'18/'19 School Plans!

I don't exactly know how it's already gotten to be time to talk about our plans for the upcoming school year, but here we are! We still won't start for a few weeks, but I've been getting all of my planning and organizing underway because 1- I love it and 2- I can enjoy the next several weeks of summer a whole lot more without school prep work hanging over my head!

So Sam is going into *2nd* grade. Doesn't that just sound so old? I remember 2nd grade so clearly! *Insert every cliche about feeling old and how fast time is moving here*, but I'm so excited for this year with him! His reading has really taken off in the last 6 months and this school year is going to be a whole different ballgame! We will be continuing to implement Charlotte Mason's methods and will continue to use AmblesideOnline as our main curriculum. This year Sam will be in year 2.

Kate will technically be going into Kindergarten, but we do not do much formal schooling prior to 1st grade. The 2nd half of last year she was becoming more interested in sit down schoolwork, and she's been chomping at the bit to learn to read so I may structure her days some more later on, possibly after Christmas. For now, she and Henry will be listening in when they want and I'll have my usual preschool/kindergarten activities to pull out when they want to 'do school'. For more on how we homeschool preschool, go here.

In year 2, we'll be continuing with some books from last year, mostly for history, as well as adding in some new titles. Here's our book stack!

I didn't include any of the "free read" selections from the book list, but I am very excited to track Sam's free reading this year with how much he reads on his own now!

In addition to our daily readings, each of which will be orally narrated (or sometimes drawn and orally narrated) back to me, each day we'll have: math, copywork, Bible, memory work, poetry, reading, drill, and French. Weekly we'll have: hymn study, folk song, composer study, art study, drawing, nature study, geography, handicrafts, timeline, and piano. Depending on how piano goes, that might change to daily or every other day. A month or so into the year we will be adding cursive practice in with regular copywork.

Since Sam can read fluently, we don't really need to a reading program. I have this book, Discover Reading, which guides teaching reading the way Charlotte Mason did in her schools, and I might do some of the activities from the end of it with Sam, but he's mostly beyond all of it now. Reading out loud at least part of one of his readings each day, plus the 10 minutes of free reading out loud he already does daily will be his reading "curriculum". We are happy still staying a year "behind" with Horizons math since it seems to be a fairly accelerated program. Handwriting Without Tears will be what we use for cursive writing instruction. The Pictures in Cursive book is just extra because I really liked it 😉

Last year I feel like one area in which we were really lacking was our nature study. So this year, in an attempt to be more intentional, we'll be using Exploring Nature with Children by Lynn Seddon. It references the Handbook included in our AO curriculum so it's a great fit! I'm very excited! This will be for everybody, not just Sam!

We'll be learning French without a set program. Last year we were slowly compiling a list of French words that we knew, reviewing them all at lunchtime and adding a new one every now and then. We also started reading an English/French picture book which everybody loved! This year we'll be continuing all of that, plus reading more French picture books, and listening to French stories and fables on YouTube. As we get better, we'll work at translating what we listen to together and I will ask Sam for short, simple narrations in French after listening. 

Ambleside Online provides a scheduled art study for each school year. We study 6 pieces by 1 artist per term and spend 2 weeks on each piece. This year I compiled them all into a photo book. Our art study is still very simple. We'll look at that week's picture and talk about it. The 2nd week I'll give them a couple minutes to look at it, and then take it away and ask them to describe it to me. I'll usually read a short bio of the artist as well.

For memory work this year, we'll be using the memory box method found here on Simply Charlotte Mason. This will involve everybody because we do memory work over breakfast.

For recitation, Sam will have a Psalm, 6 verses from the Old Testament, 6 verses from the New Testament, a poem of his choosing, and a hymn per term to read out loud to all of us. The goal isn't to memorize, but a lot of it will likely end up memorized! He will recite just once a week for about 5-10 minutes, so he won't recite all of these each week.

