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Homeschooling

First Day Back to Homeschool using Charlotte Mason Method

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Yesterday I woke up and decided it was time to start our homeschool routine. We are still enjoying our summer but both kids need a little more structure and stimulation. 

Last year during our RV travels we embraced more of an “unschooling” structure to our school year. We had the opportunity to travel to nearly 40 states, visit all kinds of museums and national parks, and the kids learned so much. 

This year, however, we are home on the farm and have chosen to go back to following the Charlotte Mason Method. 

Here’s the video on our first day back to homeschool. Be sure to subscribe to us by CLICKING here. 

Homeschool Resources: 

Are You Thinking of Homeschooling?

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Our Homeschool Routine video for 2018-2019 is here!!!

Sometimes I think I am. Other people think I am. But to be honest y’all….

I, simply, am not willing to wake up at 6am every morning and be on someone else’s schedule. I’m stubborn. I’ve reached that point of no going back. 

Once you have a taste of freedom, you can’t get it out of your system. 

I can’t imagine going through the hustle of early morning routine, making lunches, and having to be home around 3pm to pick the kids up. 

Not only that, but homeschooling IS SO DANG EASY. I must be honest, it took me a good 2-3 years to really discover my own personal style of homeschooling. And, to be completely honest, I still am refining it. 

Last year we did straight unschooling. 

This year we are going to be (a wee tiny bit) more structured and I did order some curriculum. But what I’m learning is, each child of mine is so different and have their own needs and learning style. I can’t make them fit into my own little box and I must give them the freedom to explore their passions. 

Unschooling taught me to trust my kids more and to allow them to dive DEEP into their passions. 

Homeschooling has also given me the freedom to work from home and YouTube our adventures. And to help all of you who are deciding on if you should homeschool or not, or maybe you are just deciding to homeschool this year and you would love to take a sneak peak at my curriculum and routine…well then check out the video below! 

I’ll be sharing more videos on our homeschool routine, so be sure to SUBSCRIBE so you can see when I post them! 

More stuff on homeschooling: 

The Beginner’s Guide to Unschooling

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There’s nothing I get asked about more as a parent than unschooling, and nothing I recommend more to other parents.

It’s an educational philosophy that provides for more freedom than any other learning method, and prepares kids for an uncertain and rapidly changing future better than anything else I know. My wife and I unschool four of our kids, and have been for several years.

And yet, as powerful as I believe unschooling to be, I’ve never written about it, because the truth is, I certainly don’t have all the answers. No one does.

The beauty of unschooling is in the search for the answers. If anyone had all the answers, there would be no search. And so what I’d love to teach unschooling parents and kids is that the search is the joy of it all.

But I’m getting ahead of myself: what is unschooling? Why should you do it? How do you do it? What should you read? We’ll talk about all that today.

What is Unschooling?

First, it’s a form of homeschooling. But there’s no easy answer to that except in comparison to regular schooling. There’s no one way to do unschooling, and people who do it often do it for many different reasons in many different ways.

However, this is how I describe it — in contrast to school:

  • While school has classes with subjects, unschooling doesn’t.
  • While school has goals set by teachers and the school system, the unschooler (the kid) set his or her own goals.
  • While in school, knowledge is handed down from the teacher to the student, in unschooling the student is empowered to learn for himself.
  • While school has specific books or sets of learning materials, unschoolers can learn from anything — books they find, things on the Internet, siblings or parents, the outdoors, museums, people working in interesting fields, anything.
  • While school is structured, unschooling is like jazz. It’s done on the fly, changing as the student changes.
  • While students in school learn to follow instructions, unschoolers learn to think for themselves and make their own decisions.
  • While students in school are asked to learn at pace arbitrarily set by administrators, unschoolers learn at their own pace.
  • While in school, learning happens in the classroom at certain times, in unschooling learning happens all the time, and there is no division between learning and life.

Let me emphasize that for a minute: in unschooling, life itself is learning. There is no “doing school” … you are learning all the time.

Unschoolers learn just like you or I learn as adults: based on what interests them, figuring out how to learn it on their own, changing as they change, using whatever resources and learning materials they find, driven by curiosity and practical application rather than because someone says it’s important.

This is how I learn as a self-employed writer, as an entrepreneur, as a parent. It’s how our children will learn when they’re adults. Why not have them learn like that now?

Why Unschool?

Let’s think about what school is about: preparing kids for jobs (and life) in the future … a future that’s probably a decade or more away. Now think about a decade or more of change: how many of us predicted 13 years ago what life would be like today? Did we know about the economic recession, or the changing job market, or the fact that things like smartphones and iPads and ebook readers would be so widespread? And that’s just the start.

If we can’t predict what our kids’ future will be like, how can we decide today what they should be learning to prepare for that future? We’re preparing them for today’s jobs, not tomorrow’s jobs. School teaches kids a set of facts and skills that they might not need in the future.

