Homeschooling With A Newborn
One of my favorite months of the year, December, is here! We’ve started our advent calendar countdown, we recently finished our last morning of Classical Conversations until it restarts in January, and Baby Brother just turned two months old. We’ve got a church Christmas program coming up, as well as family coming to visit and Big Brother turning 9 (nine!!) years old at the end of the month.
Compared to some previous years, this December feels much calmer – for which I am grateful. We are not travelling this year, have very few scheduled events, and due to all the doomsday predictions of “low inventory!” and “slow shipping!” I finished most of my Christmas shopping in November – a first for me! I am fully relishing that one victory because newborns bring with them a certain amount of necessary chaos (so please don’t imagine we’ve got everything under control here). Some days feel like I’m just barely keeping everyone fed, clothed and mostly in one piece; other days are smoother and we’ll attempt heroic tasks like Cleaning or Little Bits of School.
There’s absolutely something precious about caring for a tiny person who is so helpless that he can’t even burp without assistance, but I always feel like the sun shines brighter and my life begins anew once the baby is down to just one brief night waking, instead of multiple – and we’re not there yet.
Regarding homeschool: we took off the whole month of October, and only partially restarted in November. We tried to hit one or two subjects each day, and mostly succeeded. For December, I plan to focus on just two things (besides Christmas fun): math and read-alouds. Frankly, I think in a pinch you could focus on just those two things for an entire school year, and your kids would learn A LOT. If you are unsure about the benefits of reading aloud to your children (especially picture books!), please listen to a few episodes of the Read Aloud Revival podcast and you will doubt no more. It’s a great podcast and so very encouraging about the huge benefits of simply reading to our children.
Last December we wrote down how many picture books we read each day, and by the end of the month we had read 222! We’ll see if we can top that this year. And, despite having done very little math for the last two months, Middle Brother now tells me he wants to be a mathematician when he grows up, so it feels like a good subject to spend some time enjoying for the next few weeks.
Anyways, for the last two months we have progressed very little in our school subjects, but I am okay with that. In case you are a member of the Homeschool Police, or in case you find yourself in a similar situation and need some encouragement, I will list just a few of the ways that I have seen our children learning in spite of Their Favorite Teacher being on maternity leave.
More Ways That Children Learn
– weekly mornings at Classical Conversations. Due to Baby Brother’s kindly consideration in being born during a break week, our boys didn’t miss a single week of their homeschool group. Each week they get a whole morning of homeschool learning which includes memory work, science & art time, public speaking, and time with friends. I’m very grateful for that, especially during this season!
– read alouds with Mom and Dad. The one thing we never stopped doing before and after baby’s birth was our lunch time read-aloud of a chapter book. The kids love it, I love it, and I can do it while nursing or bouncing a baby. Plus, most evenings the kids get some picture book time with me or Dad, and most evenings before bed Dad reads from a (different) chapter book. It’s hard to overestimate how much learning is going on during those times.
– board games & card games. With shorter days, less outdoor time, and tired parents, the boys have been spending more time playing games together – which are great for reinforcing math concepts, patterns, colors, reading, social interactions, etc.
– caring for Baby Brother. This is an education in itself! Our children have had real-life experience with pregnancy, breastfeeding, and caring for a newborn. This has led to conversations about childbirth and sex and many more important subjects; and if you add in a few good books (see the picture below), you’ve got a perfect little unit study.
– learning new chores. We’ve been slowly teaching all four kids some new jobs around the house, and while it can be arduous and painstaking, it’s always always worth it (I am telling this to myself, because I need the reminder!). They’ve been overdue for this life-skill lesson for quite a while now, and as our family grows it’s becoming more necessary for each of them to be contributing to the upkeep of our home.
I am optimistic that we’ll be able to return to a more normal school schedule in January, but until then, we do what we can and let go of the rest.
And that is enough.
A happy advent and merry Christmas to you all!
May your days be merry and bright,
And may all your babies sleep through the night.
Hehehe.
Originally written December 5 2021