For year 2, we study one poet per term and the poems for each term are available on the website. I printed them out and put them in a report cover just to make life a little easier. We do our scheduled poetry reading over breakfast.

We are still working on a personal timeline, to gain a better understanding of the passing of time, but we may also begin a simple history timeline part of the way through the year. In the later years of this curriculum, we will keep a detailed history timeline and later a book of centuries, but we won't take on this huge project just yet. We had fun starting Sam's personal timeline last year! I'm thinking around Christmastime (or earlier depending on how the year is going) I will put a fold out timeline in this section of Sam's binder so we can start entering some names and dates from our readings here and there.

I will continue to write out selections from our readings or poetry in Sam's binder for his copywork. His handwriting improved tremendously last year doing copywork and I'm looking forward to seeing how this year goes!

We will listen to a different hymn and folk song each month. Everybody really loved the folk songs especially last year. We don't do anything special with this, just listen. Sometimes some of them like to dance while they listen, sometimes we just sit quietly and listen, sometimes we listen while doing other work, sometimes while eating. The folk songs are pretty easy to pick up over the course of the month, so we're usually singing along eventually!

AO provides a scheduled composer study similar to the art study. We study 6 pieces by 1 composer each term, 2 weeks per piece. I usually read the composer's bio and we just listen at some point during our day. If I can find a video on YouTube of the piece actually being played we definitely watch that!

Handicrafts is another area I felt we needed to beef up this year. Finger knitting and soap carving are 2 high on our list this year. We'll also be trying our hands at paper sloyd using this free e-book. Sam is mostly excited to learn to fold paper into an envelope.

We have a geography reading once a week and we'll also be working on filling in several blank maps I've printed.

For piano we're going to be doing free online lessons with Hoffman Academy. We don't have a piano so the frequency of this will depend on how often we can use my parents' piano or if we get our own piano (or, more likely, keyboard). Just Sam will be learning to play piano, but everybody will be doing some singing lessons following the Children of the Open Air channel on YouTube.

For drawing I'll be getting Sam another Dover drawing book. He really loved the one he used last year. His drawing skills improved a ton and it absolutely helped his handwriting as well. I also want him to start some brush drawing instruction. YouTube has some great tutorials.

Drill is new for us this year. Charlotte Mason used Swedish Drill in her schools for both phys. ed. and cultivating the habit of attention. It's basically more structured Simon Says using movements that improve gross motor skills. It looks so fun. This blog has been really helpful figuring it all out!

Reading over everything I've just typed makes me realize this probably comes off as looking like a lot of work and very overwhelming! I feel like now is a good time to drop the reminder that Charlotte Mason advocated for nice, short lessons at this stage. This curriculum is very rich and full, but it isn't time consuming!

I take the term schedules from the Ambleside site and put them into my own, weekly schedules. I tweaked the template I used last year a bit.

Before starting a new term I sit down with this and input the readings for each week, as well as the scheduled hymn, folk song, art study, etc. and print the whole term (so, 12 weeks) to keep in my binder.

So that's Sam! Like I said earlier, Kate won't really being doing anything formal, but she will end up being a part of so much of Sam's work! I will also be intentionally reading quality books to her and to Henry (using the "year 0" booklist on the Ambleside site, as well as the books in our copy of "Before Five in a Row"), and we'll be starting at the beginning of Discover Reading. She already has a good grasp on a lot of basic math just from life, but I may begin the Horizons K book with her in the spring if she seems to want to.

Bits of our K and preschool "plan". I bought both Kate and Henry their own dry erase board this year. I use one to write important names or details when I'm reading to Sam, to help with his narration, and everybody always fights over it when I'm finished. So now Henry and Kate can scribble away on their own boards and not fight over mine!

All of our school stuff is still kept in what used to be our front coat closet, away from little hands 😉 I still use our 3 tiered rolling cart to hold the books and supplies we use most, but it still isn't safe for it to be left out although now that's less because of Henry and more because of Anna! 

The white shelf holds some free reads, nature journals, field guides, and some little art kits.

