This school year, we’re going back to me fully planning the year. My home education ideals fall somewhere between Classical and Charlotte Mason. We’ve fully done both, and find that a mix between the two works best for us. I rely heavily on real books, but we don’t rely heavily on narration.
I wanted to share my plans with you because I know this isn’t something everyone likes to do. I know a lot of homeschool moms aren’t comfortable crafting an entire curriculum, or they don’t have the time or energy to do so. It just isn’t everyone’s “thing”. It is my “thing”, so I figured I’d share it, since I have it.
This year, we’re cycling back to Ancient History, which I am very excited about. We’ll have kids in all Classical stages and all Charlotte Mason forms. Essentially, I’ll have kids from elementary school to high school, so the plans for this year are for all grades. For simplicity’s sake, I’ve broken down the curriculum into four posts: Morning Basket, Grammar Stage, Logic Stage, and Rhetoric Stage.
Stages are not a one size fits all. You may notice the Logic Stage plans are too easy for your 8th grader, and you want to challenge them in certain areas. Go for it. You may think the Rhetoric assignments are too difficult for your 9th grade, bump them down in whatever subjects you choose or all of it. Swap out the books you don’t want for ones you do want. There are plenty of options out there, I’m just sharing with you what we’ll be doing.
You may notice I include some books that pure Charlotte Mason enthusiasts would consider twaddle. I try to include plenty of difficult great books for my kids to consume, but also know that I personally read twaddle from time to time for my own enjoyment. I’m just not opposed to letting kids read “fun” books (we’ll call them that instead of twaddle) to give them a break from the intense mental load of some great books. If you don’t like a book choice of mine, cool, don’t use it.
I’m simply putting this out there for anyone who wants to take a peek. Use it for your own curriculum. Use it for ideas to craft your own curriculum. Use it to look over and see options that exist. I’m just sharing.
Hello
I really have enjoyed exploring your blog. I noticed a few times that you mentioned going to school full time while homeshooling your children. I have 4 children and am considering going back to school, but I am worried about how to homeschool and take classes myself. Can you tell me, or write a post about that experience?
I’ll quickly tell you— but may do a longer post in the future.
I decided to go back to school for a degree. I chose a program with an adult studies format. This means I take one class at a time online for 6 weeks. So, I’m doing 12 classes each year, but only one class at a time. That makes it so much easier to juggle life demands with kid demands.
In terms of homeschooling, I chose a curriculum that was pretty well laid out for us. My older kids are very independent learners. My daily schedule looked like this:
9-10: morning basket with all kids together
10-12:30: older kids work independently and I work with younger kids on school work
12:30-1:30: lunch
1:30-2:30: help older kids as needed
2:30-5:30: school for me while older kids finished work and younger kids had play time. Older kids usually finished each day by 3:30 or so and would then go play with younger kids.
I’d also spend all day Saturday and a few hours on Sundays working on school work. Some weeks for some classes, I’d only need 2 school days and a Saturday to finish all my work. It is all completely doable. I just have had to go into each week knowing exactly what and when I needed to work on. Some classes were easier and required much, much less. I’m currently doubling up my last few classes to finish since I’m having a baby and that has required a lot more of my time. (My husband has been stepping in for me with homeschooling for the next couple months.) Overall, it has been just as doable as going back to school while working. I just have to view homeschool as my “job” and keep very scheduled about what I need to accomplish each week.
I considered operating on a year round calendar for homeschooling and only doing 3 days a week of homeschooling and 2 days a week of school for me. I ultimately decided against it, mainly for the older kids’ sake. The younger kids could have managed those weeks, but it would have been very difficult for the older ones.
I don’t think it would have been possible if I hadn’t gone with a true adult study program with asynchronous classes. I chose Trevecca Nazarene. Most classes required 2-3 “posts” each week, doing a devotion or interacting with the material in a discussion forum format and then 1 paper every other week to every week plus required reading. Of course, every program and every school is going to be different in their weekly requirements— just an idea of the work load each week.
Hope that helps!
LJ
Thank you for your quick response. This is helpful