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Homeschooling 2020 Part Three - Planning Your Homeschool


(This is the final post in a 3 part series about Homeschooling in 2020. The first post is here and reminded us of the truths in the Gospel, and encouraged parents that they can homeschool if they want to. 


Also, some links are affiliate links, which means I receive a small monetary compensation if you click the link and purchase the item. Thank you!)


Many parents today are considering homeschooling for the first time due to the Coronavirus Pandemic. While I am sorry that parents are being forced to make these difficult decisions right now, I am so thankful that we have the freedom to homeschool. And while parents may feel anxious about homeschooling for the first time, I want to encourage you . . . 
Homeschooling rocks! 

Really - I love it so much. I realize that we are all called to different things, and I firmly believe in a parent's ability to discern what is best for their own family. But homeschooling has been a tremendous blessing for us, and I am excited that other families will get a taste of it. 

Whether you are considering homeschooling long term, just for the next school year, or you have no idea for how long, I believe it can be a joyful journey. 


This truly can be 
a wonderful blessing 
for you and your family!

My enthusiasm of course doesn't mean that it's never difficult; it's definitely challenging at times. But I find all things worth doing to be challenging at times - marriage, motherhood, living our our Catholic faith, trying to live a healthy lifestyle, learning something new, etc. These are all very difficult for me at times, but they also bring me immense joy and satisfaction. I have found homeschooling to be like that. 

So let's begin with the law, and make sure we've got that covered. You need to look up the laws in your
own state about homeschooling, and make sure you are following them. Some states are easier to homeschool in than others.

In Washington state where we live, I have found it pretty easy to follow the state laws, which you can read here. Also, the Washington Homeschool Organization is a wonderful resource for Washington homeschoolers to answer any legal questions. Begin with reading the laws carefully, and making sure you will be in compliance. 

When many parents begin homeschooling, they want the answer to the question - what do we DO? They ask questions like, how do I teach math, writing, and all of the subjects covered in school? How we do DO it?

These are all great questions, and I will answer them as best as I know how.

The best curriculum and homeschooling practices 
for your family are the ones 
you will do.

I realize that doesn't sound super helpful, but let me explain.

In my last post, I described my four best practices in homeschooling - pray, have a routine (not a schedule), read aloud and model learning. These are basic practices that will make a huge impact on the success, joy and peace of your homeschool. 

Once you have covered those basic things and you are following your state laws, you have enormous freedom. This freedom can be the most wonderful thing about homeschooling, but it can also become the most stressful. 

There are about a million and one ways to teach any given subject. So how does one choose?

Also, you have the freedom to cover subjects that are not typically covered in a traditional school setting. 

If you search online, you are going to discover experts trying to convince you that your homeschool will not be complete without music lessons, Latin, Greek, fine arts, calligraphy, robotics, nature study, carpentry, basket weaving, complicated science experiments, sewing, and building your own lifesize model of Noah's ark. 

Overwhelmed yet?

This of course is nonsense. But in everyone's enthusiasm about their own passions and interests, curriculum has been created for every single topic imaginable. 

Also, there is an enormous market for homeschool curriculum. 

So, you want to do three things to plan your homeschool . . .

#1 - Cover the Basics - Creatively


First, cover the basics in a creative way. 

It is very likely that you can cover language arts (reading, handwriting, spelling, grammar, writing, poetry, literature), history, geography, art appreciation, Church history and music appreciation as one subject. Many homeschoolers do this. We do not need to separate all of these topics into separate categories. In fact doing so is pretty artificial, as they are all related. 

If you had a different curriculum to follow for each of these areas, your children would be doing school work for 12 hours a day. Not a good idea. So what can you combine? This upcoming school year is the first time in a long time when we will have language arts and history taught as different subjects, and that is only because we have been given a new opportunity. In the past, all of those separate topics have been covered during history and science. 

If this sounds overwhelming to you, there is curriculum you can follow that has all of this built in. You don't necessarily have to come up with all of the ideas yourself. Let someone else do this 😊

By combining some of the basics, you are going to free up some of your time. You will then have the time to learn about a couple of interest areas that you wouldn't have had time for before. 

#2 Know Yourself and Know Your Kids

When you look at curriculum, it is good to know your own strengths and weaknesses. Are you someone who loves to do fun projects with your kids? Awesome! Look for curriculum that is project heavy.

Do you hate making a mess? Do long, extensive projects sound like torture? Then don't pick that curriculum.

I know I have been advocating for reading aloud, but do you detest reading aloud? Look for curriculum that has an audio version. 

Do you have several ages that you are going to be teaching? Find curriculum that serves all of those different ages to make your life easier, and combine what you can.