Construction paper in the front magazine holder, easily accessible for whenever anybody wants to draw a picture. Behind the nature treasures box is a crate holding paints and colored pencils, another crate with the zippered pouches that have little fine motor games for my preschoolers, and then coloring and sticker books. Above that are reference books, books for future school years, our binders, and the drawers have index cards, stickers, brads, staples, etc. The shelf above that has my two bins for sensory activities. One bin of tools (tongs, scoops, cups, etc) and one bin of materials (beans, pom poms, popsicle sticks, beads, etc)

Math manipulatives on the bottom, all of our books currently being used in the middle, mishmash of frequently used supplies on top.

Flash cards, early readers, glue, scissors, writing utensils. I keep things in jars so I can easily just grab a jar and take it to the desk with me.

This is in our dining room. In the basket to the right I keep my Bible, our kids devotional, and poetry books since that's all reading that we do during breakfast. I'll put our scripture memory box here when it is finished as well.

And that's our plan! Of course it will evolve and shift a lot over the coming months, but I feel confident that the bones of it will work great for us and will stay as is. I feel so incredibly blessed to be able to do this. It is a privilege to get to stay home with my kids and do this, a privilege that I am very grateful for!

How We Homeschool Preschool

As a homeschooler, I answer a lot of questions from friends, family, acquaintances, and even strangers in the grocery store. It's different than what most people are used to so there is naturally a lot of curiosity. And I love it. I love answering each and every question I'm asked. No matter who is asking or how many times I've answered the same question. I just love it. So, if you're somebody who has always had a question (or several) about homeschooling, ask me. I would be so happy to answer!

One question I get more often than most others, and this is probably just because this is sort of just my demographic right now, is, "How do you homeschool preschool?". Or, "What do you do with toddlers for school?". My answer has really evolved since Sam was 3 years old and I first started "homeschooling". Life has changed since then, but also my general homeschooling philosophy has changed a ton. It has happened bit by bit as I figured out what worked best for us, but it made a huge shift in the middle of last year when I was newly pregnant with Anna, feeling miserable, and way burnt out only doing Kindergarten. You can read more about that here, but basically I discovered and started researching a few styles of teaching that advocated for no formal learning before age 6. Already feeling stressed about mixing a 1st grade and pre-k year while also bringing home another baby, I took that and ran with it.

So, the short answer to, "How do you homsechool preschool?" is simply, "We don't." There are, however, plenty of things that I do intentionally do for the good of all my children really that could probably, for lack of a better term, be called our preschool "curriculum".

Quality children's literature.
We own tons of kids picture books and also try to get to the library at least once a month. Since discovering Charlotte Mason, I'm more careful about the quality of the books that we buy or check out of the library. I've heard other Charlotte Mason homeschoolers compare books to junk food or healthy food. Junk is fine in moderation, as long as you're maintaining a healthy diet otherwise. For our "healthy" books I look for beautiful illustrations, and good vocabulary. If I've learned nothing else from doing Charlotte Mason homeschooling this year, it's that children are far more capable of understanding a much wider vocabulary than we give them credit for. You can't go wrong with classics from authors like Robert McCloskey, Eric Carle, Jan Brett, and Ezra Jack Keats.

Outside time.
Some days this is harder than others, but we do our best. Sam and Kate are old enough at 6 and 4 to go out in the backyard by themselves, as long as they stay where I can easily see them out the back windows and stay out of the cornfields and front yard (we live on a back road, which means there are plenty of people who go flying by, well over the speed limit, so no front yard playing for us). That makes it easier because I can't always be outside, but I do make an effort to get Henry and Anna out there as much as I can too. Walks outside are good for everybody and provide endless learning opportunities for preschoolers (and everybody else!) We have nature journals and some field guides, and Sam does a little bit more of a structured nature study, but for preschool Kate is just exploring and I answer her questions if she has any.