Unschooling takes a different approach: kids learn how to learn, how to teach themselves. If you know how to learn and how to teach yourself, then you are prepared for any future. If in the future the things we know are obsolete, then the person who knows how to learn anything will be ready to learn whatever is in use in the future. The person who only knows how to learn from a teacher will need a teacher to teach him.

More reasons to unschool:

  • It’s how entrepreneurs learn. Schools prepare kids to follow instructions, like good employees, while entrepreneurs take charge of what they need to know and make decisions for themselves, navigate through uncharted waters. Unschooling prepares kids to be entrepreneurs instead of robots.
  • It’s much more natural. The school system is a fairly modern invention, and isn’t how humans have learned for the majority of our history. Unschooling is the learning method used for most of human history — including by people like Leonardo Da Vinci, Leo Tolstoy, Mozart, Einstein and Benjamin Franklin.
  • It’s freer. The structure of school is good for people who like decisions made for them, but if you like making your own decisions, and figuring out things based on current needs, you will want more freedom.
  • We learn with the kids. While in school, many parents are removed from the learning process, and ask the teachers to take responsibility for their kids’ education, with unschooling you learn with your kids. The most important learning I’ve been doing is learning about learning. We figure out, together, how people learn, what’s the best way to learn, for each kid.
  • Learning is unlimited. In school, learning is limited to the classroom and homework time. Then kids believe they stop learning and they can go play and live life — as if learning is boring and they only do it because they’re forced to. But unschoolers learn that learning happens all day long, every day, no matter what you’re doing. If you’re not studying a textbook, does that mean you’re not learning? Can’t you learn from playing games, going for a hike, talking to strangers? How about from figuring out how to cook dinner, or fix a broken faucet, or make a fort? Learning is all around us, and it’s fun! That’s what unschooling teaches us.

There are many more reasons, of course, and each person will find her own reasons. These are just a few of mine.

How to Unschool

This is the hard part, because there is no right way to do it, no single way. And parents who are starting out always, always want to know how to do it. I know we did, and the honest truth is, we’re still figuring out the answer.

Why is there no answer? Because every kid is different. Everyone has different needs, interests, abilities, goals, and environments. What would you say if people told you there was only one way to live your life, one way to do your job? You’d hate it, because it would take away your freedom, and also all the fun.

Telling you how to unschool is like taking away your freedom and all the fun out of it. The questions are everything, and the finding out is the fun.

That said, I will offer some ideas of how we unschool, and some ideas of how you might approach things — but these are just ideas to start you out!

  • College bound. Our 16-year-old has decided he wants to go to college, and so studies for the SAT on his own, and is taking some free college courses online, and writes practice college essays on topics he chooses. He also learns things on his own, like programming or 3D animation, and plays the guitar.
  • Origami master. Our 13-year-old wants to get good at math, so does some math courses on Khan Academy. She also makes origami and weaves friendship bracelets and reads teen novels and Archie comics and plays piano and goes to the park to play basketball and likes to learn to cook.
  • Wolves and wizards. Our 8-year-old loves to read about wolves, and often will pretend he’s a wolf. Also a wizard or werewolf. He likes to play games and read with us and make up stories and draw. He’s pretty good at math on his own, though we don’t really study that with him much.
  • Forts and restaurants. Our 6-year-old likes to be read to and isn’t into reading on her own, though she’s been learning to read through games and reading with us. She doesn’t like math but will do it in games. She makes forts and art and likes to play outside and pretend she owns a restaurant or store.
  • The power of questions. When the kids ask a question, that’s an opportunity to find out something. We’ll look it up together, or look for books on it in the library.
  • People you know are incredible resources. If your kid wants to be a chef, you might know someone who is a chef or owns a restaurant. If your kid wants to create iPhone games, you might know a programmer. If your kid is interested in science, you might know a marine biologist. And so on. Connect them with these people.
  • Games are your best friend. Play all kinds of games. Don’t be concerned with what they’re learning. They’ll have fun, and learn that life can be play, and so can learning.
  • Fun projects. Working on art and science projects can be a lot of fun.
  • Pursue interests. If the kid is interested in something, show her how to find out more, or play with it.
  • Deschool. If you’re new to unschooling, and your kid has gone to school for awhile, it’s often a good idea to “deschool”. That means to not worry about learning or schooling for awhile — a couple weeks, a couple months. The idea is to get them (and you) out of the mindset of schooling, which can be very difficult, because we’ve been trained to think in terms of school. We think we need to be productive teachers and students, and that school has to be done a certain way, and that if the kids aren’t learning something from an activity, it has no value. All that is crap, of course, so take some time getting out of that mindset.
  • Expose them. Learn to give kids a variety of stimuli — books and magazines lying around the house, watch shows about interesting things, play old board games, get out and explore your town, meet different people, find stuff together on the Internet. This exposure will help them to explore new interests — even if they don’t seem interested at first, the exposure will allow them to find new things on their own.
  • Learn as you go. The most important thing is that you need to figure out what works for you. Try different things. Play. Make things. Go out and do things, meet people, have fun learning about new things. Fun, always fun, never hard work unless it’s fun, never force, always get pulled.
  • Be patient. You won’t see “results” right away … changes in your kid will happen over time, as he learns that learning is fun and can be done all the time in lots of ways. You also might get frustrated that your kids doesn’t want to study or read or write papers or whatever. But instead, let him play music or play pretend games or read comic books or play outside.
  • Trust is important. It’s hard in the beginning (we’re still learning to do this), but it’s important to trust that kids can learn on their own, with minimal guidance, and that if they’re interested in something, they’ll learn about it. We all think kids can’t learn on their own, but they can.

