I am working on a small resource to give for free to those who sign up on my site.

I want to make it a quick, practical read specifically for those who are starting on their first year of homeschooling, and I’d like to include ideas from a variety of homeschool moms. I might call it: “From the Trenches: A Guide to Surviving your First Year of Homeschooling.”

I’d love to include your thoughts!

Pretend a mom was sitting in front of you asking what she needed to know for that first year. What would you tell her?

I will probably start compiling these this weekend, so if you have time to reply before Friday that would be wonderful. Just comment below.

The topic areas I’m thinking of are:

• Support System: Find those who will cheer for your success
• Character: Your kids have to listen to you before “school” will work
• Academics: Start with the basics
• Simplify: Cut out as much as possible to make life easier
• One Thousand Gifts: Focus on the daily joys
• Recharge: Plan breaks for yourself
• Focus on your Goals: Remind yourself often why you are doing this (I’ll put in a printable sheet for them to write down their top 3 reasons and 3 encouraging verses)

Feel free to write whatever you want, because I may shift those categories around a bit.

Would you also include your name (first + last initial, or simply initials if you’d rather), and how long you’ve been homeschooling?

I’ll probably write it like this: “Be sure to….. “ – Susie C., homeschooling for 4 years

Thank you so much for any advice or wisdom you can share!

I had planned every other Thursday to be our Nature Day where we go somewhere wild, play outdoors, and try to spy a new bird for the kids’
bird books.

Yesterday arrived, however, and I really didn’t feel like going on a road trip. I had to get ready for my son’s 3^rd birthday and the first day of co-op, and the whole thing just sounded like a lot of work. Good thing I had planned to do this with a friend. She was up for it, so I hated to wimp out on her.

Especially since it was my idea in the first place.

We decided to go.
It looks like we’re packing for a trip on the Oregon Trail, doesn’t it? Nope, just a morning at the beach.

In hindsight, I needn’t have bothered with the potty. Next time, just the essentials: swimsuits, towels, sunscreen, beach buckets (forgot
those), nature backpack with bird book, lunch/snacks, wipes. Still a lot of essentials.

Now, this whole trip was fun for me since I got to sit on the sand and hang out with my friend while the kids more or less played cheerfully.

But the best part is, it totally counts as a full day of school. Here are some ways we worked learning in:

1. Creative/Imaginative Play (Logic/Spatial Reasoning)  – The three big kids (my two plus their friend) built a castle and intricate moat system. The two boys had a heated discussion over whether the moat should be connected to the water (so boats could come in) or not (so the water didn’t go out), but eventually decided, at my suggestion, that the imaginary boats could go up on wheels to get over the land, then back down when they arrived at the moats. This was amenable to all.

This is why Apple and Google executives spend big bucks to send their kids to private schools that emphasize free and creative play. We want to raise the kids who will ask the right questions, right? We want children who know how to come up with
the ideas, not just know how to use technology.  We want world-changers.

And a great place to start is with sandcastles and moats.

2.  Literature – On the hour-long drive there and back we listened to Sigourney Weaver’s reading of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen. It gave me goose bumps. I was worried it would be too creepy for the kids, but they sat spellbound. (Well, my toddler didn’t really care for it, but that’s to be expected.)

Anyway, I want to get more Hans Christian Andersen stories on CD if the library has them. Captivating.  (And I just want you to know, I wasn’t organized enough to check it out in preparation for our trip. I happened upon an overdue CD I’d forgotten about, so hooray for us!)

3. Science – While at the beach, I alerted the kids to the birds I saw and looked them up in our Birds of Oklahoma book. (I like this book because the birds are organized by color, which is all I know about a bird when I spot it.) Eventually I want the kids to do this, but for now, I have to be the bird enthusiast.

We saw a Great Egret, possibly a Blue Heron, and some kind of hawk, but I couldn’t tell which kind. Also the kids found a mussel in the lake and lumps of clay buried in the sand, so we talked about those a bit.

