First Year of Homeschool Recap
I can’t express how nervous I was about the potential of homeschooling Reaghan this year. When we lived in Texas I thought homeschooling was probably a high possibility, but then I knew of several quality options for part-time school and part-time homeschool. I also knew lots of mom’s who were planning to homeschool or already doing so! So I didn’t feel alone in that venture. Then we moved to Massachusetts and that all seemed to change. I only knew one other homeschool family, but their kids were much older, and it honestly seemed impossible that I could do it alone without any kind of community to encourage me in this brand new endeavor. Not only that, but I was very much convinced I could not do “real school” with my Kindergartener with a rambunctious 3 year old boy bouncing around. I really thought it was going to be a fight every day to get them to focus and cooperate! I was sooo wrong, and God has provided and shown me that if I trust and obey His will, He will provide what I need to accomplish the task.
Making the Decision
Last Winter/Spring, I started really digging into ALL the options… I didn’t want to just default into homeschooling, I wanted to look at all the options and purposefully make whatever decision we thought would be best for us. As Jordan and I processed the whole “what are we going to do about Kindergarten” question - we came back to 3 questions that acted as a filter for our decision making:
Is it good for Reaghan? Will this be a rich, meaningful, loving environment for her to learn and grow?
Is it good for our family? Will going this route take an unnecessary toll on our family unit or be a blessing to our family?
Is it good for our city? Will we do good for our city by going this route?
We basically had 3 choices for Kindergarten in our city — at home, charter school or public school. Private wasn’t really an option because of finances, plus we weren’t very impressed by the options in our city that we did know about, so we just set that option to the side.
Find first and last day of school signs here
Public - we live right next to an elementary school, but funny enough the way our city works, since the public schools are struggling so much, they allow parents to choose whatever school they want to send their kids to in the whole city - it’s not slated based on where you live. But I figured, if we are only a 5 minute walk from this elementary, we should take a serious look at it, since it would be a wonderful avenue for ministering to families in our neighborhood.
I toured the school and fell in love with the principal. We live in a lower income area, so the school itself was fairly run down and I could tell from waiting in the office for a bit that they were having some issues with kiddos attendance, etc., but I had a wonderful long conversation with the principal and could really tell that this school was a community. The kids seemed to love their teachers and classrooms, and took pride in their accomplishments. One of my main questions was how I could get involved if Reaghan attended. Parental involvement is really low in New Bedford schools, so the principal said that I could volunteer even if we did end up homeschooling. I was encouraged by our visit.
Enrolling Reaghan in this school was definitely on the table until we found Classical Conversations (more on that in a minute). But, in the end we decided not to go with it for her Kindergarten year. The reason it appealed to us so much was the ministry opportunities that could come with it. So in answering the question, “is it good for our city?” the answer seemed to be yes. Having a child enrolled in the school means you’re rubbing elbows with other parents and volunteering. We loved the idea of building relationships with families in our community. However, I wasn’t completely sold on the educational model and if this was “good for Reaghan.”
You hear all the time that choosing public school as a Christian is like sending little missionaries out into the world. This thinking didn’t make sense to us — for our kids ages — as we asked ourselves: “how is a 5-6 year old going to be a missionary?” I think it’s probably very rare for such young children to have a well established enough faith to be able to withstand a worldy environment for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. As much as we don’t want to admit it, they are influenced by that. We never want to put our kids in school for ministry alone, but want to make sure that especially at such young and impressionable ages, they are influenced in a way that solidifies the foundation of their (growing) faith. These years are extremely formative, and we kept feeling a deeper and deeper pull toward “greenhouse discipleship” for our kids…..utilizing these years at home, particularly the year before middle/high school age, to form, shape and mold their characters, world view, and understanding of the Gospel.
One podcast that confirmed our feelings on this was Dad Tired: Does Jesus Care about your Child’s Education? PART 1, PART 2
However, I felt so strongly that Everett would “be in our way” during school and would make school at home nearly impossible, that we decided to enroll him in the preschool attached to the public elementary. It would have been for 2 hours, 4 days a week, so we felt good about that. God had other plans though, and after a couple of months of trying to get him admitted without success, it became abundantly clear that he was not supposed to be there. I went from being so nervous about him being at home with us, to having complete peace about it! And guess what? He never caused an issue in our school time. I look back and wonder why I was so afraid and why I judged him so much. I think fear can definitely make us more judgmental, of ourselves and our children. I am soooo glad God knew better than I did. Having him be a part of our school days has been a JOY, and he has learned so much from just absorbing what he has heard!
