Planning For A New School Year

I have never been so late in planning for the coming school year. During our first couple years, I was so excited for the next school year that I would start researching curriculum and picking out new books sometimes in March, definitely by April, before we had even finished the year we were currently in.

I also had fewer children and more sleep.

This year I suddenly realized a few weeks ago that, wow, it’s August now, and we should probably start our new school year soon which means I need to figure out what we’re going to do and maybe order a few books.

Life does change!

However, I have managed to buckle down and do some planning and we are hoping to start school on Monday if we can kick this summer cold that everyone caught last week. I will share with you some of our plans, our daily routine, a few ways that our homeschool has changed over the years, and a nice little rant about How to Kill A Child’s Love of Stories.

First off, to briefly summarize the summer: It was busy, we didn’t do school, the end. Actually, it was indeed very full and we did less “school” than any previous summer, though I would never say that the children were not learning during this time. We did keep up with morning reading time, which was lovely – we finished The Random House Book of Fairy Tales, Little House in the Big Woods, Little Pilgrim’s Progress, and read a little more of our story Bible. Our piano teacher also does not take the summer off so the boys kept up with practicing and lessons. We also raised six monarch caterpillars – from egg to butterfly – which was a first for our kids, and an amazing learning experience! Beyond that, however, our days filled up with several long visits from family and friends, playdates, gardening, trips to the zoo, outdoor adventures, therapy and social skills classes, Vacation Bible School, orthodontist and dentist appointments (I suppose summer is a good time to get those in anyways!), and one trip to Minnesota. Apart from activities with the kids, I’ve been busy updating this blog in various ways, researching SEO, keeping the newsletter going, planning for a new school/CC year, and working on starting a small business which I will tell you about someday but it’s not ready yet. All of this has filled up my time more than previous summers. Oh, and sometimes I cook and clean the kitchen too. Ha!

Our homeschool style has shifted over the years, as our children grow and I grow and we learn more about each other and I learn more about education in general and about my heroine Charlotte Mason in particular. It’s a beautiful thing and I’m so glad that we don’t have to do things exactly the same way every year! Here’s a quote I heard recently on an episode of the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast that resonated with me:

“…it’s a never-ending process – we are life-long learners. We always want to be learning and doing something new. To stop learning, to stop trying new things, is just a soul death that I am not willing to experience.”

What a good example this is for our children too! Curiosity for the win. Now, there are probably many changes to our homeschool life that I cannot even perceive, but here are a few ways that I know we are shifting.

Ways in Which Our Homeschool Style Has Changed

Simplifying. This is not just a nice idea but actually an urgent need as we add more children to our home and more commitments to our life. I am working on simplifying other areas of our life too, but homeschool is definitely top of the list. The only way, THE ONLY WAY, to successfully homeschool multiple children is to either reduce the number of “subjects” you are trying to do OR combine the children for as many subjects as possible OR, ideally, both. We are going to try to knock out a bunch of subjects during our Morning Time (with all the children together), including science, history, literature, Bible, and poetry. All of this can be read to everyone – as long as the toddler doesn’t scream for attention the entire time which I am still a wee bit worried about – and each of us will be able to interact with these ideas at our own levels. We are also dropping a few things in order to lighten the load this year. I’ve decided that science experiments and activity books have to go, and we will instead focus on reading our science book during the week and enjoying our once-a-week experiment at Classical Conversations. Same idea with history – we have some good books that we will be working on reading through, but no workbooks or activities or tests. We won’t be doing an art curriculum or foreign language. Rather than read a Bible story book AND the Bible itself AND a theology book, we’ll just be reading through The Child’s Story Bible by Catherine Vos (some of those other areas will be covered by Daddy in the evening). And as a reminder, just like I wrote here, none of these things are bad! They are good and worthwhile – but even more worthwhile is an atmosphere of peace and enjoyment, which can only happen if I simplify our day.

Less curriculum. This overlaps with the idea of simplifying, but our style has shifted more towards “read a good book and then talk about it” rather than “follow a set curriculum and check all the boxes.” We’ve tried some curriculum, enjoyed some and struggled with others, but again, I can only keep up with so much – and as I have read more about Charlotte Mason education and narration, I am convinced that this method of education works now and will continue to work as the children grow older. Some subjects require more of a curriculum than others (although you would be surprised how many good picture books you can read about math!) but we are enjoying moving away from it when we can.