Before you get the wrong idea, I should give credit to Eva for doing most of the unschooling work, and being better at it than I am (Eva is really great, though she won’t admit it). She has read more books and websites on the topic than I am, and does the majority of the unschooling on a daily basis (though I do help out as much as I can). I should also give credit to my awesome sister Kat, who inspired us to unschool, and is one of the most amazing unschooling moms I know.

More Reading

This isn’t a definitive guide — I don’t have the experience or knowledge to write that guide. Better people than I have written much more on the topic, and while I can’t provide a comprehensive list, I will share some books and sites to get you started (many are from Eva and my sister Kat):

  • Sandra Dodd – one of the first and best writers on unschooling.
  • John Holt – another of the seminal writers on unschooling, a classic.
  • A-Z Homeschooling – so many things for homeschoolers. So many.
  • Khan Academy – amazing resource for learning all kinds of subjects.
  • Open Culture – such a powerful collection of free learning resources, including a list of free online college courses, language learning, and so much more. Wow.
  • Clickschooling – newsletter with links to learn about different learning topics.
  • Schmoop – a fun way to learn literature, history and more.
  • Reading Rants – blog by a librarian who gives reading suggestions for young adults.
  • Free Rice – game for learning different subjects.
  • YouTube – It’s an interesting video site that you might not have heard of. But what an incredible resource for learning videos — learn French or Spanish, math raps, and much much more.
  • Self-Made Scholar – free classes.
  • Free-Range Kids – how to raise self-reliant children.
  • The Sparkling Martins – for unschooling inspiration.
  • Homeschoolers Guide to Getting Into College – it’s not only possible, but very doable.
  • Life Learning Magazine – on non-coercive, interest-based learning.
  • Natural Child – learning to treat children with with dignity, respect, understanding, and compassion.
  • Joyfully Rejoicing – great overview of unschooling philosophy with more resources for learning more.
  • Zinn Education Project – excellent resources for learning history, Howard Zinn style.
  • Coursera – free online courses.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Leo Babauta is a simplicity blogger & author. He created Zen Habits, a Top 25 blog with a million readers. He’s also a best-selling author, a husband, father of six children, and a vegan. In 2010 moved from Guam to San Francisco, where he leads a simple life.

60 Family Books for Advent Season

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There are so many great children’s books that you can read with your children during this coming Advent season and so many treasured classics that never go out of style. I want this blog post to excite you with the possibility of sharing wonderful literature with your children this Christmas season and to give some suggestions on some classic books for Advent.

As you probably know, I’ve posted earlier in on my Facebook page about the fantastic idea of wrapping 25 books for Christmas and putting them under the tree on December 1st. That gives our family the perfect opportunity for allowing the kids to choose one book each night during the Advent season for us to read together as we cuddle near the tree sipping on warm cider and anticipating the birth of our Savior.

So get ready to make your own chosen list of books, hopefully finding some among the ones I’m sharing in this post, and create some wonderful 2015 Advent memories with your family. I’m including the following ideas for you.

  1. Ideas for easy books for toddlers and babies
  2. Ideas for preschool to elementary level books
  3. Ideas for books for older children 
  4. Ideas for books for everyone
  5. Ideas about traditional Christmas classics
  6. Ideas for creative ways to share these books with your family

1. Ideas for easy books for toddlers and babies

Lift-the-Flap Nativity by Juliet David – Children can enjoy learning new things about the Christmas story in Lift the Flap Nativity, with flaps to open on every page and surprises to discover behind every door.

Merry Creature Christmas by Dandi Daley Mackall – Little Star, Big Bear, the proud, white mare and all the bluebirds sing and join the forest creatures dancing everywhere. The pictures tell the sweet story of the forest animals having a Christmas party celebrating Jesus.

The Little Drummer Boy illustrated by Ezra Jack Keats – Keats drew lovely illustrations to go along with the old song. Another book you can sing!

Claude the Dog: A Christmas Story by Dick Gackenbach – Christmas would not be complete without this adorable story with its simple reminder of what really matters at Christmas (friends and family, not the gifts). 

The Animal’s Christmas Eve by Gale Wiersum – The sing-song words in this young toddler’s book are sure to catch your children’s attention, especially if they love animals.