Do you have a hard time with elementary math? Maybe that's the area you pay for an online class, or for a tutor. 

Do you hate hiking or being outside? If so, weekly nature study is probably not a good option for you.

Do you like to have an outline and to follow well laid out instructions? Make sure your curriculum comes with thorough lesson plans. You can usually see a sample.

Do you like to figure things out as you go? Be prepared to do that with curriculum. Realize that you are probably not going to follow the lesson plans, just as you may not follow a recipe. That's okay. The feast is still delicious :)


Sometimes in our excitement, 
we envision our ideal homeschool, 
and we envision ourselves and our children 
different than we actually are. 

We envision supermoms 
who can do anything well, 
with joy and enthusiasm, 
and who have unlimited time and energy. 

This is a mistake. 

Have fun planning 
a fun, exciting homeschool 
that fits into the parameters 
of who you and your family 
already are, 
acknowledging your strengths, 
weaknesses and limitations.  

This will set you up for success 😁

#3 - Dream Big

Now that we've made sure to account for the law, the basics, and our own strengths, 
weaknesses and limitations . . .

It is time to start dreaming.

Think of your ideal day as a family. What does it include? Time for prayer? Exercise? Music? Art? Walking the dog? Bible study?

What does your ideal week include? Your ideal month? Hiking? Gardening? A good movie night?

What would you like to include in your year? A trip to a State or National Park? A month long visit to see grandparents out of town? A 3 month long summer break? Or a break from school work every 6 weeks?

What time of the day is ideal for you to begin? Do you have a better day when you get started early? Or is everyone happier if you have a slow morning?

Does everyone stay happier if you have some time for quiet in the afternoons?

What time of day will everyone need to be done with schoolwork in order to stay sane? Do you or your kids need to spend time outside each day?

Do you have an interest or a hobby that you want to pursue? How can you include your children in that journey, and make it something the whole family learns about together?

As you plan your 
family's school day, 
plan what brings everyone 
joy and peace FIRST.

It is easy to plan the school work first, fill your entire day, so that everyone becomes tired and overworked, and has no time for what brings them joy and rest. This will make your introduction to homeschooling an awful experience. 

First plan what will bring everyone peace and joy. You will have much more productive times of school work because of this prioritizing. It also gives you and your children a healthy balance of work, rest and play in your daily life. 

So, there you go. That's how I would recommend planning.

#1 Cover the Basics Creatively
#2 Know Yourself and You Family
#3 Dream Big

At this point, I will point you to some resources that we have loved, as well as some new ones that we plan to use this year. 

BUT, these are things that work well for our family. You have to go through the 3 steps above for your own family. You might discern that these resources will work well for you, you might not.

A basic premise of homeschooling is -  
Every family is different. 
Every child is different. 
Every home is different. 
Every parent is different. 

Honor who you and your family are as individuals. Honor your own family culture. It is great to learn from one another, and to get inspiration from other families, and I have done so extensively over the years.

But if we are constantly comparing what our family does with other families, pressuring ourselves to do something that works well for another family but does not work for us, we will lose our joy. 

Comparison is the thief of joy.
- Teddy Roosevelt

That all being said, here are some things that have worked well for our family.

Tried and True

These are items we know we can depend on, and would highly recommend.

Math

When we began homeschooling, we tried many different math curriculum. Our favorite ended up being Math-U-See. There is a lot of opportunity for practice, but we can also skip over that if the child doesn't need as much. They have curriculum all the way through advanced high school math. There is a DVD lesson, and a lesson book to help learning the concepts. It is simple and easy to use. 

Online Classes

Homeschool Connections is a Catholic web site that provides online classes for middle school and high school homeschoolers. You can sign up for live online classes, or have your child take a recorded course. Our children have overall enjoyed the content, and this has helped me to supplement what we are already doing, or pass off part of the teaching in an area that I cannot teach, such as foreign language. 

Handwriting

This is a simple, effective handwriting curriculum that our children have used to learn printing and cursive. 

Science

Noeo Science is a homeschool science curriculum that covers different subjects and different age levels. It is easy to use, and has experiment packages available. We did their biology program last year, and enjoyed it. 

Shakespeare

I have loved Shakespeare since college, and our children have enjoyed studying several different plays. We have read children's versions, read the actual play, watched movies and seen live productions. 

Leon Garfield's Shakespeare Stories is my favorite children's version. It gives thorough versions of the stories with beautiful language that is more accessible to children. 


These books have illustrations drawn by students, and are so fun to look at. 

Faith

Catechism








This catechism book about the sacraments is amazing!! It is so thorough, and the pictures are wonderful. I promise you, your children will love it, and most adult Catholics will learn a lot as well.