Cooking and baking.
Again, endless learning opportunities without having to do anything special at all. I don't make baking a "lesson" at all, everybody just pulls a chair up to the counter and takes turns adding ingredients. They end up learning to count, seeing kind of how fractions work, learning what sorts of things need to work together to make food, what happens to certain things when they get hot or cold (like how water can boil and turn to steam or it can freeze and turn to ice). I have to cook anyway, why not let them help and learn without actually doing any planning or lessons right?

Music.
Our first grade curriculum includes monthly folk songs and hymns as well as composer studies. The little ones listen along to those and I also play a variety of music all throughout our days. Again, no lesson planning, but sometimes Kate has questions and I answer them. "This sounds different than the other one, why?" "Well the last one was a string quartet and this one is a piano solo." "What does quartet mean?" "4" "Okay." Just by playing a ton of music every day (a habit I started back when Sam was a toddler) I've noticed that Kate has a really good ear for music and picks up the emotions in different pieces. When she was 2 I was playing Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet and she said, "Mama, dis so sad." Sam is more likely to notice the volume of a particular piece and likes to pick out different instruments. Henry is already really good at catching the rhythm of whatever we're listening to and clapping or dancing fairly close to on beat. I love seeing all of the different ways they all hear and react to music! We also sing a lot of your usual preschool songs (and everybody really loves the 'days of the week' song!), but, in keeping with Charlotte Mason's philosophy, we really focus on quality! I think music is so important in any school at any age, but besides that, its very helpful at 'that' time of day before dinner and bedtime. I can have a little control over everybody's moods (mine included!) with the music I choose to play.

Art.
Sam has a scheduled picture study and Kate and Henry both like to look at whatever he's studying with him and play along when I cover it up and ask him to tell me what he remembers from it, but I don't make them. Sometimes they're not interested and obviously that's fine, since it's 1st grade work. I also don't plan or prep many crafts ahead of time for them. Drawing materials are always available and everybody is encouraged to use them. No formal drawing instruction or anything though. That, again, will start in first grade. Kate taught herself to draw flowers recently though copying out of a book about flowers that we have. I'm getting ready to teach Sam how to finger knit and I know that's something a 4 year old can easily do as well, so that will be a lesson where I will intentionally include Kate. Other handicrafts Sam has done, like yarn wrapped sticks and watercolors, Kate participates in if she wants to. She has her own pair of scissors that she is allowed to get out of the closet if she asks first, but I don't do planned "scissor skill" work or anything like that. Same with glue sticks, they're available (if they ask permission first) and they can glue whatever kind of creation they want to. So those are skills Kate has picked up on her own.

Life skills.
I think at the preschool age, it's just as important to teach life skills as it is to teach the alphabet. Sweeping, sink cleaning, vegetable and fruit washing, bed making, sock matching, drink pouring, snack making, and all things of that nature. This is all a little more in line with Maria Montessori than Charlotte Mason, although Ms. Mason was also an advocate for small children being able to do things for themselves. We don't do these things as lessons, I just make sure Kate learns the correct way to do them when they come up in life. Making her bed and cleaning the downstairs bathroom sink are her morning chores and she's getting pretty good at folding her extra blankets to lay at the foot of her bed!


In addition to all of these things that just happen in our daily life, I do have a few things put together that I can grab when Kate or Henry just have to do schoolwork like Sam. Or just when I need to occupy Henry long enough and quietly enough to get something accomplished with Sam. I have a bin of various beads, stones, beans, pom poms, pipe cleaners, etc and also a bin of little tongs, scoops, bowls, and cups. They can string beads on pipe cleaners, sort pom poms (or beads or beans or coins) by color or number into bowls or a muffin tin, pick up little things from one bowl with tongs and transfer them to another, all sorts of different little activities working their fine motor skills and keeping them fairly quiet. I cut up a bunch of cardboard rectangles and used glitter glue to write out the alphabet on them. They're fun (and pretty!) to play with and running their fingers over the bumpy, glittery letters is a pre-writing activity. Last year Kate had some matching games with laminated strips of paper and clothespins, but we haven't really gotten those out much this year. When Kate really wants to do school, we can do a ton with just one alphabet puzzle. She sings the ABCs, counts the letters, sorts them by color, traces them all with her finger, whatever she wants to do that satisfies her need to 'do school' that day. She also has a binder with laminated worksheets that she can work on with a dry erase marker, but we haven't used it in a couple months.