2. Ideas for preschool to elementary level books

The Perfect Christmas Gift – Part of the God’s Little Princess Series by Sheila Walsh, which teach little girls great lessons about being a daughter of the Highest King. In this book, Gigi, as usual, knows EXACTLY what she wants … but finds that being a little surprised, like the Christmas shepherds, is OK too.

Song of the Stars by Sally Lloyd-Jones – Each page shows and tells about different aspects of our world—the wind, the trees, the animals, and the stars. The anticipation builds until at last Jesus is born.

Humphrey’s First Christmas by Carol Heyer – Humphrey is hilarious as he describes the injustice of his life as a camel. And then Humphrey finds himself on a journey … and that maybe things weren’t so bad after all. 

The Crippled Lamb by Max Lucado – Joshua the lamb can’t keep up with the other sheep and feels left out … but finds himself in a special stable.

Katy’s Christmas Gift by Bernadette Watts – Katy sets out in the snow to visit the new baby born in the innkeeper’s stable. She is bringing gifts: a loaf of bread, her cat Sasha and, most importantly, her favorite toy—a wooden bird whistle. But Sasha doesn’t want to play in the cold snow, and the animals of the forest eat the bread. Soon Katy’s carefully chosen gifts are gone—except the most special one of all. 

A Calf for Christmas by Astrid Lindgren – It’s the last day of school before Christmas and snow is falling heavily. Johan heads to school on his sled, but he can’t stop thinking about the terrible thing that happened yesterday—his family’s only cow died, and they have no money to buy another. The rich farmer Peter Jonsson has come to town today for the Christmas market. He buys a calf then, after spending some time in the local pub, loses it on the sleigh ride home! When Johan heads out to clear snow, what does he find?… Maybe he’ll have a happy Christmas after all.

The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree by Gloria Houston – The Armistice has been declared, but still there is no sign of Ruthie’s father in their little Appalachian town. So, in accordance with the traditions of Pine Grove, it falls to Ruthie and her mother to bring home the perfect Christmas tree to donate to the town.

The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski – Jonathan Toomey is the best woodcarver in the valley, but he is always alone and never smiles. No one knows about the mementos of his lost wife and child that he keeps in an unopened drawer. But one early winter’s day, a widow and her young son approach him with a gentle request that leads to a joyful miracle. 

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson – The Herdmans are the worst kids in the history of the world. They lie, steal, smoke cigars, swear, and hit little kids. So no one is prepared when this outlaw family invades church one Sunday and decides to take over the annual Christmas pageant. None of the Herdmans has ever heard the Christmas story before. Their interpretation of the tale—the Wise Men are a bunch of dirty spies and Herod needs a good beating—has a lot of people up in arms. But it will make this year’s pageant the most unusual anyone has seen and, just possibly, the best one ever.

The Crippled Lamb Hardcover by Max Lucado – In this timeless bestseller, readers experience the tender love God has for those who feel alone and different. Joshua was a lamb with a crippled leg who felt left out because he couldn’t run and play like the other lambs. But God had a very special plan for Joshua’s life, as He does for all who feel alone. 

3. Ideas for books for older children

The Candle in the Window by Grace Johnson – This one is long, but it’s a beautiful story of a German cobbler who remembers the true meaning of Christmas as Christmas Eve passes. 

The Birds’ Christmas Carol by Kate Douglas Wiggin – Carol Bird, a Christmas-born child, who as a young girl is unusually loving and generous, having a positive effect on everyone with whom she comes into contact. The book is a wistful moral tale about a saintly child, but is enlivened by many humorous scenes.

The Story of the Other Wiseman by Henry Van Dyke – Often retold as the tale of the fourth wiseman, and even turned into a movie, this is an unabridged version by the original author, who also penned the words to the Christmas carol, Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee. 

Unwrapping the Greatest Gift: A Family Celebration of Christmas – This special edition is beautifully illustrated. It can serve as a precious guide to help recapture the sacredness of the Advent season and to help the entire family understand and celebrate the epic pageantry of humankind from Adam to the Messiah.

The Old Shepherd’s Tale by Christopher Nye – An old shepherd shares the stable with his animals on the night Mary and Joseph arrive and give birth to the infant Jesus. The shepherd sees the greatness of these beasts—and shares that vision with us in this story that goes straight to the heart. For all ages.

The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry – In a shabby New York flat, Della sobs as she counts the few coins she has saved to buy a Christmas present for her husband, Jim. A gift worthy of her devotion will require a great sacrifice: selling her long, beautiful hair. Jim, meanwhile, has made a sacrifice for Della that is no less difficult. As they exchange gifts on Christmas Eve, the discovery of what each has done fills them with despair, until they realize that the true gifts of Christmas can be found more readily in their humble apartment than in any fine store.

4. Books for everyone, all-ages

Some of my personal favorites that are “twaddle-free.” If you are a Charlotte Mason homeschooler, like me, then you understand that this simply means that these books are classic, undiluted, and do not undervalue the intelligence of the child. 
 
If you ever see these books at a used-book store, you snag these books up in a heartbeat. They are literature gems that your children will love (and so will you). 
 