Charter - There are several charter schools in our area that are “better” educationally than the public options, and use a lottery system to enroll children. I had heard some mixed reviews about them so I wanted to see for myself what the school was all about. I toured one of the main charter schools in our area. A couple of red flags stood out to me — first, it was evident that the youngest of their students were being taught things not appropriate for their ages, and secondly, the school day was SO long, from 7:30-4:30 every day, and thirdly, they were super focused on college admissions for the kids, which just left me with the wrong feeling. The more I thought about the college-centric model, the more I didn’t want that to be the goal of education for my kids. If my kids want to further their education with college, I think they should, but I want them to pursue knowledge, wisdom and understanding because it brings life and joy and helps them honor God and make Him known, not so they can be admitted to a University. I had also attended some public school forums in my neighborhood that convinced me pretty quickly that Charter schools were not doing good for our city as a whole, and specifically the public school system. I didn’t want to be a part of something that was not “doing good” for our city. This was a pretty quick “no” for these reasons.
Homeschool - Even though I was sort of leaning towards homeschooling after my visits to the public and charter schools, I still didn’t believe I could do it. Not only that, but I didn’t know WHAT I would do even if I felt confident that I could. What curriculum to choose? Where would I find a homeschooling community? What support would I have….or would I be doing this all alone?
A couple weeks later I saw a local friend post about an info meeting for Classical Conversations (CC). I had heard of CC before from some older women who had homeschooled their kids for many years, whom I trusted. I decided to look into it and attend the online info meeting. Even though I was pretty confused about a lot of things, the way the woman presenting explained the model for education just lit my heart on fire. I explained everything to Jordan immediately after the meeting and we both agreed this was exactly how we wanted to educate our kids. We never knew it’s what we were looking for until we heard about it, and then everything just seemed to click!
Good for Reaghan - we knew she’d be getting the best education for this year, be encouraged to explore her faith deeper, and given rich and meaningful ideas to explore.
Good for family - Classical education is a family affair….it’s more of a way of thinking that permeates the conversations of the home. CC has honestly made our critical thinking skills sharper and our family conversations deeper. Plus on a practical note, it’s been simple to implement into our schedule without it taking over.
Good for our city - While homeschooling is not common where we live and people definitely wonder why my daughter is not “at school” during the day, we felt we could be a witness to others in our decision and with the schedule freedom we would have.
In the end, as we looked at all the options, Jordan and I kept coming back to the fact that we wanted to be the ones to disciple and educate our kids at their young ages. Who knows what will happen in the future, but my husband in particular, has always had a strong conviction that kiddos do their best when they have the direct influence of their mama from birth to around 2nd grade….and even beyond that! Obviously this is not going to be possible for every family, but since it was a possibility for us, we felt like we needed to be obedient to this conviction.
I think it’s wise to not take an all or nothing approach to our children’s education. I get asked a lot if I will always homeschool. I kind of chuckle at that, because, I don’t know if I will always do anything! I have learned over and over in my life that we can make plans, and then God can rearrange them or blow them completely out of the water all together. So, I am keeping an open hand with my children’s education. I’ve heard this sentiment many times and Jordan and I have taken the same stance — “each child, each year.” We will always try to intentionally think through what would be best for each individual child, for each year of their schooling, and keep filtering through those questions above.
The Classical Model of Education
“Classical education depends on a three-part process of training the mind. The early years of school are spent in absorbing facts, systematically laying the foundations for advanced study. In the middle grades, students learn to think through arguments. In the high school years, they learn to express themselves. This classical pattern is called the trivium.
The first years of schooling are called the “grammar stage” — not because you spend four years doing English, but because these are the years in which the building blocks for all other learning are laid, just as grammar is the foundation for language. In the elementary school years — what we commonly think of as grades one through four — the mind is ready to absorb information. Children at this age actually find memorization fun. So during this period, education involves not self-expression and self-discovery, but rather the learning of facts. Rules of phonics and spelling, rules of grammar, poems, the vocabulary of foreign languages, the stories of history and literature, descriptions of plants and animals and the human body, the facts of mathematics — the list goes on. This information makes up the “grammar,” or the basic building blocks, for the second stage of education.” - Susan Wise Bauer, Source (I highly recommend you read this whole article if you want to learn more about Classical education)
Essentially, what Reaghan learned this year, are the “pegs” of information in which she will be able to “hang” deeper meaning on in the future. The idea is that she will “meet” these facts and ideas later in life, and when she does, she will already be familiar with the basics and be better equipped to dive deeper into the study of that idea, ask deeper questions and discover how all these facts she has memorized fit together in a larger context.