4. Some more free play. If someone insisted, it could be called “socializing” – the kids played on the jungle gym to dry off. (I was hoping they might knock some
sand off them and track less into the car, but this did not seem to have happened.)

Our friend’s dad had been showing him pictures of the landing on Mars, so the kids pretended they were landing on Mars for a good thirty minutes.

They were quite intense. My favorite quote:

“Look it’s a baby!”

“But human babies on Mars are actually giant spiders!”

So in case you ever make it to Mars, beware of huge spider babies.

5. Writing/Art/Science – I was actually going to skip having the kids do a page for their Bird Book, but then I remembered we were supposed to do some reading for co-op the next day. It was the first five pages in the Apologia Flying Creatures book, and it talked about how animals are given Latin names. (Our CC memory work is already paying off because the book talks about Kingdom, Phylum, etc.)

I decided we should go ahead and do a Bird Page, so that we could practice writing the English name and the Latin name.  (Excuse the dinner debris in the photo. Also, excuse the sharp knives flung haphazardly about.)

I just got out regular white sheets of printer paper and asked the kids to write the English name, Latin name, date and location (I helped with spelling), and then copy the picture from the book.

Here is my daughter’s.  She named the bird “Yelo Bec” (Yellow Beak).

I punched holes in them and plan to put them in one of those folders with brads. That will be our Bird Book. I’d love it if the kids to have 15-20 birds in there by the end of the year.

We might possibly collect insects (deceased ones) for a bug board, but I’m not sure if I want to open that can of worms yet. Do I really want to invite
dead insects into the house?  I don’t
know that I do.

Let us not forget what happened to Sukey (may she rest in peace).

So that was our first Nature Day of this school year. Getting everything packed up was a bit of a pain, and taking baths afterward and washing out the sandy towels was a bit of a pain, but it was worth it.The sand was actually good for my son, who has some sensory issues, and gets irritated by textures easily. Playing in the sand is a great sensory exercise.

So even though it feels like a “day off,” it’s really a day full of learning, exploring, and adventure.

How do you make time for nature study or outdoor time in your school?

Be sure and enter the $20 Target card + signed copy of the book giveaway on Facebook!

I’m so encouraged by reading everyone’s comments. Thank you! And also, I love reading what other people eat for breakfast. It makes me feel more normal.

So, you know how I said I wasn’t going to get stressed? How I’d be the picture of calm? Well, I just returned from my co-op meeting and my head is spinning with emails to send, forms to collect, Spanish books to order, and backpacks to organize. But I’m not allowed to be stressed, so I had to sing to myself on the way home, “Que Sera Sera, whatever will be will be, the future’s not ours to see, Que Sera Sera.”

Which didn’t help all that much.

So now I’m repeating to myself my “His yoke is easy and His burden is light.” This actually does help because it reminds me that this is all Little Stuff. It’s really not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. I don’t remember Jesus saying my kids have to learn Spanish.

I’ll do my best and send some emails and order some things off Amazon, and organize the best I can, but I’ll also do my best to remember the important things. Like Jesus, and holding my children’s sweet faces in my hands, and celebrating my baby turning three this week. (Oh, now I’m making myself cry.)

Because though the future’s not ours to see, God sees it and knows it is good and has a plan so much bigger than my lists.

And that does give me rest for my soul.

If you’ve read the book, you’ll see the irony in this
post.  (I’m also using Facebook for the
book, which is even more ironic.)

You see, Julianne, my protagonist, started out thinking the
Classical method was not the homeschooling approach for her. A YouTube video of a four-year-old quoting facts about Alexander the Great and reciting Latin declensions freaked her out. As the year progressed, however, some aspects of
the Classical system grew on her and she started incorporating it (a bit) into their home.

Truth is stranger than fiction. We have joined a Classical Conversations group for this upcoming year.

We’re not doing the Foundations level (morning memory work class), but we are doing the Essentials level (afternoon writing/grammar/math games class). I really like the structured approach to writing, especially for those who hate to write (cough *boys*).

