Going into our first year of homeschooling, I knew that the way we approached home education may change along the way. At the beginning, I wanted to take an eclectic approach with an emphasis on Montessori and Charlotte Mason and a touch of classical. I was also intrigued by unit studies and Waldorf.
We’re now going into our third year of homeschooling, and our homeschool is still going strong with the “a-la-carte” approach.
In the “poorer weather” seasons, themed unit-studies have filled our days, including tons of Montessori-inspired activities to go with. I prepared our homeschool room with beautiful setup shelves, so my children could choose the activities they wanted to do. The units chosen were inspired by seasons, holidays, and my children’s interests.
We snuggled up on the couch reading tons of great literature (living books) and focused on forming good habits. We implemented a “morning time,” where we prayed, read from our children’s bible, sang hymns and nursery rhymes, and read nature books.
During “nicer weather” seasons, we spent hours upon hours playing outdoors and exploring nature, as Charlotte Mason suggests to do during the early years.
When baby #3 made his grand entrance, we slowed way down and focused on practical life, play, and bonding. I’m incredibly grateful to have had the flexibility to do so.
Moving forward with this school year, I’ve really taken my children’s interests and where they are at into account. Here’s some of the highlights of what we’ll be implementing:
- Quality read-alouds (picture books and chapter books)
- Waldorf-inspired watercoloring, coloring with block crayons, and modeling beeswax
- Lots of time outdoors and exploring nature
- Morning time a few days a week, reading the Bible, signing hymns and nursery rhymes, going over calendar and weather, and moving our bodies
- Short writing lessons using Handwriting Without Tears (My daughter has shown great interest in writing)
- Delayed formal reading lessons (We are continuing to delay until age 6)
- Informal math lessons (through board games, hopscotch, fun manipulatives, and real-life lessons)
- Unit studies and Montessori-inspired shelfwork when great interest in a certain topic has been expressed
This was helpful to me. I currently work part time in a job share (3 days a week) as a elementary school teacher. I’m struggling with how I could potentially homeschool when we financially need my income. Also, do you have to report to anyone when you homeschool?
I’m so glad this was helpful for you, Kimmy! The good news is is that you can get so much accomplished in such a short amount of time when you homeschool, since you have so many less students than in a traditional school. Plus, there’s so many resources available if you need to outsource a subject. I think it could be totally doable with you working 3 days a week!
As far as the reporting goes, it all depends on your local state homeschool laws, so I would research those and see what your legal options are.
Thank you! When I started homeschooling about 6 years ago I didn’t know any style other than just buying workbooks and doing them. We still do this but after reading about Charlotte Mason’s ideas recently I’ve been really interested in her method and now the classical approach sounds nice too. I will probably just do the eclectic method of schooling that I started last year. I love our morning basket activities and books and the time we get to spend together in the morning.