Something Charlotte Mason talks about a lot when she's discussing the 'early years' in her books is habit training. In most Charlotte Mason circles, when anybody asks what to do with the under 6 crowd, habit training, good books, and outside time are the top 3 answers. Habit training like attentiveness, obedience, orderliness, things you want your kids to know anyway, but you are just a little more intentional with it. For the habit of obedience we play red light green light or simon says. There are lots of ways to work on these habits through play (or schoolwork with older kids) and then they carry over into regular life as well.

So if the short answer to, "How do you homeschool preschool?" is, "We don't." the long answer would probably be that we don't really plan anything structured, but we make sure that the tools for good preschool learning are readily available. In addition to all of the things I've already talked about, we try to keep our playroom pretty 'open ended' (meaning little to no battery operated stuff) and our screen time minimal. I like to think that I'm giving Kate the tools to learn everything a preschooler should really be expected to know, and then letting her decide how and when to use them.

Every child learns differently. What works for one might not work at all for another, but this hands off approach can easily be tailored to different needs. Kate is not an especially self motivated learner. A big reason that we did attempt a more structured preschool with Sam was that he wanted to know all of the things and he wanted to know them immediately. I can see now though that he learned more and better when we stepped back from the structure and let him have more free reign. Even not being a very self motivated learned Kate has, in her own time, learned so much so far this school year. I was so nervous to be so hands off with her because she does tend to need more direction, but oh my goodness. She's flourishing! She is surprising me every day with things she is suddenly aware of and able to do. She learns at a very different pace than Sam, and different things click more easily for her than for him, but she's getting it all. Giving her the tools and the space to explore is giving her everything she needs. Today, for the first time, she got a piece of paper and copied the whole alphabet from our puzzle while I was doing a history reading with Sam. I was so proud and so relieved! It's hard to let go of your kids sometimes and let them figure things out on their own. That applies to schoolwork and a whole list of other things that I'm sure we're only in the extreme early stages of experiencing!

Preschoolers are amazing. And they are capable of so much more than we often give them credit for. They just need the space to do it!

I hope this post has answered some questions that I know many people have about homeschooling little ones and, like I said in the beginning of this post, I love homeschooling questions so please friends, never hesitate to ask!

Homeschooling Looks Like...

Sometimes homeschooling looks like little heads bent over papers at the dining room table. Writing, drawing, scribbling.

Sometimes homeschooling looks like reading a history book all snuggled up on the couch.

Sometimes homeschooling looks like bringing the mini globe out during lunch to help answer questions about continents and oceans.

Sometimes homeschooling looks like drawing in nature journals before breakfast, still in pjs, because there was a perfect spider's web just outside the window.

Sometimes homeschooling looks like practicing counting and simple addition with chocolate chips while making cookies.

Sometimes homeschooling looks like taking the books outside because the weather is too nice to stay in.

Sometimes homeschooling looks like a day at the museum.

Sometimes homeschooling looks like doing a lot of chores.

Sometimes homeschooling looks like practicing blending letter sounds using the signs in the produce section in the grocery store.

Sometimes homeschooling looks like frustration and irritation all morning.

Sometimes homeschooling looks like apologizing in the afternoon.

Sometimes homeschooling looks like setting your phone alarm for 15 minutes so you can close your eyes and try to recharge.

Sometimes homeschooling looks like questioning everything.

Sometimes homeschooling looks like worrying that you're failing them.

Sometimes homeschooling looks like throwing out a curriculum in the middle of the year and trying something different.