Also, St. Patrick's Summer: A Children's Adventure Catechism is a wonderful story about two children which teaches our faith.  

Bible

During the school year, we like to read the Bible and pray together every morning. The Catholic Children's Bible is our favorite children's Bible for elementary age kids. It has all of the verses of a Catholic Bible, so that your child can follow along no matter what you are reading.

The Jesus Storybook Bible is our favorite Bible for young children. Our children have read and listened to this over and over again. It is beautifully written, and connects the Old Testament Bible stories to the story of Jesus and our salvation.


Saints  

Our children have learned about so many of the saints with Glory Stories - dramatized audio stories about the lives of the saints. These work very well for quiet time in the middle of the day. 

Rosary Bead-by-Bead Picture Prayer Book Set
We have loved the set of A Little Catholic's First Rosary Books. They helped our 3 year old be able toparticipate in the family rosary, lead a decade and memorize all of the different mysteries, as well as the meaning of each mystery. 

The Spiritual Life
My Path to Heaven: A Young Person's Guide to the Faith is a wonderful resource that guides children towards understanding the spiritual journey of discipleship. 

Audiobooks for Quiet Time
Our favorite audiobooks are produced by Focus on the Family Radio Theater.  They are so well narrated, acted and produced with wonderful music and sound effects, it is like listening to a great movie. You and your children will love these. They are great for midday quiet time, as well as long road trips. 

New to Us This Year . . .

These are new items to us that I have picked out for the upcoming school year. I have done a lot of research to pick these out. I can't say that I would recommend them yet, but I expect them to be a great fit for our family and am excited to use them.

History

Our family has done history differently each year, depending on what we are learning about and the ages of our kids.

This year, we will be learning about modern history. Of all of the time periods, this era has the least resources. You will find a lot of curriculum that covers ancient history, medieval history, explorers, and American history up to the Civil War. After that, resources are more limited.

I am excited about Mystery of History because it is a Christian resource, and it serves a huge age range. We will be using Volume 4, which covers world history from 1708-2014. It offers one high school credit of world history, while providing lessons and activities for the younger children as well. I will teach this to all of the kids at the same time, but work with our high school student longer, and provide him with more high school level work.

I chose Mystery of History because of the way it will serve the age ranges of my children, from Pre-K to 10th grade, and because it provides a high school world history credit. For the most part in planning, I begin with what the oldest child needs, as we are building a high school transcript so that he can apply for college.

My hope is that we will find a great fit with Mystery of History, and continue the next year with their ancient history curriculum, and then just continue each year after that with the next era. 

The one negative about Mystery of History is that it is not a Catholic resource. Sometimes, Christian resources can have an anti-Catholic, Protestant perspective, although I have not heard that about Mystery of History. However, it still won't cover the Catholic Church's and the saints' involvement in world history.

The Story of Civilization is just for elementary students, but it provides the Catholic perspective and is supposed to be wonderful.

So, we will supplement the Mystery of History with the Story of Civilization audio drama, which will cover American history also for the modern era. 

Language Arts
We have the opportunity to do language arts in the afternoons a couple days a week with some other families. We have not done anything like that in a while, so we are excited for the opportunity! 

Usually, our language arts and history courses are combined. This year, they will be separate, and I will have to closely observe the workload for everyone. 

This is what we will be using as curriculum for language arts:

Our Pre-K and 1st grader will be doing the Classical Academic Press' Writing & Rhetoric Book 1: Fable Program in a group setting. I am excited to begin teaching rhetoric to them!

Our Pre-K and 1st Grader will also be doing Classical Academic Press' Song School Latin.

Our 4th grader will be in a small group using Cottage Press' Language Lessons for Grammar Students

I will be teaching a group of middle schoolers some classic literature with resources from the Center for Lit's Pelican Society, using the Socratic method of teaching. I am still choosing which books.

Our 10th grader will be a in a small group doing British Literature using Everyday Education's guide. 

Science

Astronomy
We will learn about Astronomy as a family this year.

Joshua will take the recorded Astronomy and Spaceflight Operations high school courses from Homeschool Connections.

For the other kids, we will use the following books to learn from . . .


Finally - Favorite Read Alouds

We have learned SO MUCH from reading aloud together over the years.

Because we are going to be doing language arts separately from history this year, I know that it will take more of our time. We might not have as much time for read alouds!

Often, we have had at least 2 read alouds happening in our home. I think I am going to have to plan on one read aloud for bedtime to begin the school year, and then see how our day goes. 

Below are some of our favorites. Enjoy and happy homeschooling!

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