Better books. Ok, it’s no secret that we have always loved and enjoyed books, but I’m starting to realize a) that our children can handle far more difficult books than I would imagine and b) the immense value of classics, poetry, and fairy tales. This podcast in particular was a bit of a game changer for me and I must recommend it to you! Stop reading right now and go listen to it. I listened to it this summer, felt that my mind was blown and my world tilted, and immediately listened to it again. I may have to go back and hear it once more before school begins. It actually changed the way I view books, which is no small matter, I assure you. As a result of this, I am adding in more myths and fairy tales for us to read this year and I am so looking forward to them! We’re also going to add in a few more difficult books to read through together. On one of our road trips this summer we listened to this version of Treasure Island, after which the boys begged Daddy to read it to them, so he’s been reading through the original story and they love it. No, they don’t catch everything – the language is actually quite complex – but I think the best way to learn complex language is to hear complex language, so we’re going to do our best to hear lots of it this year.

So what is our plan for the year? The big picture is that I have divided our subjects into Morning Time (all of us together) and Independent Work (each child at their own level). Under Morning Time, we will try to read science, history, Bible story, poetry, and perhaps some memorization work or other literature. Frankly, there is no need for a “third grade literature” curriculum: just find a good book and read it to all those kiddos together! But won’t they be missing out if they don’t have the Workbook and Comprehension Questions and Test to go with that book, you might ask? Yes; they are missing out on developing a Deep Hatred for “literature,” which tends to accompany Comprehension Questions. But how will I know if they are listening? And if they understood it? I will ask them, and they will tell me. It’s easy and painless, and I hope to end each book with their love of story – that rightful possession of every child ever born – fully intact. And, for the record, let me ask you who really understands a book on the first reading? I know I don’t. Any book worth its price will take multiple readings to fully appreciate its subtleties, which is part of the joy of reading. Our first time through we will each hopefully come away with something, but not everything, and that’s perfectly okay.

*climbs down off soapbox*

After Morning Time, we will do Independent Work which is where the day gets tricky as multiple children still need my help with various parts of their day and I have unfortunately been unable to clone myself yet; but this part of our school will include math, language arts (phonics/independent reading/spelling), handwriting, and piano practice. If we add in a typing program for the older boys, sporadic swim lessons, once a week therapy, choir and piano lessons, and a bit of work to be done for Classical Conversations, our life is looking very full! However, I am looking forward to it. It’s always good to get back into a more regular routine after every week being different in the summer! Also, it has been almost two years since Baby Brother was born and while he is not the easiest toddler (scratch that – he’s still our hardest child, hands down), I can tell that my energy level is slowly increasing and I feel a bit more optimistic about my ability to actually do what we have planned, by God’s grace.

Finally, I have two more ideas to help me keep our mornings on track: I am going to leave my phone in a different room (hopefully for the whole morning) so as to not get derailed by texts or other notifications, and for the first time in our homeschool career, I am going to try to start each morning by a certain time (8:30, perhaps, but we’ll see how it shakes out). In the past we had pretty relaxed mornings and I usually let the kids play for a while before starting school, which worked great! We still got our work done and I didn’t feel rushed. But we have more on our plate now and I feel that those alert and attentive morning hours would be better used for more difficult work. This is not to say that play is unimportant – I believe it’s extremely worthwhile, but also that the timing is important, and that in the afternoon it’s easier to play than to focus on math. As our kids grow, we are feeling the difficulty of watching our week fill up with good things, and realizing that we must fight to keep free time, play time, and outdoor time in our schedule! It’s not going to happen automatically. The older the children get, the more we will have to be intentional about saying NO to extra events and activities if we want to protect their free time.

Phew. There’s a lot going on, but it’s good stuff, and I love it! Every once in a while it hits me again – the realization that this all-day-every-day life spent with my children is such a gift. I do get regular time alone without them which is good for all of us, but even though I am used to it, I miss them every time! They are a part of me and I am a part of them and don’t even talk to me about college cause I don’t wanna hear it. Ok, yes, I do know this won’t last forever and that is part of why I feel so strongly that I want us together, to make good use of each day that we have. Not to say that every moment is enjoyable – there are plenty that aren’t – but that every moment is worthwhile, and even in the hard ones, we can be deepening our relationships with our children and showing them God’s love and grace through us. At least, that’s the idea – though in reality there are plenty of times when they need to show grace to Mom and forgive her too! We’re all in this together, folks.

So, here we go – off to homeschool year number SIX, praying for strength and asking for wisdom and brewing all the coffee, every day. Thanks for following along!

Originally written August 19 2023