Homeschooling 101: Methods

I almost skipped over this completely to go straight to curriculums but how we teach is personal to each family, child, parent, and even what life brings that year. For example this past year I was the most hands off I have ever been.  I personally hated it, my biggest was not in favor, and I think my middle boy was neutral about it. I was struggling with Lyme, and had a developmentally delayed toddler on top of teaching the two biggest.  I was exhausted, and they are at an age where they can learn on their own.  The test scores are in for the school year; they scored (at or above grade level) at least grade level in everything or higher. That shows that even though the method wasn’t what I wanted the boys grasped the knowledge put before them.  There is no secret formula to homeschooling because every family is different. 

One year we turned our dining room into the water system. You can see the water evaporating from the pond here.

Below I’ve briefly touched on the most popular methods, and which ones we use most often in our family.

Charlotte Mason Method: Is basically the belief that the child needs to be fully taught, not just academically, but that their environment shapes them, and the habits we teach them create who they will be as adults.  This is where I wholeheartedly was that very first year, actually this has been my philosophy for all of parenthood. I guess this method is still at my core, although I also think I’ve embraced the unschoolers approach in a lot of ways. 

Unschooling: This is a curiosity approach, child led. When I first learned of this term I think I gagged a little. The idea that our kids would pick and choose meant there wouldn’t be any structure and I am a person of structure.  How could anybody function in a world of chaos? Over time though I realized that actually this method is one of my favorites.  I have a friend who says, “We love to learn by mistake.” Really, when you’re having fun and fully invested in understanding it takes far less time to conquer a new concept. I have used this method in science, art, spelling, math, history. Throughout my posts you’ll probably see this method sprinkled around the most.  For my dyslexic boy it’s been vital that I let him learn in his way, at his pace, with the focus of things he cares about.  An example, he decided a few years ago he was going to be a Boy Scout.  Each year Boy Scouts intertwines it’s way deeper into his schooling.  Just this week he finished up the third of his citizenship merit badges.  Which means he had to study current events and do write ups on them.  He learned how to do online research, practiced writing formal letters (which meant proper spelling and grammar were used), of course he read, used maps, learned about world governments, US government, and local government, in fact he interviewed the head of Parks and Recreation (people skills!). He learned how to make phone calls  (See here I’m throwing in some of that Charlotte Mason method in here. Life skills. She’s at my core). All of this was “mistake learning” that I counted towards school.  He needs to learn this, but doing it as a Boy Scout was more fun than reading it from a textbook and it will stick with him much longer.

Relaxed/Eclectic Homeschooling: This is kind of what traditional homeschooling looks like. Often the mornings are full of school work while the afternoons are filled with “electives” so to speak. This type of homeschooling family, to some extent, follows the grade levels of the child, and is a bit more scheduled… This is also us.  My kiddos are given a grade level and in the early years I made sure they knew everything the public school kids did before our year was complete.  I think it’s important for them to practice taking the standardized test in preparation for the SAT’s if they choose to take them in highschool. But over the years I have loosened up on this a bit. Now I follow a schedule of book work in the morning and easy stuff later in the day, and finish the year with the standardized testing. However I plan four days of learning leaving the fifth day as our catch up day. If things come up throughout the week or a subject needs more time we use our fifth day for this.

Stay at Home approach: This is pretty much a traditional classroom that meets your home.  This was me my very first year.  I had a huge chalkboard on the wall, a days of the week chart next to the giant calendar with holidays included, I was ready with fun stickers, we had stations, I literally had a classroom in my house.  It lasted about three weeks.  When you’re teaching only two kiddos in two different grades for a lot of things this gets hard for all of us, so we ditched it.

Multiple Intelligence method: This is the idea that everybody is intelligent, but they each have their own learning style. For us this came into play the year my biggest son was diagnosed with dyslexia.  We figured it out in February. That very day I stopped all but math and the read aloud school books.  I began educating myself how to understand the dyslexic mind. It turns out I just needed to change my teaching approach. He was plenty intelligent, and once I changed my teaching method, school became a whole lot easier for him.  I thought that if I made the change for both boys it would make my life easier, but you know, my middle boy needs to read something to understand.  If he can read it he can grasp it.  It’s even true of Tae-kwon-do. I watched him struggle for months with his form. One day talking with his teacher I realized he needed to read it.  I found a book and in just a few days he had mastered the form.

Montessori method: Errorless learning, where the child learns at their own pace. In some ways I have used this.  It wasn’t until my son had tears in his eyes because he knew he should know the word he was trying to read but couldn’t figure it out that I realized I needed to let him learn at his pace.  It was a huge move on my part, it felt chaotic and forced me to give up control.  I wish I had put more thought into this in the very beginning because he still struggles with needing to be perfect in what he does.  When I finally did let him learn at the pace he needed school became fun again and he retained more information because we weren't worried about what would happen if he couldn’t remember the idea tomorrow. In the end it was good. 

The classical method: Teaching your kids to learn for themselves.  While this is a goal I have for my children this is not a method I have used.  It seems tedious to me so I’ve just never tried it. 

The Waldorf method: The goal here is to educate the body, mind, and spirit over time the emphasis changes. In the younger years the focus is art, music, and nature.  It is not until they are a little bit older (than when kids traditionally start school) that they focus on academics. Not me yet, and probably never fully, but I could see using this method in part with my youngest.

Homeschool.com is a great resource to learn more about these methods and just to have as a base resource. This link will also show you different schedules commonly followed with each method.