Sometimes homeschooling looks like giving up after breakfast and watching movies in your pajamas instead.

Sometimes homeschooling looks like saying, "No." to the field trips and get togethers so you can spend a few days at home with a little structure and sit down work.

Sometimes homeschooling looks like saying, "Yes!" to the field trips and get togethers and remembering that sit down work isn't the only way to learn.

Sometimes homeschooling looks like begging God for patience.

Sometimes homeschooling looks like asking God if you've made a mistake.

Sometimes homeschooling looks like praising God for this opportunity.

Sometimes homeschooling looks like realizing that the beauty of the whole thing is knowing that it can and will look different almost every single day.

Flexibility and Our Ever-Evolving School Plans

One of my favorite things about homeschooling is how flexible it is. As someone who really loves her routines, schedules, planners, etc, that actually might be a little surprising. It can be hard for me (really hard) to fly by the seat of my pants and go with the flow, if I'm being perfectly honest, and still it's the ability to do just that with our school days that I love so much. I love to sit down on Sunday afternoons and fill in my planner with our week's plans, but I appreciate that if everybody wakes up with grumpy attitudes we can scrap the whole thing and go play in the rain instead.

Around Christmas this year, I started to feel the itch to change things up with our homeschooling. Our school year was going really well. Sam was learning a ton, and I was able to keep Kate and Henry (mostly) occupied with purposeful activities. It didn't really feel like anything was lacking necessarily, but I just felt a tug to explore our options a little bit. I felt like we were only scratching the surface. During what I like to call "Pinterest Week" (the week between Christmas and New Years when I spend all of my downtime scouring Pinterest for all of the ways I'm going to completely change our lives for the better in the new year) I really dove into finding some new and different ideas for us. Everything I typed into the Pinterest search, "minimalist homeschooling", "laid back homeschooling", "literature based homeschooling", "nature based homeschooling", was bringing up results for the Waldorf, Montessori, and Charlotte Mason models of learning. I kept coming across the same thing, particularly for Waldorf and Charlotte Mason, "No formal learning until age 6". All of the millions of pins I scrolled through, all of the new pin boards I created, all of the ideas I was starting to semi-pull together, and that's what was standing out most to me. No formal learning until age 6. It just made sense to me. I just kept reading, "Take your kids outside every single day, read them quality literature, give them free reign to create." This was what I had been looking for. This is what I really felt my kids were looking for. As much as Sam truly enjoys the sit down work you automatically think of when you think "school", I could see how quickly he could get burnt out if we didn't ease back a little bit for now. I decided to keep going with his language arts and math programs because he was doing so well, but I wasn't going to structure them quite as much. We'd do them when he asked, or if we were having a particularly quiet day, but other than that I wasn't going to stress about getting through the whole math book, or halfway through the language arts book, by springtime like I had originally planned. I put together a pile of books I wanted to read aloud to everybody, and we rearranged all of our school and craft supplies to make paper, crayons, markers, glue, and scissors easily accessible (to the big kids anyway 😋). I was getting really excited for all of the holiday buzz to be over so we could settle into a new, more laid back routine. A big motivator for all of this was the fact that we had just found out we were expecting baby #4 in the summer and I was starting to feel all of my usual 1st trimester symptoms starting to creep in.