Another big difference in the Classical model is that all subjects are connected, and all subjects point back to God. The way most of us grew up in school was, you go to science class and have a science teacher, then you go to math, then history…..and there’s no integration of the subjects. God is also not a part of the equation. Even when I went to Catholic school, God was reserved for theology class, maybe touched on during Science, but otherwise not incorporated. But we know that math deeply informs certain kinds of art, or that we can see math in nature when we look at bees, shells, or migration patterns. We see the connection between science, geography and history….and so on. These “subjects” all relate to one another and are God focused because He created them!
In public education, student is at the center of education, and all subjects stand independently
In private Christian education, student is still the center, and the Bible is added on as an additional subject
In Classical, God is at the center and each subject is integrated, and also points to the glory of God
“As the students observe how God has woven a thread through creation, history, art, grammar, science, language, etc., the natural response is to exalt him as the maker of all things. God becomes the exalted one, not the students.” Source
Curriculums used
At the start of the school year Reaghan was 5 and Everett was 3. It’s crazyyyyy to see how drastically they both have changed from then to now! I feel so grateful that we found a curriculum we loved so quickly. I know so many mom’s who create their own from many different companies, but this stressed me out a lot, ha! I had seen the Good and the Beautiful products online for many years, and at first wrote them off because their founder is LDS. But as I took a deeper look into the company and the curriculums they offer, and talked to some trusted friends who had used their products, I felt more comfortable. I get this question fairly often, and I think it’s a matter of conscience, but for us, we have seen zero theological disparities inside the curriculum. The curriculum acknowledges the existence of God and that He is the creator of all things, as well as puts an emphasis on “high moral character” but does not go beyond that. To me, theology should be left to us as parents as we guide our kids through scripture…not coming from a curriculum. I personally love that it acknowledges God but doesn’t go much beyond that. All in all, we ADORE this curriculum. It’s so beautiful, engaging, comprehensive, open and go, takes no planning on my part, and comes with everything you need (with the exception of a few supplies you probably already have on hand).
What we used this year:
The Good and the Beautiful Math K
The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts Level K Primer and Level K
Classical Conversations (once a week Community Day and memorizing new facts throughout the week)
Other resources we used but are not a set “curriculum”:
Happy Hymnody - we so enjoyed learning new hymns every month together!
ESV Bible - we read some of John and used the Kids cards from Risen Motherhood as a guide
Nature Journaling - we use this journal (perfect for beginners!)
Youtube - some favorite channels for digging deeper into facts learned at CC were:
Deep Space Sparkle (art)
PBS.org Curious Crew Show (science)
Library books and reading aloud
OUR ROUTINE
Our weekly routine included formal lessons on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and sometimes Friday. Most Fridays we would do our math and language arts, but would skip the other stuff and often we’d also just run errands and go outside to play. On Wednesdays we had our CC Community Days which was a full 3 hours in the morning of lessons plus about an hour and a half of driving, so that took care of our lessons for the day. On a daily basis we followed this general schedule:
Breakfast - Bible memory review (CC directed) and brief Bible reading + journaling
After breakfast, we took about an hour to get dressed, do some chores, get our day going
9-9:30 am - formal lessons
hymn practice and Bible reading if we didn’t get to it at breakfast
CC memory work review (but I’ll be honest, we did a lot of this in the car rather than during the day at home with their CD’s!)
Math
Language Arts
Read Aloud
After their quiet time in the afternoon during the winter we love to have tea times. I focused this time on character training with readings from The Children’s Book of Virtues
If you’d like to see a day in the life from this past year, I have one saved on Instagram here and what CC Community Day looks like here
Incorporating the Church Calendar
Some of you may know that we do follow the church calendar to the best of our ability, though there’s much we could grow in, in this area! I am also big on holidays and traditions…so I have incorporated different fun crafts and learning experiences based on the time of year, month or holiday. This is most reflected in the books we’re reading to the kids. We have followed the Read Aloud Revival monthly book list for the past few years and have enjoyed it. Our library books most definitely have a theme depending on the month and aim at teaching and providing beauty for the kids during each season. The only season I added a more pronounced teaching element to this past year was Advent. We actually did “Christmas school” using the Peaceful Press unit and it was super fun.
