Written by contributor Renee Tougas of FIMBY

This past winter our family lived in a two bedroom, 750 square foot cabin in a rural river valley. Today, I am writing this post from a two bedroom Montréal city apartment where we are living for the month.

We are a North American homeschooling family of five (three kids, not littles either) and we currently live in small spaces. On purpose.

We do this, live in small spaces, so we can work and learn together at home, have grand adventures and follow our dreams.

For all the eight years we’ve been officially homeschooling we’ve never had a dedicated school room. We’ve had kitchen tables, craft tables, a couch, bookshelves and the living room floor. This is where we “do school”.

Whatever your reasons are for living in small spaces – maybe it’s a choice, maybe you feel you have no choice – there are ways to make it work.

Tools & Practices

Let’s start with the very practical, hands-on ideas for small space homeschooling.

Organization

Just because we don’t have a school room doesn’t mean we’re not organized. In fact, I think without a dedicated school space we probably need to be even more organized.

There are designated shelves for homeschool resources and craft supplies. We use apple crates to build our library.

When there is “a place for everything and everything in its place” finding resources and cleaning up at the end of the day is much easier. And trust me, daily clean up is very necessary when the kitchen table is where you craft, study pond life (you don’t want to know all the creepy crawlies that have been on our table this past spring), do your math lesson, and eat lunch.

Technology

Technology is what makes so much of our small space lifestyle possible. Almost everything we need, resource wise, can be accessed via computer. E-books, audio stories, support and intervention, lessons and courses – all of it can be accessed online.

This is particularly important to our family since we live in a rural, francophone area (we don’t speak or read French well, yet). We’d be hooped without these online resources.

Community Resources

Many small space dwellers live in cities. Cities are teeming with learning opportunities. We’re living in one of North America’s largest cities this month and I’m amazed and simply overwhelmed (country bumpkin that I am) how much we can access here.

Who needs a school room with all these goodies waiting just beyond the metro stops?

Even if you don’t live in a large city, most moderate sized cities and towns have, at the very least, a decent library or interlibrary loan. This can be your number one homeschooling resource. Use it.

Get Outdoors

Living in a small space forces us outdoors more, because frankly I’d go crazy if we had to be indoors together all day.

One of the reasons we lived in our last rental, the 750 sq foot cabin, was because of the meadow, trees and river right outside our door. A place we felt was safe for our children to be free-range.

We were willing to sacrifice indoor space for unlimited access to the outdoors, where so much incredible learning happens.

Mindsets

Just as important as the right tools is your mindset – how you view your circumstances and living situation.

Having the right mindset has the power to change your life. This relates to small space homeschooling as much as anything else.

Shared Spaces

Cultivate an attitude of shared spaces and shared resources.

In a small home there is very little space, emotionally or physically, for “mine”. My desk, my office, etc. (I do believe that everyone should have their own retreat places, whether that’s a bed or a corner chair. And children should have toys that belong just to them. But most everything else can be shared.)

If indoor real estate is at a premium it makes more sense to share space and have rooms and furniture serve double or triple duty.

The World as Your Classroom

One of the reasons we homeschool is to remove the barriers and boundaries around learning. Learning is not limited to a school desk, a computer monitor, an opened book or the kitchen table.

Learning is available to us all the time, all around us.

We choose to live in small spaces because we want to see more of the world and keeping our housing costs low helps us do that.

By seeing more of the world our children are getting an education that a school room is simply not able to provide.

Let it Go

Homeschoolers think we need a lot of house space because we have to store, keep and maintain all those resources. The books, the curriculum we buy, the computers, the board games and everything else we use to teach our kids.

If you’re afraid to downsize because of your homeschool resources ask yourself these questions:

1. How much of this are we really using, on a regular basis?
2. Do we have to own it all or can we access some of this in our community? Either through the library, a homeschool co-op or the internet.

Whatever you don’t actually use, which is probably more than you realize – get rid of it.

Non-consumable curriculum (ie: stuff you don’t write in) holds its value and can often be sold in curriculum swaps, either locally or online. My preference is to give it away. Bless another homeschooler who is just getting started.