So the new year rolled around, and so did morning sickness. I typically experience terrible, all-day nausea and this time around was no different. On top of that, we all started passing around various illnesses and, for a large portion of the winter, it felt like at least one person was always sick. I was incredibly grateful during this time to have already decided on an easier school plan for us. Most days, Sam and Kate would quietly go to the craft/school closet (what used to be our front coat closet) when they woke up, and would draw and create various masterpieces while I nursed Henry and ate enough saltines to be able to get out of bed without dry heaving (isn't pregnancy glamorous?) Later on in the morning we'd all get on the couch together and I'd read from a few different books (their favorite was Little House in the Big Woods!) until I got too dizzy and needed a break. On really cold days we'd take blankets in the playroom and everybody would sit in their own sunspot while I read. Sometimes Sam would really want to do his math and/or language arts, so we'd sit down to do that somewhere. In the earliest days of my pregnancy, we'd do his work on the couch, or on the floor of the playroom. As we crept closer to spring and I started feeling marginally better, we moved back to the dining room table. Henry and Kate were becoming less and less likely to play on their own while Sam did his sit down work, so I'd get out some math manipulatives for them to sort and stack, or give them pencils (they refused anything but a pencil when they knew it was "school time") and paper to "write" on as they wished. Kate, for the first time, expressed to me that she wanted to learn how to write her name, so I started giving her some tracing pages to do on days she asked for them. She still isn't writing her name on her own, but she does recognize all of the letters in it now and is starting to be able to form some pre-writing type shapes on her own. It's been really cool to completely let go of the reigns as far as teaching her anything really, and watch how she picks things up on her own.

As you can see from these pictures, much of our winter was spent wearing pajamas 😉

Even more important to me than any of our reading, or sporadic sit down schoolwork, was giving Sam much more freedom to create, as well as a lot more "alone" time. I had been noticing he was starting to get frustrated more often when playing with Henry and Kate. He had gotten a Lego table for Christmas, as well as Tinkertoys and K'nex to add to his growing Lego collection, and we were keeping all of that upstairs in his and Kate's bedroom, away from Henry's fingers (and mouth). At that point, Kate was having quiet time up in their room, and Sam was staying down in the playroom while Henry napped, but I decided to switch that and give Sam some quiet time upstairs with his building sets, while Kate played with a select few toys on her own in the playroom, with the doors shut. This didn't seem like a "school related" decision initially, but it ended up being one. Sam started spending more than just his afternoon quiet time upstairs creating and building and I could clearly see how it was helping him learn and grow. He went from needing help following Lego instructions, and only building a couple little things here and there without having instructions to follow, to being able to build whole Lego sets himself without any help at all and bringing down increasingly complex and creative designs of his own to show me. 

As we got closer to the end of winter, I started feeling better, the kids stopped passing around various viruses, and I slowly started doing less and less actual sit down work with the kids and let them just do their own thing. Drawing, crafting (I didn't do anymore structured crafts with them, but they made up their own), cooking, helping with chores, spending more time outside, looking through books on their own or with me. We had watched a lot of tv and movies while everybody was sick, but I stopped using screen time except for maybe an hour 2 or 3 times a week. Besides seeing a drastic improvement in everybody's overall behavior and attitudes without any tv, I saw an increase in the creativity of their playtime. 

So what does all of this look like going forward? Sam turned 6 this June and, with a baby coming the end of August, I'm going to want to start his 1st grade year at the end of July/very beginning of August. All throughout the spring I've been reading more and more about Charlotte Mason and her education philosophy. For the first time since I started this homeschooling journey I feel like I've found something that fits. All of our school plans for next year will be detailed in a different blog post once I actually have them all finalized, but we will be following a full Charlotte Mason "curriculum" and incorporating her philosophies in our day to day life. To sum up, Ms. Mason believed that children are capable of much more than we give them credit for, that quality literature and living books should be the basis of every education, that young students shouldn't be spending more than 15-20 minutes on one subject, that young students should be able to complete all of their day's work by lunchtime, and that all children should spend hours out doors every single day. Nature journaling is a huge part of a Charlotte Mason education. Kate won't be doing any formal work until she's 6, but she'll start a nature journal alongside Sam this year. I'm really excited to see what they chose to study and draw! Like I said, I'll write a new post when I have everything together for this year, but I've started collecting the books we are going to need and I am so excited to start digging into these together!

Our school year changed so much over the course of this year, and there were plenty of days where I felt incredibly guilty for not doing "enough", but looking back now I can see that all of the kids learned so much and that all of the changes worked out for the best for the whole family! I am so looking forward to what this upcoming school year is going to bring!

They all changed so much this year!!