Home education is a lifestyle pt2

I'm very active in homeschool groups on facebook. I am always seeing post about parents so frazzled about making sure that they cover all the activities subjects you know math science reading history. That is so sad the way that I homeschool my children I can't even think of the rest of the subjects that these parents are talking about. It's kind of funny because I was talking about putting all the components together and yes I have all the books but no I don't sit down and do each subject an hour a day they kind of go together seamlessly in like a 2 hour long conversation. We might have a science experiment like once a week maybe once a month it depends on the season honestly. Homeschooling is truly a lifestyle I mean we can't even really call it homeschooling because when you use the word school people seem to think that I'm doing traditional institutional school work at home. That is 100% not the case. The best way that I can put it is that think of a homestead way back long time ago in the 1800s Little House on the prairie style. I think they went to a one room school house but think a little bit before that before they even had school houses and kids were basically just learning by reading the Bible and doing basic math stuff while working on the farm. You know kind of like you know counting eggs and counting how many nails it would take to put up a fence and how many planks it would need to make a fence and someone and so forth stuff like that. So adapt that mentality of farm life into City life living in an apartment. We still have chores the house still needs to be taken care of the rooms still need to be clean the furniture dusted vacuumed floor mop and swept. Now integrate the things that need to be done in the house, with the things that need to be done for yourself you know brushing your teeth washing your face taking a shower, as well as the things that you actually want your children to practice music art you know math and stuff like that. You integrate that into a routine of schedule a work schedule that they kind of had when they were on a farm you wake up and you have certain activities and then you sit down and you have a discussion think about teaching reading while reading to your child before they go to bed at night. That's basically all it is you integrate math into cooking as a family talking about measurements science as you talk about how the mixtures change and steam turns I mean not staying turns into but water turns into steam while it's boiling on the stove or how ice cubes form from a liquid into a solid you know states of matter you know that's science right. It's kind of funny how everyone has gotten away from how we originally learned these things in the first place and have come to believe that you can only teach these things from a book no we have always learned through doing and experiencing things in the real world. I taught my children geography by showing them around the neighborhood they lived in teaching them how to read street signs and acknowledging left and right I of course went further and taught them how to read a map because Google maps sucks and I taught them north south east and west you know the cardinal directions. As well as putting them in boy scouts for a while even though that turned out to be really really creepy. So in all the activities that my children do during the day that is my children's education emphasis on education. I have no idea why people don't take the time to unschool themselves as well as their children when coming into this lifestyle. Granted with classical conversations and school day and all these pods and stuff you do have a social aspect to it where other like minds come together in a community and actually engage with one another. But that's not where the education takes place on a regular basis you're teaching your child with every conversation you have with them. So for me Charlotte Mason and the classical method made more sense so to speak the Socratic method where you have a discussion on various topics. But with the Socratic method I don't just give my children the answer we actually do the scientific method of investigation when searching for the answers to whatever question my child may have. And not only teaches them how to think but it teaches them that their way of getting to the answer might be different from mine but the process is still the same. The scientific method along with questioning through the Socratic method and discussion it's just helpful in teaching my children how to be logical critical thinkers. I have a library of books references that they can use to practice their skills and investigate their questions. I have tools in my disposal to help teach certain things but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're sitting down with those books day to day doing those activities for hours and hours on end, unless they want to. Honestly that is not what they want to do on a regular basis. So be encouraged that when going into home education you don't have to do school at home you don't need a desk and chairs and pencil cases and what not that you would provide for your child if you were taking them to a brick and mortar school. Obviously they're going to need pens and pencils and paper to write on and have their reflective moments but for their daily continuous 8 hour a day schooling experience just get that out of your mind. It's a lifestyle talk to your children read to your children read with your children discuss things with your children and explore things outside the home. Another misconception is that home education only takes place inside the home. Home education is just the root of the education. I miss going to the museums and the parks and everything else that my city provided allowing my children to explore where they live and the world around them. I think that is the main reason why I was even more depressed during this past pandemic because our routine was so drastically impacted and trying to get back to that joyful routine has never returned. Everyone is always so upset and up in arms over a little tiny things. But that's not the point of this blog the point of this blog is to encourage that even though I recommend certain curriculum material to use that is not what I sit my children down and go through for hours and hours on end it is just a backbone or a scaffolding which I place my topics of conversation around. I use it as a scaffolding or starting point for the conversations that I have with my children and it helps me to know what grade level each topic is appropriate for considering I've already covered these topics as an adult I can't have a college level conversation with my five-year-old I kind of have to learn how to dumb it down for him. And I had to do that with all my children because at age 11 he's at a different developmental level and I need to remind myself what that is and how to effectively communicate with him. And my 14-year-old is at a different developmental level and my conversations with him are slightly different from that of my other two children. Although we might be having the same conversations the words that I use differ every time I have a conversation I use different conversations the good part about having multiple children at different age levels is that repetition is key and repeating the same thing with different words that accommodate those different development levels is freaking gold. When it came to language arts I thoroughly needed help learning how to teach that to my children because I struggled with learning how to comprehend what I was reading to the point where I had to go to summer school in the 5th grade. So that is where I needed help in teaching my children how to communicate effectively in written form. Other than that math is easy getting encyclopedia history is easy science experiments are easy. You don't have to do the whole school level stuff because just exposing them to the information through reading books and doing little experiments that are like little teasers it's enough everybody is not going to be a scientist everybody is not going to be a history major or a lawyer or anything like that just showing them everything which is why I love the Charlotte masson method of the feast and exposing your children to every little thing it's good because then once your child is exposed to everything and they tell you what they enjoy you can delve into it deeper and they become experts in those things and that is a much better way to spend your time then the 8 hours of children spend in school. Every adult will tell you that they remember so little about school except for the things that they really enjoy doing. And that's what home education should be a time well spent doing the things that you love and enjoy while still learning the basics of how to be an adult in the society of which you will matriculate into.