The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Anderson
The Birds’ Christmas Carol by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
The Tough Winter by Robert Lawson
The Life of Our Lord by Charles Dickens
Cole Family Christmas by Jennifer Bryan
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Letters from Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien
Christmas Remembered by Tomie de Paola
The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski
Christmas Spirit by George Grant and Gregory Wilbur
The Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Luke, and St. John
A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas
God Is in the Manger by Deitrich Bonhoeffer
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson
The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen
The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding by Agatha Christie
The Jesse Tree by Geraldine McCaughrean
An Orange for Frankie Patricia Polacco
Stars over Bethlehem by Opal Wheeler
The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey
The Gifts of the Christ Child by George MacDonald
The Crippled Lamb by Max Lucado
Great Joy by Kate DiCamillo
The Snowman by Raymond Briggs
Christmas Tapestry by Patricia Polacoo
The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
Becky’s Christmas by Tasha Tudor
Angel Mae by Shirley Hughes
 

5. Ideas about traditional Christmas classics

The Tailor of Gloucester by Beatrix Potter – The Tailor of Gloucester was first published in 1903 and tells the story of a poor tailor trying to survive in his freezing workshop over a hard winter. He has a terribly important commission to complete for the Mayor of Gloucester’s wedding on Christmas Day but is ill and tired, and before long is running out of food and thread, as well as time! How will he possibly complete the beautiful coat and embroidered waistcoat? Luckily, there lives in the dresser, some very kind and very resourceful mice who set about helping the poor tailor with his work. Not only are they exceedingly helpful, but they are also, luckily, far far too clever for the tailor’s sly cat, Simpkin.

The Twelve Days of Christmas by Laurel Long – This well known Christmas song deserves lavish illustrations, and this edition exceeds expectations.

Nutcracker by E.T.A. Hoffman – The tale of Nutcracker has fascinated and inspired artists, composers, and audiences for almost two hundred years. It has retained its freshness because it appeals to the sense of wonder we all share. Maurice Sendak designed brilliant sets and costumes for the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Christmas production of Nutcrackerand created even more magnificent pictures especially for this book. He joined with the eminent translator Ralph Manheim to produce this illustrated edition of Hoffmann’s wonderful tale, destined to become a classic for all ages.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (picture book edition) (Chronicles of Narnia) – A picture book retelling of C. S. Lewis’s classic story for the youngest fans! Now younger children can share the magical experience, entering into a world of enchantment that will forever lure them back. Four adventurous siblings step through a wardrobe door and into the land of Narnia, a land frozen in eternal winter—but never Christmas—cursed by the power of the White Witch. Only Aslan, the Great Lion, can reverse her wicked spell.

 Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus by Francis P. Church – In 1897, a young girl wrote to The New York Sun asking whether Santa Claus truly existed. The paper’s response, written by reporter Francis P. Church, has become a beloved holiday literary tradition. An original approach to a children’s classic, this captivating book creatively reinterprets that heartwarming letter about the truth behind Santa Claus and Christmas. It is accompanied by charming Victorian artwork. Joel Spector is an artist and illustrator known for his elegant pastel images. 

6. Ideas for creative ways to share these books with your family

There are many ways to extend your family time with these books beyond the simple reading of the book. Try some of these ideas with your family: 

  • Advent is the time before Christmas when we anticipate the birth of Jesus. It begins the Christian year. Learn more about the Christian year, and why or why not people follow it. (Helpful Info)
  • Compare the stories in different retellings of the the Christmas story with the biblical versions of Christ’s birth. (For more help) 
  • Learn about Christmas celebrations around the world. Find out how people from other countries have brought their celebrations to their new homes in North America. (Need a suggestion?)
  • Try serving different snack and holiday foods from other cultures during your family advent time. (For more help)
  • Add a time of making Christmas crafts to your family advent time. Then take some crafts and your favorite books to a local nursing home or hospital to read the book and share the crafts with people who may be lonely or sad at this special time of year. (For more ideas) 

Don’t miss the wonderful opportunity of sharing the advent season of 2015 by making family advent memories that your children will remember for the rest of their lives! This blog will get you started—but don’t stop here; go and make your own lasting advent memories.

60 Family Books for the Advent Season

Sources

  1. https://books.google.com/books?id=bIhLDFY6g1QC&pg=PA91&lpg=PA91&dq=best+children%27s+books+for+advent+season&source=bl&ots=AXTUq2QMtJ&sig=3IfEe6f4cZanKL7xs5zIWZOteuM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CIABEOgBMAU4CmoVChMI6Ze0hOPiyAIVSakeCh3uawvY#v=onepage&q=best%20children’s%20books%20for%20advent%20season&f=false
  2. https://www.jessieweaver.net/2012/11/25-jesus-centered-christmas-books-to-celebrate-advent/
  3. https://trinaholden.com/the-ultimate-list-of-advent-books-for-kids/
  4. https://www.waldorfbooks.com/christmas-and-advent

Our Homeschool Routine

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It’s been over a year since I’ve been homeschooling. I am, by far, not an expert at this yet, but I’ve had so many of you ask me about what our homeschool routine and curriculum that we use are, so here it all is! 