Small space homeschooling has freed up our resources in so many ways. With less space to maintain we have more freedom. Freedom to learn about the world beyond a school room.

Do you homeschool in a small space? What strategies do you use to make it work?

Written by contributor Renee Tougas of FIMBY.

Ages of my children: (almost) 13, 11, and 9
Educational Philosophies I pull from: Leadership Education, Literature-Based, Charlotte Mason, Unschooling

Our family has gone through a lot of change in the past year. We moved to a different country and have lived in three different provinces or states in the past twelve months.

My husband now works at home and our nearly thirteen-year-old daughter is going through her own monumental life change, moving from childhood to young adulthood.

These life transitions naturally affected our homeschool routines and the resources we use.

A couple of significant homeschool changes worth mentioning:

1. We are English speakers now living in a francophone province. There is very limited English public library service where we live so we access more online resources than ever before.
2. My husband takes a much more active part in our homeschool since moving. Specifically in the areas of his interests – computer programming, science and technology in general.

I’ve broken down our homeschool curriculum by subject, though in application we don’t live our days studying “subjects” so much as investigating, exploring and diving into our interests.

Reading & Literature

Our younger two children are not yet confident independent readers so on a regular basis they read to me for reading practice. Graphic novels and comic books are a real hit with our 11-year-old son. Arch Stone publishes some excellent classic fiction in graphic novel form.

These two also listen to a lot of audio books. Here are a few good sources: Audible.com, Sparkle Stories, LibriVox (not always such great narration or recording quality – you get what you pay for) & Audio Cloud.

I read to the kids nearly every day from a children’s chapter book of my choosing. We’re currently working our way through The Chronicles of Narnia for the second time in my homeschool career. Many of these titles are chosen from Honey For a Child’s Heart and Books Children Love.

Our thirteen-year-old daughter Celine chooses her literature selections predominantly from Honey for A Teen’s Heart, Youngzine community peer recommendations, and Amazon.com reviews (with my approval). She also accesses a lot of public domain books, which includes the traditional “classics”, at Project Gutenberg.

I am continually finding titles to both read to my youngest and recommend to my oldest from sources like Thomas Jefferson Education, Sonlight catalog (we don’t follow the program but use their booklists as a resource), and others.

Celine does most of her reading on a Kindle. You can read about how we’re using e-readers in our home in my post Becoming an (e)Reader.

Writing

Handwriting. We use Getty Dubay Italic program to teach our elementary aged children handwriting mechanics.

Spelling. I have never had success with a spelling program or even a strong desire to teach this skill separate from writing and reading in general. I changed my methods this year in order to better help our son with his reading. We use All About Spelling and I love it.

It’s logical and is easy to follow and implement. And it’s working for us.

Compositional Writing. We use everyday writing opportunities–letters, e-mail, journaling, lists, self-directed report writing (ie: my kids write reports on their own because they’re interested in the topic), poetry, story writing, etc. – and our reading together to teach grammar, vocabulary, and also spelling.

This year I am using The Writer’s Jungle to help me be a better writing coach and mentor.

I love this resource because it’s about helping our children “express themselves more and more powerfully over the course of their lifetimes… in written form.” (Julie Bogart)

It fits very well with our philosophy of education and homeschool methodology. I consider it a comprehensive guide for grades K through middle school.

History, Geography and Cultural Studies (World Study)

Our world study still looks quite similar to what I describe in this post. Because we no longer have access to a good library I use The Story of The World with the Activity Book more regularly as the core of our elementary history curriculum.

The kids follow their own interests using our personal library of reference and living books. We also watch select YouTube videos and online documentaries. Victorian Farm was one we enjoyed this winter.

An excellent resource for literature-based history, geography and cultural studies is All Through The Ages. This mother of all booklists has book titles for any time period in history or geographical area you want to learn about. This resource is very helpful in a literature-based, interest driven learning environment.

World Events. This is an area of study for our oldest and she mostly uses Youngzine, an online magazine for late elementary and middle school aged children. I highly recommend this site – safe, engaging, and appropriate content for young minds.

Bible

This year we’ve followed the general outline recommended in Telling God’s Story and focused on the life of Christ for our Bible instruction. We don’t use the instructor text or activity book.

