Three months later, more direction and discernment

When we began homeschooling, I started with some materials that had been recommended by families I know and love. "Five in a Row," for instance, has been valuable to us; I came to appreciate Konos as well and love the ideas in books such as The Wholehearted Child. I balked at buying a full-blown curriculum such as Sonlight. I am still in the process of looking into math curricula. We are practicing math skills and application but I plan to acquire a program such as Singapore or Right Start in the near future.

My friend Kathleen recently blogged that she found our homeschooling methods to be like an "unschooling approach," so I started wondering if that was the case. I never expected to be an unschooler and don't consider myself one. Now that I'm looking at definitions, which are very hard to come by when attempting to define "unschooling," I suppose it might fit. But I have intended to develop a schedule and plan for my children's education and think that may oppose the idea of unschooling. Schedules and plans are my friends, as far as I'm concerned, and I'm not really a fan of complete and total child-directed or delight-directed education. Were that the case, my son would spend every waking moment thinking about Transformers and Star Wars.

Reading the ideas of Charlotte Mason helped me to realize what we were missing. Firstly, it encouraged me in the furthering of our preferred schedule, which includes shorter bursts of time per subject in a way that maintains interest and takes into account the natural energy of a wiggly young man.

Secondly, she wrote about giving the child ideas rather than facts and allowing the child's mind to develop and discover connections within and between material.

Thirdly, it gave voice to my frustration that the materials we were working with were not exposing my children to enough of the great literature that has survived the ages. Mason believed that children were able to meet the challenge of more rigorous material rather than what she labeled "twaddle," or literature and materials deliberately dumbed down to be more "childlike." She observed that children had a huge reserve of often untapped potential because adults treated them like an empty can to be filled rather than a dynamic, thinking person.

I have long believed that to be the case. Anyone who has taken the time to talk and listen to children and encourage them to think cannot help but be impressed with their actual personhood. It takes discipline to shut up and let the child think and speak. How many adults do you know who don't bother waiting for a child to answer a question before they are answering for the child or leading them to an answer with a follow-up question? It's easy to do, and I'm not saying I don't do it, but I try not to. It can be hard! I appreciate reading more of Mason's writings because it affirms these intentions and brings them more into the forefront.

I decided to jump right in and use the Ambleside curriculum, while incorporating Konos unit studies into our afternoons when weather does not permit us the hours outside for physical activity and nature study suggested by Charlotte Mason. We have only used it for a week thus far but it has been a refreshing change for the better! Our homeschooling is more purposeful and principled and Wolfgang is interacting with the literature. It is exciting to see him respond to it with his own creative participation. I am using the level 1 schedule and booklist right now but will be using level 2 as soon as I feel we have "caught up" with the level 1 booklist, as they are wonderful books which I am glad to be reading with him.

We have decided to study German for our foreign language study. Both Alex and I studied it in high school and my mother comes from Germany and speaks it fluently. It seemed a "safe" start and the children are responding very positively to it and having a lot of fun with the words we're using. Grandma's going to start getting phone calls soon so we can check pronunciation, so heads up. :)

We are simply loving Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories. My own copy is packed up in a box in our garage, for which I kick myself. I am floored that the copy I put on hold via the library's online catalog is an edition with new illustrations which are rather terrible and don't have the original captions by Kipling! Forgive me for sounding so snobby but there are some things you just don't mess with!! The illustrations with captions are, like, 50% of the enjoyment of the story! Bah.