I had always planned on homeschooling my little ones. My mother homeschooled me in my early years, and it is some of the most memorable times of my life. I remember doing so much with my older brother and younger sister during my homeschooled years and I had always hoped to do give the same memories to my children. 

There was a month where I had a moment of freak out. I didn’t think I would be able to do this and felt so much self-doubt. I actually ended up putting my daughter in public school during this panic and regretted it so much. She wasn’t even in public school a month before we pulled her out. It just wasn’t a good fit for our laid back, farm life. 

Our Style of Homeschooling: 

There are many different approaches to homeschooling, but here are the top 5: 

  1. Traditional – this is probably the that most of us grew up with. You have separate textbooks and workbooks for each subject and usually the workbooks contain multiple choice answers and fill-in-the blanks. 
  2. Classical – this style of education teaches children according to the Trivium (3 stages): the Grammar Stage, the Dialectic stage, and the Rhetoric Stage. 
  3. Unschooling  – also called “Child-Led Learning” this follows the interest and pace of the child and has no set curriculum. 
  4. Unit Studies – Unit studies take a theme or topic and incorporate all the school subjects (language arts, history, science, music, art, etc.) into that topic.
  5. Charlotte Mason – this style of education uses rich literature, also called “living books”, rather than textbooks. This approach uses a generous curriculum, rich in nature, art, music, and narration, that “spreads the feasts” throughout the week, leaving lots of room to digest what the child is learning. 

Want to find out which type of homeschooler you are? TAKE THIS QUIZ! It’s fun and you might want to see what fits your family’s personality before you go spending money on an expensive curriculum. 

Our family is Charlotte Mason through-and-through! We have a deep love and appreciation for good books, art, and leaving lots of room for thought and processing. We don’t like to rush ideas, thoughts, or check things off the list. We appreciate good books, known as living books. These are books that come alive! I’m sure you all can think of a childhood book you love. Most likely it is a “living book”! Oh and, we really do not like textbooks. We would rather learn from nature, or from stories, than a textbook. So, this philosophy fits us perfectly! 

Our Curriculum & Routine: 

We have a first grader and a 4 year old who participates in our school day. Our 4 year old takes part in the morning basket (I’ll explain later) and the literature reading we do. Other than that, he mostly plays outdoors or does artwork during our formal hour of school. 

It’s important to remember that we believe that learning takes place all throughout the day, not just during “formal school hours”. With our first grader, it takes us about an hour in the morning to finish the daily studies, and the rest is done throughout the day whenever learning opportunities spring up. 

A few things today that prompted learning:

  • Retrieving the hen’s eggs and counting them
  • Learning from a local farm about proper horsemanship and respect of animals
  • We watched a documentary on the most dangerous animals and an Australian crocodile was one of them. We got out the air-dry clay (best stuff in the world!) and made alligators.
  • We spelled out new words from our reading on our refrigerator during dinner prep. 
  • We put up a new vinyl wall decal with 73 different stickers. Little farm girl did it all herself, counting and making sure she staying in order.
  • We listened to Bach in the car and talked about how he used to teach piano

We use some of the Simply Charlotte Mason materials, along with using a lot of the recommendations on Ambleside Online. So make sure you check out those two amazing websites! Ambleside Online links to MANY online books, so you could homeschool for pretty much free! I prefer books I can hold in my hand, and find lots of the recommended reading books at thrift stores and used on Amazon for a good price. 

Our Morning Basket:

This is a basket of books I keep on the dining room table and do with the kids during breakfast or “morning tea” (morning snack). It includes our poem book, our Bible, a stack of famous art from an artist (we are doing Constable right now), and a few CD’s. We read a poem everyday, talk about our Bible lesson for the week (this week it’s the ladder that reached heaven), play a folksong or hymn, and just take advantage of the early morning opportunity to learn (while the kids are sitting still eating!). 

If you want to see exactly what is in our morning basket, feel free to take a peak at my weekly schedule HERE. This is where I keep track of what we are doing and making sure we are getting through our materials. 

We don’t do all of these every, single day. We kind of rotate through different books, finding our own pace, and making sure the kids are understanding what we are reading. I go at their pace.

What exactly is in our morning basket? 

Everyday Work: 

After we finish breakfast we head to our homeschooling room and do the “formal” stuff. These are the materials that I make sure we do everyday. And just a note, we don’t spend more than 10-15 minutes on each of these subjects. Less is more!  The everyday subjects include reading/phonics, copywork (handwriting practice), math and history. I’ve pieced together materials that work for us and these include: 

Math Curriculum: Math-U-See – we LOVE this math curriculum and the simplicity of it. We have tried 2 other curriculums that didn’t work for us and fell in love with Math-U-See. 