We’ve been listening to the gospels using Faith Comes By Hearing, a free audio download and also used Truth and Grace Memory Books for some memory verse ideas and to teach the Christian catechism.

Math

This is the most straight-out-of-the-box part of our homeschool curriculum.

Our younger two use Teaching Textbooks, which works well for their learning styles. Our oldest uses Math U See. Once we found the right fit for each child, we’ve experienced success (progress and positive feelings about math) with each of our children. These are done largely independent of my instruction or assistance, a big plus for me.

Science & Technology

Computer Science & Programming. My husband is in charge of this area.

He and Celine used Learn Python the Hard Way to start. Celine is currently doing a free, independent course offered by Udacity with Dad as tutor. Damien uses day to day life applications to teach all our children computer science and different technologies, at the level they can understand.

General Science. Science is a very seasonal subject in our home. What we study and how we do it changes with the seasons. We do nature study with guide and reference books, build and take stuff apart, mix and make, and use online resources for inspiration, teaching and further research.

When Celine finishes her current computer science course we may consider a general science curriculum for the fall, if she’s interested. I would appreciate any recommendations.

The other main “subjects” in our homeschool are domestic arts and homemaking, entrepreneurship, creative and fine art. Also physical and outdoors education.

Listing these last in no way indicates their importance in our homeschool; it’s simply that we haven’t used any specific resources for these studies this year. One exception this past winter being Mary Corbet’s Needle n’ Thread, a craft blog, where Celine studied embroidery.

What are your family’s favorite online resources? How have transitions in your life affected your homeschool curriculum?

The beginning of this New Year dawned bright. We had taken a break for moving and Christmas and now it was back to business.

By mid February, like every other homeschool family I know, we were getting kind an antsy.

We were tired of our routine and so we took a much needed week-long break. We used this time to rest our brains (mine especially!), watch online documentaries and get ready for my son’s birthday. Gastroenteritis paid an unwelcome visit and our one week break become two weeks.

March arrived, we were feeling healthy again and we got back to work.

But I didn’t feel the same rah-rah enthusiasm I did in January.

Where we live March is still very much winter. There are hints of spring, longer and warmer days, but snow still covers the ground. And not just a skiff, we’re talking feet and feet of snow. Then there’s the fact that we live in a 750 sq foot cabin. March cabin fever is literally cabin fever.

Like Jamie, I was tempted the beginning of this month to throw in the towel. Not the whole towel of course. Public school is not an option for us but I could just let the kids watch a bunch of documentaries and craft all day. Right?

Oh wait. I do that. Those are what I call our barebones school days. However, at this stage in our homeschool journey there are only so many barebones days I feel comfortable having during non-break sessions.

Let me explain.

We homeschool our children because we want them to learn in joy and freedom. To discover who they are, what they love, what they are good at, what their mission is and to build an education around that.

When our children were in their early elementary years it was common for me to take large chunks of time off from our (quite scant to begin with) morning school routine of math, writing, and reading. Well, the reading we didn’t take breaks from but anything else that required a lot of my brain power was always open for negotiation.

I wanted to go places and do things. I wanted to explore, learn and discover with my children. Sit down workbook type stuff was not my gig. Nor was I interested in building clever unit studies and lap books. We largely did what inspired me and we had fun doing it. I had fun doing it.

This was important to me. If I wanted to be in this for the long term I needed to enjoy my job.

Weekly farm and library visits. Regular community art and culture events. Museums, concerts, nature walks and hands-on art teaching from local artisans and craftspeople.

Lots of reading together on the couch.

This was the elementary education I wanted to give my children – to grow their natural love of learning and fascination with life.

This was much more important to me than keeping pace with arbitrary curriculum standards and measures. And “staying on task”.

Then my kids grew. (My littlest is still in her early elementary years so her learning is still very play-based.)

And as they’ve grown their intellectual needs have grown also. Certain gaps in their early years education are more apparent and I need to spend a few years – the middle years – reinforcing those areas before they go deeper with their studies as young adults.

I anticipated this would happen. I also knew someday I’d have to step up my game. That once the foundation was set I’d have to get more serious with my time management and (gulp) personal discipline – to model the kind of learning I wanted my young adult children to embrace. Self-directed, interest-driven, and mission minded.

