[Tea] How I home educated five kids

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Cincinnati, April 11, 2020

Hi Friend,

You've got a passel of kids clogging up the sectional and slurping the last Go-Gurt. You're wondering how on earth to civilize the little barbarians let alone teach them the 3 Rs.

At first, when I came across homeschooling, I was shown a model of individual instruction—a table with specific chairs for each child and a grade-level stack of workbooks in each spot. The Pledge of Allegiance was the one uniting activity every morning. Then, children were expected to work their way through their programs with a little supervision from (usually) mom.

I had five kids. I was pregnant every other year for the first five years of homeschooling. This utopia of individual learning vanished by week two of the school year. I reorganized our lives around a principle of togetherness.

When I homeschooled my five kids, I kept us together as much as possible! Here’s how I did it. I'm eager to hear how you are doing it too!

Read Aloud Time

We started our days together every day after breakfast. We spent one hour of the morning reading.

Inspirational literature
Non Fiction (like books about nature or tanks or world religions or geography or the weather or how to make films…)
Aesop’s Fables or Greek myths (we did one of these each day for years)
Read Aloud (whatever novel we were reading as a group)
History book (we used a variety of narrative history texts over the years, not history textbooks)
Poetry (not every day, but many days—this is when we’d memorize poems together)

The kids usually knitted, or played with Legos or blocks, or assembled puzzles, or modeled clay while I read.

Math and Copywork

When we finished what we called Read Aloud Time, we would move to the table for math pages and copywork. These were usually according to level, but we did them all at once so that I could be in “math mind” or “writing mind” and not go back and forth.

Sometimes copywork came first, and usually passages were pulled from the same book, but different lengths per child. Sometimes they picked their own copywork passages. New-to-writing kids used handwriting books.

We'd take a break and then continue with math. The skill levels here usually meant each child was working on a different mathematical function. If it helped, we sometimes played a game or I would direct one child to help another child (teaching is a great way to solidify skills). Math time usually lasted about 15-20 minutes max.

Then lunch!

History

After lunch, we'd tackle history all together—same topic, same era.

This might include preparing little oral reports or acting out a scene of history. It might include captioning an illustration of the reading from the morning or making maps or artifacts.

Sometimes we prepared a party to go with the era of history.

Writing Project

If we were working on a writing project, we all worked on the same topics while doing different writing formats. Alternatively, we might use the same format for writing (posters, mini books, freewriting) while each child applied the format to a different topic.

It’s not like I had to drum up a brand new idea for each child each week. So exhausting! When we wrote descriptive paragraphs, we were all observing and note-taking and talking about our items at once, with me superintending. I didn’t create a project for each child, unique to that child. Each child would write naturally at his or her level. The goal was self-expression with guidance from me.

Poetry Teatime

Poetry Teatimes were always done as a group about once per week, poetry books of all levels available. I brought my adult poetry books to the table so I could share poems I found meaningful, even if above their level. I felt that was the best way to introduce them to some of the more challenging poets.

All the Other Good Stuff

Then we might take a hike or kick a soccer ball in the yard or watch a movie or go to the store or visit an art museum or the library… These outings did not happen every day, but when they did, we all went together.

A Shift in Thinking

The rhythm of our days was not determined by grade level. Rather, it was shaped by topics we enjoyed together—each child naturally performing at his or her level. That’s where “grade level” revealed itself. But I didn’t cater to it or pay it much notice, honestly.

It’s a shift in thinking. Remember, you are a one-room school house. You want to make the most of that environment. Create learning opportunities that call all of you together. Your older kids will inspire your younger ones, your younger ones will cheer up your older ones (and make them feel smart). Your kids can work together, helping each other, making suggestions. One of the beautiful results of this lifestyle? They provide great audiences for each other, too!

For more ideas about how to live this lifestyle, I hope you'll follow along on Instagram.

Warmly,

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