changed to more philosophical ones, including the stifling nature of traditional education and the freedom that homeschooling gives children to pursue their own interests at their own pace.
Since we put our house up for sale last spring, and were hoping to move by the fall, I continued working with them every day during the summer (with breaks for summer day camp and vacations). We did not work for as long each day as we do during the school year but enough that they didn’t experience the “summer slide”. I am glad we did this since they missed about 2 weeks of work during our move. I like that homeschooling is flexible in these sorts of situations.
Until we finish construction in our basement (most of which will be a large classroom/playroom), we are working in a corner of our new family room. Much of our materials are still packed, but each day we still manage to work for several hours. We also still take at least one field trip a week.
My son is a voracious reader and has been enjoying the If You… series books quite a bit. He reads at least one a week and gives me an oral book report afterwards. He also has begun the Classical Physics posters and experiments, the Geography Charts and experiments and the Botany Charts.
In math he is transitioning from 4-digit dynamic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division with the concrete materials (bead frame, stamp game) to doing them on paper. He has also been doing the Advanced Math materials.
My daughter is currently working her way through the Pink Series work. We have started Pink Series spelling tests, which she has done quite well on, and do a lot of work with the movable alphabet (spelling words and writing short stories). We read together every day (me to her and her to me) and she has worked her way through several different sets of beginning readers (I like to use a few so that there’s some variety and lots of words are covered).
We haven’t done much math lately, as our math materials are packed in a box in our garage, but before we moved she was working her way through both the multiplication tables (with the multiplication bead board) and the addition tables (with the addition strip board). We have also done greater than/less than, ordinal numbers, place value, and time and money work.
My daughter enjoys watching my son perform Geography experiments (after he sets them up) and I like the fact that she gets to see them now and will be doing them herself in a few years. That kind of repetition/younger-learning-from-older is a hallmark of both Montessori and homeschooling.
Once our basement classroom is set up, I am eager to resume our continent and map studies as well as beginning Botany and Zoology for her and advanced Botany and Zoology for him. My son has also started working his way through the Fundamental Needs Cards Sets and is enjoying them immensely.
After years of swimming lessons for both children, their interests have parted ways and she is taking ballet while he focuses on tennis. They had both been taking piano lessons before we moved and since I haven’t found a teacher in our area yet, I have been working with both of them to continue piano (don’t worry, I do play myself!) It’s been working surprisingly well so far so we may continue this path for now. We include piano practice as part of our worktime so that they do it every day.
One thing I have learned during this experience is that it is possible to keep working even during life upheavals. Actually, I can firmly say that continuing our steady work schedule was really great for the kids during the stress of the move. It gave them a routine they could count on. And our work did not need to be elaborate during the first week or two in our new house – a little reading and piano every day made it feel like “school”.
I am interested to know about what kinds of things other homeschoolers are up to right now, and also if you have any experience with homeschooling during a transition (baby, job loss, move) that could be of help to others in a similar situation. Share away!
Thanks for this update Lori. I personally would love to see some more details in regards to what your son is doing with some of the specific materials, especially since I have an 8 year old. I always love to see what others are doing.
Hi, Kylie! For all the elementary levels, I follow the idea of having the children write something for everything they do. So when my son completes something (a Geography chart, a set of Fundamental Needs cards), he writes at least one sentence about what he’s learned.
That’s about all I can offer unless there’s something else about your question that I’m missing
Piano is also part of our daily routine. With all the other activities we do, sometimes piano and guitar practice is all that gets done at home in a day. They find music such an enjoyable and grounding thing. I also think it’s wonderful for that brain development and manual dexterity. We often combine music and math work in the same time block. Somehow, they just go together well.
I like making piano part of our routine – it ensures that they definitely practice every day. I see the progress from that consistency. I am enjoying working with them each day too – it’s almost like a piano lesson every day!
Thanks Lori, yep that’s all really. So you don’t really expect anymore than that in terms of turning out work that can be kept on file? I guess it’s just so different from regular schooling where they would spend most of their day writing or filling in worksheets etc I am always concerned when we don’t have much to show for our efforts over a week’s worth of school….if you knwo what I mean!.
I find that with recording something for every work they do, my kids do generate quite a bit of work over a week’s period. They are also writing the date every day, editing sentences, and practicing penmanship in addition to recording their work.
I also print a Comprehensive List for each child and check things off, as well as keeping their completed monthly workplans in the binder with their written work.
“Recording” work can take the form of drawings, diagrams, artwork, etc. in addition to writing. Today, my son read the third Geography Chart, completed the first experiment for that chart, and then drew a full-page diagram of hot air rising and cool air descending. It was all his own idea to do it that way, which was more than fine with me.
Thanks Lori. We are still easing into it all so I am not starting with the daily journal or comprehensive lists until the beginning of 2010 ( a new school year for us). We are focusing on routine at the moment and mummy needs to get organised with preparing more materials….
Thank you, Lori. Your posts are a true inspiration for me as I travel through our first year of homeschooling. Thank you for sharing a glimpse into your home. I’ll be purchasing your CD this month as a Christmas gift for myself. When I began this journey I thought I would create most of my own printable materials–since I am computer savvy enough to do so. However, when I found your materials, I knew I could never create all of the materials at the same depth & breadth to which you have for even a fraction of the cost of your CD’s. I’ve been saving my pennies so that I can save myself the effort and focus more energy on my children’s learning and development. My daughter, who will turn 8 on Christmas and son, who just recently turned 6 have loved all of the work that I have placed in our classroom, especially when it has come from MontessoriForEveryone.com. And best yet, I know that there is room for us to “grow,” within your CD collection. Thanks again.
Thanks for your sharing, Lori. I have a much more distracted household, with 6 children and another on the way. My eldest is 10. We homeschool with a combination of workbooks, Montessori, etc. since I am also a Montessori teacher. I find our rhythm goes up and down, though. Sometimes it takes half a day of effort just to get out the winter things and make sure everyone has a coat, snowpants, mitts, etc. that fit! But I feel this too, is part of the process, especially in a large family.
Let me share an exciting event: My daughter Anna, 7, just has never been interested in doing any handwriting. Though she has beautiful capital handwriting, I would hear grief when I would try to show her that the p has to go below the line, etc. My son Jeremiah, 5 1/2, has been dilligently working on his italic book. Last Saturday, Jeremiah decided to do 20 pages of handwriting and he passed the page Anna was on. Well, this kicked Anna into gear and she started working. The two of them spent a good 4 hours on Saturday and Anna finished her book. Jeremiah proceeded to work for hours on the next few days and he also finished the book he started 2 weeks ago. It was an amazing sight to see. I joke with them, “But you’re not allowed to do homeschooling on the weekend!”
Great thoughts, everyone! Homeschooling can be intimidating but well worth the time and effort, for sure.
Jeanette, I love that homeschooling can take place anywhere, anytime. The other night after dinner my son was reading a novel and my daughter was making crafts with some Christmas paper and I was like, “Hey, this is homeschooling too!” Yours is a great example of the benefits of multiple ages working together.
if we redid our basement for classroom use it still be a very very cold room (largest room in the house of course) but unusable in the winter. We live in south jersey. we have an unfinished basement. I would love to turn this into a classroom but in the winter we’d have to wear winter coats and if some one is sick well we cannot go down – too cold. How did you work around this problem? Or did you not have this problem? Thank you.
Hi, Rosemarie! When they finished our basement, they put in insulation and also heating ducts so the room is heated like any other room. If you can’t do that, you’d need some kind of heating like a small room heater or something like that.