This is where I’m at.

I’m in a new place of personal discipline and consistency with our school routine because this is what I need to model for my growing children.

We like the resources we use. Sure there is continual tweaking that goes on, each week actually, but by and large we like our “curriculum”.

• So when I feel uninspired, it’s not because of the resources.

We like the general groove and routine of our day. The mornings are directed by me, filling in those gaps I mentioned earlier and building other skills. Afternoons are largely free for our children’s personal interests. And for our nearly thirteen year old daughter this includes a fair amount of self-directed education. Projects that apply what she’s learning and grow her skills and knowledge.

• So when I feel unmotivated, it’s not because our schedule is too much.

We like spending our days together. Helping each other reach our goals. My husband works at home and shares in the parenting and schooling workload. Yes, I need occasional breaks and daily quiet time where I don’t hear anyone’s voice but I really do like being with my kids.

• So when I feel frustrated, it’s not because this is more than I can handle.

What it comes down to is personal growth and discipline. Once again, I’m reminded it’s about me, not them.

I have a job to do.

A job I am committed to. A job that I’m actually very passionate about. A job that, at this point, requires intellectual growth (mine) and discipline (mine also).

And that’s not easy.

The answer for me is not to switch curriculums. We like what we use. It’s not to take more breaks. We’ve rested and now there’s work to do. It’s not to say “I’m outta here” mentally and emotionally. I have good support.

The answer is self-discipline. The answer for me is to stay the course.

Have you reached a point in your homeschool journey where you have to stay the course? What does that look like for you?

Lately, I’ve found myself at another homeschooling crossroads.

After finding a good groove for the elementary years I have a daughter transitioning to young adulthood. Change – ack! I also have a son with unique (and different from his older sister) learning needs and younger daughter whose needs I don’t want to neglect while focusing on her older brother and sister.

The homeschooling journey isn’t necessarily easy, is it?

We doubt, we worry, we wonder…

Am I doing this right? Am I messing up my kids? Are we learning enough? What should we be learning? How do I find the right curriculum?

Lately, I’ve been learning to trust in one answer to all those questions.

Love.

Really.

If it sounds too Kumbaya-ish, stick with me for a little bit here. Let’s talk beyond lessons and schedules. Curriculum and resources.

These tools, useful as they are, are not the foundation. They’re just the pieces (necessary I might add) laid on top of the foundation.

The foundation is love and it needs to be the root of everything I do.

Without love the things we are hoping to teach our children are like noise. One person has described it as a “resounding gong or clanging cymbal.”

When love is the foundation everything else will flow from that.

Teaching my children what they need to know, choosing the right resources, instilling habits and practices of learning – it all starts with love.

Here are some qualities of love, when applied to our homeschool, that bring joy and freedom to our days of learning together.

Love is patient.

Love is waiting for your children – littles to young adults – to unfold, to bloom, in their own time.

When they are little it means giving them time to be children.

It means allowing them space to figure themselves out during those teen years.

It means not rushing through activities, educational or otherwise, so you can get onto the next thing.

Love is kind.

When the kids were younger we had one rule – be kind. There wasn’t a long list of “do not” because really kindness covers most all of it.

Applied to homeschooling – in my interactions with my children am I being kind?

Yes, there are things we need to “enforce” – habits and disciplines we are teaching (remember we teach more by example than our words). These can be taught and done in kindness.

Love doesn’t compare.

Don’t compare your child to someone else. Don’t compare you to someone else. Celebrate and appreciate the unique person your child is.

We each have special talents and strengths as well as weaknesses. Remember that as your child struggles with a particular subject. And then apply point one – patience.

Love listens.

This is such a huge key to homeschooling with joy. Practicing this discipline has freed me from so many “how will I know I’m doing the right thing, using the right curriculum, etc” type questions.

Children will let us know what they need. Our job is to listen. 

My children have let me know, loud and clear, when certain resources and routines are not working for them.

I’m not talking about the verbal moaning children sometimes do when we ask them to make their beds or do their handwriting practice. Our home is not immune to this. I do my own moaning from time to time (ok, everyday) about some jobs I’m just not motivated to do.