I heard about it in April, and immediately loved it and signed up my son. (It starts with the third grade, so my other two are too young for it.)

In June, I opened the grammar guide that could have doubled as a college text, freaked out, and after talking to several people, promptly withdrew my son.

Then in late July, I watched Andrew Pudewa’s (Institute for Excellence in Writing) DVD covering the whole writing method, and waffled. I talked to some more people about it, and decided to re-enroll my son.

Don’t you feel so sorry for the poor lady that had to deal with me? Me too.  (To her credit, she was so gracious and accommodating and didn’t once say, “Are you insane?” which she had every right to do.)

But I decided that if I re-enrolled him, we were just going to do it, get whatever we could out of it, and not worry about the rest. I don’t want the homework to take over our lives. If it starts resulting in tears and frustration (I mean more than the customary tears and frustration), we’ll just cut some out.

Here’s how I am planning to dip our toes into the Classical waters, without jumping in headfirst quite yet:

1. No freaking out. I’m done. No more allowed. I think it can be overwhelming for
   new moms (Almost all the moms at our campus are new). I’ll be the picture of calm. If people start getting stressed out, I’ll lead us all in Que Sera Sera. (What? You don’t believe that?)
2. Listen to the Memory Work CDs in the car and/or at bedtime.These are painless and fun, and have memorable songs that teach all kinds of facts about ancient history, geography, math, science, and English. We’re skipping Latin. I’m just not up for that yet.

(My son says he wants to learn the Latin part on the CD though! As he said, “Not many kids know Latin. I mean, except for those Latin kids.” )

3. Do our writing homework for class and as much of the Grammar homework as fits into the time I have allocated. I don’t want it to be a huge part of our days, so I may cut some homework out. I will fight to protect reading time, imaginative play, and time outside, so this will have to fit in around those things.

4. Review the week’s memory work at dinner. We don’t have to do any of the memory work because we’re not in the morning class. But I want to because we’re
studying ancient cultures this year anyway for history. And I want our family to
go to Africa this summer, Lord willing, so I want to learn some of the
geography of the area. And while we’re at it, we might as well see what we can
learn of the timeline facts.

So my plan is to hang up the page with all that week’s memory work on the wall in the kitchen (that’s the clipboard you see in the picture), and tape the timeline cards up. At dinner, we can discuss and review. We’ll see how much we manage to get.

(And truth be told, we need something to do at dinner anyway. My husband’s often not home yet, and trying to force polite, stimulating conversation with my children is a lot like trying to have intellectual discussions with a tree full of screaming monkeys. This gives us something interesting to do.)

We’ll see how that all works out.

5. Read what my kids read. This has nothing to do with Classical Conversations, but is an idea my friend distilled down for me from A Thomas Jefferson Education. I forget why that’s Classical, but somehow it is. By reading the same chapter books my kids are, we can discuss the ideas in them.  So, whatever (easy)
chapter books my son is reading, I want to read them too so we can discuss.

Here’s the weird thing: I’m really excited! I love studying this material, love learning the history and facts that I never learned in school. The kids seem to like it as well, seeing how the pieces fit together.

I don’t know that I see the value in it for a four-year-old, if that was my oldest child. I think I’d rather let him play in the sandbox. But at eight, my son really can understand what we’re learning, and my six-year-old daughter can get bits and pieces. My two-year-old can sit in his booster seat, grin adorably at us, and try to say “Mesopotamia.”

It seems like a good time to start.

Do you do incorporate pieces of the Classical approach? What do you do at your house?

Official programs/resources
http://www.welltrainedmind.com/
http://www.ClassicalConversations.com
Excellence in Writing

Blogs by moms
Ann Voskamp’s approach is “Simple Classical,” which I love.
CC resources: The Corkums and Half a Hundred Acre Wood

BONUS: I was looking at the Corkums resources for Cycle 1 Week 1 (the week we are on) and found this rap (and the idea to use a croissant) about the Fertile Crescent. Isn’t it hilarous? I’ll be showing my kids this one!