Introduction

This blog is for the Catholic homeschooling mom.  Mostly it is intended for unschooly types; but if you define yourself as eclectic or relaxed, or if maybe you are just taking a break from more formal home education, or perhaps you are 'deschooling' but want a a general direction to wander towards,  if any of that fits you, then this blog is for you.

I am concluding my 21st year of homeschooling my five children.  My youngest child is 17 and off to college next year.  But what do I do with all I've learned and experienced over these 21 years?  I feel like I've developed a good understanding of how children learn and how to run an unschooly home.  I don't want that to go to waste!

I was an unschooly homeschooler by temperament and by circumstance.  We stifled under curriculum but we also needed some routine and some explicit expectations to prevent us from going into a free fall of idleness and boredom.

My plans for this blog are to post weekly and monthly resources for you.  I will gather links to posts, articles, videos, etc that fit with the theme of the month.  Take what you like and leave the rest.  Please!  Don't try to get to everything.   Pick and choose what works for your family.  These are just suggestions based on what worked in my own experience or what I'd gravitate to now if I had school-aged children.

Just for background here's how I did things.  This is my framework for what I'll be posting here.

The givens in our family routine were:

We had at least 3 read aloud times during the day - Usually, religion over breakfast, content subjects like history or science at lunch (or maybe before or after lunch), and then before bed we read literature.  

We did copy work all together as a family right after breakfast most week day mornings (but not all).

In order to create an atmosphere of learning in our home, I did the following:

Fridge and wall schooling:  things I wanted my kids to know, I stuck up on my fridge or kitchen walls so I could refer to them in conversation or the kids could look at whatever was posted at their leisure.

Strewing - I strewed books, puzzles, fun worksheets, games, etc on our family room coffee table.

I also strewed by giving audio books in Christmas stockings, and science kits as gifts,

I hung up map shower curtains, we had a globe in our family room to refer to often.

I strewed videos and audio books and songs in the car,

We went to the library often,

We listened to all kinds of music,

We watched movies, videos and educational TV,

We went on nature walks, field trips and worked on projects,

We were involved in lots of community classes, co-ops and clubs over the years,

We had foreign exchange students stay with us, we traveled,

We had lots and lots and lots of discussions and conversations.  

We were very unschooly in the younger years, transitioning as gently as possible to a more structured high school program.  This was a natural develop in my kids (well, 4 out of 5).  As teens my kids got distracted and lethargic.  I think it was just the hormonal storm going on.  They needed the camaraderie of being in high school co-op classes; they needed the explicit goal of working towards credits for their high school diploma.  That's how it worked for us.  It might not work that way for you.  Each family, each child even, is different.

Daily:

Morning prayer using Universalis or some such thing.  Before I found Universalis, I used The Word Among Us

Saint of the Day - Franciscan media

Religion read aloud (saint's book, catechism, etc)

Video(s) (This came later with youtube and vimeo but watching a short, engaging informative video is a nice way to spark interests or conversations.

Copy work

At some time during the day, wedged in among other things would be another read aloud time, usually having to do with history or science, geography, art history, etc.  I might have as many as two books going in this read aloud.  However, I never could do the Charlotte Mason thing of having lots of books in circulation and reading them all very slowly.  It was too much for me to handle organizationally and the kids lost interest if I read something too slowly.

Evening:  night prayers and lots of great reading aloud before bedtime often by dad.

What else happened daily?

Meals 

At least a couple ten minutes tidy ups

Setting the table for dinner

Quiet time after lunch so I could nap or rest as much as possible, the littles could nap, the olders could read or listen to audio books or do quiet things in their rooms

What else happened?

Chores, errands, library visits, appointments, daily Mass 1x a week, various outside engagements like music lessons, scouting, clubs.

Working on projects, doing homework for out of the home classes (either physically out of the home or on line)

Screen time which I was forever trying to figure out how to handle.  Lots of educational TV and video games.

Lots of free play

Sometimes one on one lessons in reading

Some time before the end of the year standard test (CAT) I needed for my proof of progress, I would buy those Spectrum practice workbooks and we'd spend a few weeks going through them, more or less, before taking the exams.

Anyway, that's how I did it.  And it was actually quite successful in spite of my many anxious, exhausted moments, in spite of a move, and the death of 3 out of 4 grandparents, having my aunt live with us after she had her leg amputated, through various learning disability diagnoses, through emergencies like my husband having a heart attack, various surgeries, pregnancies, breast infections, everyone getting the flu at once, many colds, migraines, chronic illness, bedwetters, pets passing away, my husband working 60-70 hours weeks and traveling for weeks and weeks, teens with bad attitudes, my own grappling with loneliness, grief, anger, doubt.  The full catastrophe.  Though not really the full catastrophe.  We are all still alive as I type.  Thank you Lord!  We've always had financial security.  My husband and I have been happily married for 30 years.  So we had that and that is wonderful.  And we have 5 wonderful, complicated, demanding, vivacious, unique children which God gave us the gift of raising for his glory.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's post with themes for the month of March.