But when our kids repeatedly struggle with tears, frustration, or discouragement, about some aspect of family life or homeschool – I need to tune in and listen. They are communicating there is a problem.

Let me illustrate.

Math practice is just one of the daily disciplines in our home, kind of like making your bed.

We started this practice with each child around age seven or so and I was quite involved at that stage. We did it together.

As my kids got used to that routine it became an independent practice. By the way, this is an effective way to establish any kind of habit or routine – do it together until your child can do it on their own.

I had chosen a certain math curriculum and it worked well for our oldest daugther. I assumed my other children could use it fine.

My son however kept having a “bad attitude” about math. Complaining and resisting this routine part of our day. He was experiencing daily tears and frustration about a subject, that, I believe, should not be painful for young children.

His feelings and attitude were not the problem – they indicated what he couldn’t express verbally – the curriculum did not work well for him.

So we switched to something else. The tears and “bad attitude” went away.

We need to be detectives – “listening” to body language, behavior, and attitudes.

We need to listen to our children, not just their words, they will tell us if something isn’t working.

You really don’t need to know it all. What you do need is love.

Love listens and this will drive you to search for the answers when something isn’t working. In this way you will find the right curriculum and resources.

Love doesn’t compare and this allows your children (and you) to flourish and grow into amazing people. In this way you will know you’re teaching the right stuff and learning enough because it’s tailored to the unique needs of your child.

Love is patient and kind. In this atmosphere we realize our schedules and routines are simply tools to bring peace to our homes, to help us build relationship.

What do you think are the most important qualities of love, as applied to homeschooling?

Written by contributor Renee Tougas of FIMBY

The months of November and December were a planned homeschool break for us due to moving, celebrating birthdays and Christmas. We returned to our “in session” homeschool lessons and practice the Monday after New Year’s.

On that day I recorded an actual homeschool day in the life.

The first day back to a routine is not the most representative of our “typical” homeschool day. I keep our academic schedule light when we first get going and also I’m usually full of energy in the beginning of a new school term.

As my enthusiasm waxes and wanes and as we follow our individual interests our days take on unexpected twists and turns.

If I was writing this in two weeks or next month my day might look like a morning at the library followed by an afternoon immersed in books.

Or an exhausting morning of errands followed by an afternoon of documentaries and a hot bath (the first for the kids, the second for myself).

There is no typical homeschool day for our family.

When I recorded this given day I kept track of the household goings-on from the time I got up to the time I went to bed. Way too much to post here.

So what I share below is the hours between breakfast and supper.

7:30 I wake up the kids (I’ve been up since 6:00). My husband Damien makes oatmeal for breakfast but everyone eats on their own. Kids do their morning chores.

9:00 Laurent (10) and Brienne (9) have done their morning tasks and start a game of cards – war.

9:30 I close down my writing. I am now parent-on-duty. Kids are still playing cards, there is a discussion about the continents. “Is the North Pole on its own continent, like the South Pole?” I check the kids’ room and do chore quality control.

Now that my computer is free I tell the younger two to start on their math. They’ll take turns.

9:40 Meeting with 12 yr old Celine. Together we discuss her self-directed school work for the week. History, which also covers her copywork, spelling and vocabulary. Math, current events and world news.

There are other pieces to her curriculum (writing, computer programming, Bible, etc…), but our meeting only addresses the work she’s responsible for on her own.

This transition to scholarship and ownership of her learning schedule is new for us. And we are still figuring out how it works.

Photo by Renee Tougas

10:00 My pjs are still on – time to get dressed! I help Brienne with her math. Get Laurent going on handwriting practice.

10:15 I start the laundry. Review Laurent’s handwriting.

I notice it’s snowing. Again. So beautiful. Take a deep breath in and enjoy the view.

10:30 I sit down to eat some fruit with Brienne. The breakfast dishes still aren’t washed. Celine wanders into the kitchen, looking for a snack. I find out she didn’t actually eat breakfast. This sometimes happens with Daddy in charge of the mornings.

I show Laurent how to use the calculator to check his math and find his mistakes. While at the computer I check comments on my blog.

