We've got that first day of school vibe going on

Before we began homeschooling I decided to take the advice of some smart and experienced homeschooling moms. They told me not to run out and buy a bunch of curriculum before we had begun homeschooling. Their reasoning was that until we'd had a chance to adjust to a learn-at-home life we could not possibly know what this new life would actually be like for us. And that while a certain curriculum may seem like a great idea months before we were actually homeschooling, chances were that we would change our minds once we were in the homeschooling groove.

Those wise women were spot on. The curriculum choices that I had all but settled on when I was researching our options over the summer sounded great back then, but not so much now. I did buy a few key curriculum items for math, grammar, and handwriting, but decided to hold off on any other, potentially expensive, curriculum decisions.

Our first four months of homeschooling ended up being largely an adjustment period. We focused on the three R's: reading, writing, and arithmetic, and worked on getting into a new routine. Meanwhile, our 9 year old dove into her 3rd year of piano lessons and began writing her own music. The 8 year old in our family decided to try some harp lessons and we are hoping to purchase a harp for her soon. We watched documentaries and we played fun games like The Scrambled States of America.  Our older three children all started a monthly class at the zoo, and we joined a wonderful coop of homeschoolers who meet three times a month for a shared learning experience, as well as some unstructured play time. (This month we'll be learning about dog sledding and will be taking a field trip towards the end of the month to actually go dog sledding!)

Then mid-way into the second week of December I woke up one day and realized that we were ready for a break. I could see how tired we were and I knew that we were all feeling quite "blah". The last couple of weeks of homeschooling had kind of sucked, to be frank, with cabin fever setting in for all of us. And with the busy Christmas season coming we had a lot of preparations to do, not to mention that we had started a renovation project in the kid's rooms over Thanksgiving weekend, and I was determined to get it all done before Christmas. (Which didn't end up happening, but we came close!) It definitely seemed like the right time to take some time  off, and we had been planning on taking two weeks off at the end of the month anyway.

I pulled out my records and calculated how many hours of homeschooling we had completed in our first four months. In the state of WI we are required to complete 875 hours of schooling each year, but it is up to us to decide how and when those hours will be completed. Since we plan to homeschool year round---with a lighter schedule in the warmer months---I realized that we could afford to take a nice long break.

That break was the best thing we could have done, because an amazing thing happened in that 3 1/2 weeks. The kids all became more excited about learning and homeschooling than ever. Not having structured learning time made them want to find ways to learn on their own. Obviously this was not a new phenomenon, as kids are naturally programmed to want to learn. However, the amount of time and effort that they put into their self-imposed learning adventures was something I'd never seen from them before. It was so much fun to watch them exploring and reading and, most fun of all, doing science experiments with a little help from dad. They also played plenty of Wii since they received multiple new games for Christmas, and they watched the movies from the Star Wars series that they had not seen before. Their dad talked to them about Luke Skywalker and The Force like he was teaching them about real historical events, which was interesting for everyone in the house!

I spent the 3 1/2 weeks researching the heck out of curriculum options, as I knew that it was time to get going on something more formal for history and science. I also sat down (or more like chatted while snuggling on the couch) with each of the school-aged kids, and we talked about what they wanted to learn about in the next part of our year. The talks with our older two children included discussing the areas that they are having trouble in, and I was then able to come up with a plan to help them better in those areas.

Over the last few days I spent hours writing up schedules for the next few months and organizing our new curriculum. My main goal in all of it was to have a schedule that would give us structured learning time, while still allowing us ample time in our days to focus on one of our main homeschooling goals---to allow the kids to just be kids. We want them to have time every day, like they did over our Christmas break, to explore on their own and learn about things that they want to learn about. We want them to have time to simply play, because as it has been shown time and time again that some of the best learning comes from unstructured play time.

Today we are back at it with our new schedule and new curriculum, and there is an air of excitement in the house. It feels like that first day of school in the fall, when everyone is excited for the new adventures to come in the upcoming school year. Our girls left us a note on the table last night that asked us to wake them up before we showered so that they could get started on their school day early. They struggled a bit to get up anyway after a long break of being able to sleep in and stay up later than usual, but after a breakfast of waffles we are ready to go.

And on that note, we'd better get to it.

~Shana