A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

It’s easy to get turned around by all the various strategies for managing this unruly beast: the two horned monster of homeschool and child-rearing. Like most homeschoolers, I meandered between a variety of programs, plans, and philosophies, trying them out. When my kids were small, I plunged into the curricular zeitgeist of the day: KONOS. It was a kinesthetic curriculum that focused on developing character as it taught academics. Tall order for my little rascals! We loved it, though. From the start, we immersed ourselves in activities paired with school subjects. We made a model of an ear canal using a turkey baster, cookie sheets, and rubber hoses. We held a Japanese luncheon for neighbors making tempura, sitting on cushions at a low table, and putting chopsticks in our hair buns!

The pattern of making our learning hand’s on was firmly established. It became my primary objective: to see if I could coax a school subject into an activity or set of activities. For instance, I remember when we read Farmer Boy, we served pie for breakfast alongside both ham AND bacon. Eggs and pancakes too. It was a feast of yumminess followed by a food coma which sent the morning’s math lesson out the window.

When Johannah fell in love with American Girl Dolls, she started a club with her best homeschooling friends. Each one picked a doll and each family hosted a party with foods, dress-ups, crafts, and games suited to the doll and period in history. When we fell in love with the night sky, my best friends and my family created a solar system teatime after dark—complete with star cut-outs of cheese and crescent moon apple slices. The oldest daughter from the other family came dressed up as Jupiter, bearing a painted red eye. We read poetry and sang songs.

Homeschooling does include skill building. There are a gazillion suggestions (official count) from every quarter about how to manage these necessary tasks, particularly in large families. Try them all! See which ones fit. But remember: this year’s solution may lose traction next year. Or, what makes one child feel secure and successful makes another child feel oppressed. And even more baffling: the moment you subdue the loose threads of housekeeping, car trips, and homeschool into your neat binder, it may all unravel due to ticks, the flu, or an unexpected hail storm!

It’s maddening! And exhilarating. I wouldn’t rob you of the journey and all you will learn on your own.

The truth is: our homeschools wind up looking like us for better or worse. I’d say: for better. It can’t be helped! I have friends who are homeschool parents and both are in the medical field. One is a transcriptionist for a laboratory and the other supervises medical tests for P&G products. Is it shocking that their three kids are now a doctor and two nurses? No. Is it surprising that my kids are into foreign languages, reading, writing, the Internet, and Shakespeare? Um, no.

Indulge what you are good at, right in front of your children, so that they may carry on the family genetic dispositions with even more competence than you had! It’s one of the ways we make the world better. Play with homeschool philosophies the way your kids play with soccer balls—kick them around, aim them for the goal, pass them off between children, and then take a rest and see if you want to do that again.

There’s no formula that works for everyone—every homeschooler or every child. But somewhere in all that investigating and cheerful exploration is your homeschool! Relish it!

Here is yesterday’s periscope talk with an EXCLUSIVE VIEW of my kids’ homeschool products over the years!