10:45 Go back to eating my grapefruit, ignoring the breakfast clean up just a little longer.

I sit and look through Brienne’s writing from last month. I find a Unicorn essay and I write a translation of her “inventive” spelling. She may actually want to read this in the future. That done, the essay gets filed in Brienne’s school binder.

Photo by Renee Tougas

11:00 I finish the dishes, finally. The younger two return to playing cards – it seems handwriting and math were just a distraction from that activity.

11:15 Damien comes into the kitchen to chat. Fills a bowl with pistachios. I spend some time snacking and talking with my best friend.

11:30 Start another load of laundry and I finally brush my teeth and wash my face.

11:45 Mad Libs – all together. Without a doubt, my kids favorite homeschool “practice.”

12:00 I prepare tomorrow’s copywork for the younger two. Every week is different – poetry, history, Bible, a passage from our read aloud.

The kids are “negotiating” how to finish the card game. Laurent is done playing, Brienne wants to continue. Back and forth it goes. Celine steps in and finishes Laurent’s game for him. Check in at my blog, get lost on an internet rabbit trail.

Download a free book to Celine’s Kindle, part of her history and literature reading.

12:15 Back to the kitchen to make lunch. Leftover soup and Chinese cabbage and tofu stirfry.

Photo by Renee Tougas

Assess what’s in the fridge, trying to make a decision about tonight’s supper. I’m thinking potato broccoli soup. No potatoes. Back to the menu drawing board. Plan B – chickpea broccoli stirfry with rice.

The game squabbling resumes. Ironic. The game of war produces a war in my home. I call a peace treaty using that age old parenting strategy – distraction. Time for Sparkle Stories (we love these stories!)

12:30 Damien joins us, Sparkle Stories on hold. Kids play magnets with their dad. I cook lunch.

1:00 Soup is served. The family sits down to eat while I finish the stirfry.

1:15 I sit down and we all finish eating together. Listen to an audio chapter of the Bible while we eat.

1:30 I sit for a moment of peace. Everyone washes their own eating utensils and Damien oversees kitchen clean up.

1:40 Computer time for me. E-mail, blog maintenance, home management stuff. Kids finish drying dishes and wiping surfaces, then it’s afternoon free time.

Photo by Renee Tougas

2:45 Still at my computer, I tell the kids to get ready to go outside.

3:15 Kids are out the door and ready for sledding on our driveway. I gear up to walk to the post office on this wintry day.

3:45 Post office is closed (forgot about that). But I’m happy to be outside anyway.

4:00 Home from my walk and I join the kids in their sledding. Feels like being a kid, in winter. It feels fabulous.

4:30 Back inside now and I start the beans for supper. I make a fresh fruit, nut and dried fruit snack and brew tea for the family.

Kids start stomping in from the cold and they’re hungry. Celine sits down at the kitchen counter to do her computer programming.

Brienne writes an e-mail to her Papa. There ensues a lot of “How do I spell…?” questions.

Laurent looks at a body book on the couch. He decides if he was a cell he’d be a white blood cell defending the body.

Celine helps Brienne with her e-mail.

5:25 I work on the grocery list, realize I haven’t checked my to-do list once today!

5:30 Girls do some computer stuff while Laurent showers.

5:45 Damien reviews Celine’s programming assignment and it’s like they are speaking another language. Oh wait, they are. When he’s done Damien goes back to his work.

Laurent is building with his magnets.

6:00 I tidy up the kitchen from snack and tea, start the rice cooker. Celine has her shower.

I dump clean laundry on the couch for the kids to fold and put away.

I work on supper and while things are simmering, start the menu for the week and return to the grocery list. Check my e-mail.

7:00 We sit down for supper and our evening routine unfolds.

That’s the end of our “day.” Because the kids aren’t littles there are still a couple hours of quiet activity after this – most notably supper clean up and reading time.

Is there such a thing as a typical day in your homeschool?

For several weeks now, and even months in some cases, bloggers have been posting about preparing for a simpler holiday.

Tsh has a countdown series, Plan Your Peaceful Christmas and fellow contributor Jessica (from Life as Mom) also offers a free Simpler Season planning resource.