Favorite items used
Colored pencils, crayons, markers and an organizer to hold them all (like this)
IKEA cart (this is where we housed all our materials + curriculums and just pulled the cart out of the closet when doing lessons)
pencil sharpener (our favorite)
small mason jars or pop top glass jars for organizing manipulatives
file folder organizers - this is where all our curriculum workbooks were stored, we also used them to store themed books in our closet
glue and glue sticks
magic eraser (BEST way to erase dry erase boards and laminated tracing sheets)
index cards
post it notes
A lot of “extras” came with our curriculum which made it easy and I didn’t have to buy these items separate, but you might also benefit from:
a world map
readers such as BOB books or Dash into Learning
I’m sure there are more but we kept things REALLY simple! The tools that can be added to homeschooling are just that — tools — use them if you need them, but don’t spend buckets of money on things that will sit on a shelf for most of the year!
Favorite items that kept Everett busy during school:
Dry erase preschool books (we love Usborne ones!)
journal for drawing
books to look at
tot school worksheets with matching, cutting practice, letter tracing
busy bags with matching games, sticking straws in an old yogurt container, pom poms, matching toys with color blocks, etc.
quietly playing with toys beside us (of course with lots of reminders to actually stay quiet, haha)
What’s been the biggest challenge?
This might sound trite or get some eye rolls, but as I've been sitting here thinking about the year and what challenges came up, I’m realizing that there wasn’t much that I look back on and consider a “challenge.” I think this might have been because I put SO much thought into it before we began, and I have SO many fears before we started as well! I went into it very humbly and slowly. I didn’t share much of our process on social media because for the first few months of schooling, I had my head down trying to stay consistent and develop a routine we could all stick to. I guess that was probably the biggest challenge — the initial changing of our schedule. But as you probably know, kids are pretty adaptable and I found that within a coupe of weeks they were used to their new routine and it wasn’t something I had to continue to regulate.
The biggest challenge I truly faced was before we started officially homeschooling. I had to get over my fears and give a lot over to God. I really did not think we would be able to do it with Everett at home, but God provided a way for that and made it much more enjoyable than I ever could have imagined with him home. I honestly cannot believe that we did it. I thought I would get bored or lose my motivation and give up quickly, but thankfully I never did. God just provided the most sweet first year for us in homeschooling. We ALL grew from it, and I feel like I got a front row seat to the amazing changes and connections that both kids, but mainly Reaghan, made this year. I am ending our first year with so much gratitude.
Homeschool laws
I am honestly lacking is knowledge of this area. Each state is different and also each school district is different. We happen to live in a state with a lot of regulations, but I’ve also heard it’s a fairly simple process. Massachusetts law says that a child does not have to register with the state for school until they are 6 years old at the start of the school year. That means that this fall will be the first time we “claim” Reaghan with the state and have to keep track of our hours, etc. I plan to use a basic planner to write down what we do each day and keep a record of attendance. I haven’t done this yet but need to this summer!
Summer Plans
Our plan for the summer is to continue with our Language Arts. It is so quick and Reaghan and I are both loving it. She is making so much progress with reading that it seems kind of pointless to stop now…..so we will keep going with it! We will also of course keep reading aloud. For me, the summer is a time to rest, prepare and get creative about plans for the fall. I have a list of books I’d like to read in preparation for next year, and I am still figuring out all of the curriculums we will use for the fall. Last summer I read Teaching from Rest, some of The Well Trained Mind, and A Thomas Jefferson Education. I loved them all! I have some ideas for reading material this summer but haven’t landed on them completely. I will also be reviewing our next CC cycle to prepare a bit in advance for topics we want to dive deeper into, field trips that might be enjoyable and helpful, and books we want to read! But for the most part, New England summer’s cannot be spent indoors, so you will find us out in nature and playing at the beach a lot!
Our Plan for the Fall
I had written out some thoughts on next year but truthfully…I am doing some soul searching and haven’t completely figured out what will be best for next year. Our family, local community and myself as a homeschool mom are in a different place now than we were last year, so I will be taking this next month to really research all my options and come up with a plan. I hope to share what we will be doing with you on the blog later this summer!
Well friends, I think that about covers it! I hope that you found this post helpful in your homeschooling journey! I am no expert, just learning as I go, but I have benefited greatly from the practical help of other mama’s so I hope this post has done the same for you! Head over to insta and let me know your thoughts and plans for the fall as well!