Copywork: this is handwriting activity is essential to the early years. We use various poems or folksongs that we are learning and write a few lines from them. We do this everyday. I believe that less is more in this and I make sure that my first grader is taking her time and writing neat. Right now we are writing the lines from a folksong we are loving called, “The Bold Grenadier“. Here’s a short part of it: 

“As I was a-walking one morning in May 
I spied a young couple a-making of hay. 
Oh, one was a fair maid, and her beauty shone clear, 
And the other was a soldier, a bold grenadier.”
 
Phonics: We love the phonics curriculum from Easy Peasy. Easy Peasy is a free, online curriculum and uses much of the Charlotte Mason method. We have almost completed the phonic lessons from “Getting Ready 2“, which will complete our phonics. 
 
Reading: My first grader is reading through the Pathway Readers. I HIGHLY recommend this series, but make sure you start at the first book. These readers are so delightful and help so much with sight words…plus they are the cutest stories ever! When we come upon a new word, we talk about it, build it with her letters, and move on. 

History: You can take a peak at our schedule HERE and see all the great books we are reading for history. Paddle to the Sea is the main one we are reading; making sure to track Paddle’s journey on our map as he journeys from the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence River, and finally the Atlantic Ocean. It’s full of geography, nature, drama, and adventure that all children (even us adults) love reading! 

Literature: We make sure to read various fairy tales and great literature books everyday. We don’t read all these every, single day. We pick one book a day for mandatory reading and then the kids usually beg for more. Our 4 year old enjoys sitting in and listening to most of these. Right now we are reading a wide variety, including Aesop’s Fables for Children (the kids ADORE these) , Jeremy, The Honest Bunny, Blue Fairies, and a few others. You can see them all HERE on our schedule. We follow the reading lists on Ambleside Online for most of these. 

Weekly Work: 

This is the part I love about the Charlotte Mason approach. You spread out a lot of the work throughout the week, making sure that the child is retaining it all. We do most of this stuff once a week. We do art everyday, but I’m putting it in this section because it’s encouraged to do at least once a week. 

Picture Study: Each term (3 terms in a year) we focus on a new artist. Right now we are studying the masterpieces of Constable. I use a picture-study portfolio from HERE and we pick a new picture to study each week. WE talk about it and then hang it up on our classroom wall. 

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Nature Study: Though encouraged to do at least once a week, this is a daily thing we do. We live on a farm and the kids enjoy so much time outdoors. We use the Handbook of Nature Study and try to study things in season. We will rotate the various animals and things of nature in this book for the next five years! This book is a beautiful investment! 

Geography: We usually cover geography in our history reading of Paddle to the Sea, however, our first grader LOVES maps and learning about location. We are taking “Visits to Africa” using THIS BOOK and diving into the culture of Africa. We are enjoying reading about what they eat in Africa and the various countries using this Hungry Plant book. 

Some days are better than others when you are homeschooling, but overall, we are so in love with being able to share our day with our children. I, personally, am enjoying the fact that I am going through school again! I love all the books my children are reading, and I love the special moments and conversations that develop because of our time together! 

Our Homeschool Routine and Curriculum

Household Chores for Kids Under Seven

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Household Chores

No parent chooses to raise a kid to be a TV-and-video-game-addicted-couch-potato, but unfortunately that’s exactly what can happen unless we learn how to motivate our kids to better pursuits. And one of the best ways to begin to inspire kids to do more than sit in front of the tube is to teach them how to work with their natural, intrinsic drive to be productive, creative contributors to the household. Kids want to feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves, so don’t let them drag their feet about doing household chores. Dan Pink, author of Drive: What Motivates Us tells us why household chores are good for kids: “Chores show kids that families are built on mutual obligations and that family members need to help each other.”

Kids are not born with the work ethic. Character traits of tolerance, perseverance and self-discipline are learned—and must be taught by us parents. It’s up to us to teach our kids the difference between wanting and getting, and how to postpone gratification in order to accomplish and succeed later as an adult.

I have found that both my six-and-a-half year old and my four year old love to help me with chores when I can help them see that they are enjoyable and entertaining. My six year old has been helping me with my essential oil tasks since I began. She also has already become Little Miss Farmer, and gathers eggs, picks flowers, finds new vegetables growing on our new farm, takes care of the chickens, gets Sunflower seeds ready for roasting, and helps me cook and bake. Barefoot Boy loves to search for our free range chicken eggs, help pick berries (yes, he eats most of them!), and take care of the goats.

None of those things are consistent, everyday chores for them yet, but they have already learned to be productive family members. In this blog I want to help us all take these sometimes chores a step further, and give you some ideas for household chores for kids under seven, that my kids, and yours, can do every day.

I want to look at four important considerations when planning and assigning chores to our kids.

  1. Tips and Pitfalls to keep in mind about kids and chores.
  2. Age-appropriate chores for children birth through age seven or so.
  3. Ways to consistently check up on your children’s faithfulness to their chores.
  4. How to appropriately reward your children for their help with the family chores.

