Sometimes, especially in the beginning, meeting homeschooling requirements feels daunting. Oftentimes, much of this angst comes down to believing we must do more and be better than a traditional school teacher, and our child must grind through material with perfect understanding. It’s almost like we feel we have to “prove ourselves” to be adequate teachers.
If you are willing to train your children up 24/365, you are adequate! There is no certified teacher in the world that would do that for your child. That is how important this mission, this calling is to our ever growing community of at home educators. We are more invested. We have more intel. We have more to lose, so we won’t. Period. It is a non-negotiable!
We forget that this is a journey of exploration and discovery that should be approached with expectant excitement. Isn’t this why our Littles are so delightful? They naturally see the world as a playground to be explored with wonder and delight—and isn’t that what we want to recover for ourselves and preserve for our children as they grow into adulthood? If so, never allow it to die within. If it is slumbering, wake the beautiful beast and begin the journey back toward the wonder years.
Yes, there are legal requirements to be met—180 days, covering core subjects, etc.—but if you shift away from the idea that you have to prove yourself and lean into the heart of the law, which is to educate your child well, you will find yourself teaching from a place of rest rather than worry, allowing you to enjoy lovely days of opening up the beautiful world of learning to your children. A good year of homeschooling doesn’t come from finishing every single problem in the math book but from progressing through lessons with diligence and delight, even if the last few pages never see the light of day.
Parents often ask about those pesky 180 days of required attendance. To that we say, “Count your best 180 days of learning.” It isn’t necessary, or beneficial for that matter, to log 180 days of hard-core lessons from dawn to dusk, with parent and child both giving 120%. That’s exhausting! Instead, plan lessons injected with wonder and interspersed with rest and play and watch for spontaneous “learning moments.” Will there be hours and possibly days of hard work and drudgery? Yes, but even those hours and days should be seasoned with the good stuff so that schooling doesn’t become a bland grind, day in and day out, for either the parent-teacher or the student-child.
When it comes to your daily rhythm, find what works best for your family. For some, the ideal school day will look like waking up before the children for your mental sanity, snuggling on the couch for a history-based read aloud, eating breakfast together, unpacking math lessons for older students and number tracing for the Littles before you clean up breakfast and prep for lunch. After that, check completed math, do a few chores (everyone participates!), take a short break, during which you prep lunch, and then serve lunch, possibly purchase style for more math. After lunch, work on Language Arts and snuggle up for some science-based reading. Then, declare quiet time for everyone—including Mom! Unless there’s blood, fire, or vomit, all questions and complaints will be handled at 4pm. During this time, model the adult you want your children to be! 1pm to 4pm is not too long, but don’t fill this time with screens unless it’s a rainy day. Train your children to rest, read, play quietly, do art, etc., in places around your home in which you know they will be self-governed and safe. After quiet time, do a few more chores. Take a nature walk together or a solo flight to study something discovered the day before. Sketch and chat about discovery while you prepare dinner with a helper. After dinner, clean up with a helper, and the day is done
It makes for a full day, but this is what God has called you to. If you break apart the time spent on lessons, it should work out to about 15 to 30 minutes each subject, except the read aloud times, which will probably go longer because they are so lovely. If your children balk, you may have to create new routines. If screens are even the faintest possibility, they will balk. Period. It’s like asking them to enjoy steak when candy could be their dinner. A child is not mature enough to think critically, as the human brains is not fully developed until around age 25.
If you follow the above schedule three days of the week, the other two can be as simple as Math and LA (snuggled up read aloud) until around age 11 or 12, when a child realizes that Mom is not perfect and they are, in fact, as they had been suspecting, their own independent person. At this point, lessons and expectations need to take a deeper dive in order for the child to come into their own with growing confidence and self-government toward adulthood.
Or, you can breeze through some math facts, snuggle up with a book, and toss the kids out for a day of self-play and self-learning, and confidently call that a day, as long as this doesn’t become your norm. Even so, I have seen some family relationships better served using this approach than the former, more structured approach due to relational difficulties that were not going to be overcome, so know that options for how to homeschool to the best of your ability are as numerous as the sands on a beach.
Keep yourself focused and on track through nightly pillow talk with your better half. Also, write notes to yourself concerning goals and ideas. If you are focused on the journey and what you can create/add in, it will be like planning a trip. Hard work sprinkled with amazing discovery. You know this, you plan for it, you research toward it, you prepare for it, you are excited by it, and everyone can tell.
What is your focus? Meeting the letter of the law for your state and worrying that your interpretation does not meet the expectation of the writer of the bill—or inspiring the next generation to find wonder and relationship with an ongoing love of discovery? Even though homeschool laws must be met, they pale in comparison to the importance to igniting the joy of learning in your children. We are here to help you do both! And spoiler alert, if you focus on igniting the joy of learning in your child, you’re GOING to get your 180 days!
With Love,
Katie
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