1. Tips and Pitfalls to keep in mind about kids and chores.

Sometimes there is a fine line between motivating our children to do their chores and overwhelming them with demands and responsibilities that de-motivate them. Here are a few pitfalls to avoid.

  • Don’t insist on perfection—No one is perfect. It’s better to have a relaxed approach to how well our kids do their chores.
  • Don’t delay—Your kids are probably more capable than you think. Kids can do a lot of chores at an early stage. Remember that they learn best by doing.
  • Don’t be stingy with praise—Get that praise going right away! Don’t wait until the chores is done. Praise and encourage your children as they do their chores.
  • Don’t be inconsistent—If your children aren’t expected to regularly follow through with their chores, they may start putting them off in the hopes someone else will do them for them.

And here are a few tips that will make it easier to get started.

  • Be specific with instructions—Be explicit. If you want your son to clean his room, tell him exactly what to do: “Put your clothes in the closet, your books on the shelf, dishes in the kitchen, and toys in the toy box.”
  • Ease into chores for children—First show them how to do the chore step by step. Next, let your child help you do it. Then have your child do the chore as you supervise. Once she’s mastered it, let her do it alone.
  • Go easy with reminders and deadlines—Don’t micromanage your kids. Use the when/then technique. For example, say: “When the pets are fed, then you can have your dinner.”
  • Kids want to help—Take advantage of their natural desire and encourage their excitement about doing chores.
  • Kids have a short attention span—If your child seems to be struggling consistently with doing a certain chore, it may be too involved for him, or he may not be able to do it as well as he wants to.

2. Age-appropriate chores for children birth through age seven or so.

Our children are capable of doing so many more things than we even realize at times that it would be hard to give you an exhaustive list of everything your children can do at a specific age. You can do your own research to find many kinds of chores that might be appropriate for your children. But I would like to suggest several chores for each of three age groupings.

Chores for children ages 2 to 3

  • Put toys away
  • Fill pet’s food dish
  • Put clothes in hamper
  • Wipe up spills
  • Pile books and magazines

Chores for children 4 to 5

  • Brush hair and teeth
  • Make their own beds
  • Empty wastebaskets
  • Pull weeds, if you have a garden
  • Clear table
  • Water flowers
  • Set the table
  • Take out the garbage

Chores for children 6 to 7

  • Sort laundry
  • Sweep floors
  • Weed and rake eaves
  • Help make and pack lunch
  • Keep bedroom tidy
  • Care for pets
  • Help put away groceries

3. Ways to consistently check up on your children’s faithfulness to their chores.

Teaching kids about chores, money, and work is definitely a lifelong process. One of the most successful ways to inspire your children’s faithfulness to their chores may be through the use of a chore chart. This can be used not only to provide motivation, but also to help teach your children financial responsibility.

Since children are much more excited about cute pictures than simple words, use a chore chart that is visually stimulating to your children. You can do your own research and find many, many ideas for chore charts online. (You can find several different printable charts here.) 

A few that we have used and love are: 

You will want to place your chore chart in a visible location, and make sure to review your children’s accomplishments every day. Love, praise, and acknowledgment are your secret weapons to keep them diligent to their chores.

4. How to appropriately reward your children for their help with the family chores.

When you begin assigning chores to your children be sure that you and your spouse have discussed what kinds of rewards or incentives you will be using with them. Maybe you think chores are just part of belonging to the family. As part of the family you expect them to chip in, help out, and do things around the house

You may want to set up some kind of a reward system. It can be a powerful tool to motivate them. The rewards can be earned privileges, playdates, maybe a movie with a friend, or whatever else you choose to be appropriate. Some parents will choose to reward their kids for their chores with money, thereby teaching important lessons about earning.

Our family was able to pay off our debts and become financially stable through the help of Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. You can read our story here.  I would highly recommend his Financial Peace Junior materials, which are designed to help you teach your children about money. It doesn’t just give you the tools to teach your kids to win with money—it shows you how. You can find it here. 

Since our children learn the most by watching us, be sure that you are modeling a positive work attitude yourself. Show pride in your accomplishments and share your insights with your kids. Let them see that your career is not just work, it’s an opportunity to grow and to achieve financial stability. Teaching your children to be independent and to have life skills will allow them to feel empowered, and helps to develop healthy self-esteem. Give your children every opportunity to become ready for whatever life brings to them. It starts with simple household chores.

Household Chores for Kids Under Seven

Source

  1. https://www.parents.com/kids/development/social/motivate-kids-to-do-chores/
  2. https://www.today.com/parents/what-chores-what-age-guide-parents-2D80555366
  3. https://www.webmd.com/parenting/features/chores-for-children
  4. https://childparenting.about.com/od/familyhome/a/choreschild.htm
  5. https://www.freeprintablebehaviorcharts.com/chore_list.htm
  6. https://www.parents.com/kids/development/social/motivate-kids-to-do-chores/
  7. https://www.livingwellspendingless.com/2014/09/19/great-chores-kids/