I haven’t done any planning whatsoever, except for pinning a few wishful thinking, “maybe I’ll find extra energy next month” crafty ideas on a Pinterest board.

November was an unreal crazy month for our family. Another move. Our second in six months. The worst cold we’ve had in years, the same time as our move. And now, in two days we celebrate our youngest daughter’s 9th birthday.

Christmas has not been on the radar. At all.

It appears that everyone around us has their holiday act together. They made a budget and saved money. Handmade gifts were started back in July. A cute family photo is back from the printer, ready to be mailed. Operation Christmas Child boxes have already been sent.

These theoretical people – I know they’re out there, I used to be one – are really on the ball.

Then there’s our family.

Barely unpacked from our move and exhausted from weeks of sickness. We find ourselves nearing the end of this month pulling together the last of our energies to make a memorable and special day for the birthday girl.

Christmas this year truly needs to be simple. Homeschool this month truly needs to be simple.

Photo by Renee Tougas

Here are a few things I plan to do to K.I.S.S. (keep it simple sister) this Christmas season.

Keeping the calendar open.

This year we live in an entirely different community and country than where we used to call home. There are no “but we do this every year” local activities. Our December calendar is a clean slate.

I’m interested to find out what cool and interesting local things do happen during December but I am not committing to any of them.

We’re not doing school, we’re doing crafts.

I look forward to our December homeschool break.

Photo by Renee Tougas

We’re a crafty bunch and enjoy spending the month making gifts and celebrating the season. I am hoping (though not placing unrealistic expectations on myself) to make a few handmade gifts and the kids of course will be crafting a storm creating gifts for each other.

Celebrate the light.

For the first year ever we have a wood burning stove in our home, front and center in our main living space. An honest to goodness hearth.

No mantle for stockings but a fire for snuggling late afternoons and evenings to read, craft or play games together.

Photo by Renee Tougas

I also love to burn candles this time of year. Something as simple as a beeswax candle on the counter is one way I like to celebrate this season of light (and dark).

Let the kids decorate.

There was a time in my life when the tree was decorated “just so”. These were the years before I had children older than six months.

But children have their own ideas about decorating and as soon as they could reach those shiny ornaments all my perfect decorating schemes went out the frosty window.

These days I am happy to let the kids take over the decorating. They love opening the Christmas bin and finding favorite treasures and making the house festive.

Go outdoors.

A month of moving and sickness seriously curtailed our weekly outdoor adventures. We are all looking forward to getting back into nature.

Photo by Renee Tougas

Winter is a magical time of year to be outdoors. The frosty ground, icicles and (if we’re lucky) mounds of snow are the perfect playground for this time of year.

Enjoying treats (but just a few).

Having sick family members, including myself, for most of November was simply no fun. Our immune systems have been working hard enough without adding heaps of sugar to compromise them further.

But…it is Christmas so we’ll make a few treats, just not too many.

I like it when I’m ahead of the game coming into December. But I’m keeping it simple this year instead of struggling to keep up with unrealistic expectations.

Anyone else coming to the game late? How do you plan to keep your season simple?

When Jamie proposed this series to us a couple months ago I was stumped for a topic.

Not because I haven’t made mistakes. Of course I have. I just don’t look at life that way – looking back to mistakes, wishing or wondering if I should have done something different.

I happen to be married to an idea-generating, forward thinking optimist (I bring a dose of realism to the mix which makes for an excellent partnership). If I so much as utter, “oh, I wish I would have” or even worse, “that was stupid of me,” I am sure to be stopped in my tracks with a loving reproval from my husband.

I think this is a healthy perspective to have on homeschool mistakes and life in general. And when I am tempted to think “if only” I find it more helpful to face forward with proactive ideas for change instead of looking back.

Lest you think I think I’m perfect (my family will be the first to set you straight!) there have been homeschooling mistakes I’ve made along the way.

One in particular comes to mind.

Giving in to fear.

Not only is giving in to fear the worst reason to homeschool it’s also, I believe, one of the worst mistakes we can make in our homeschool practice.

I know. I’ve done it.

Photo by Renee Tougas

Fear is incidious and destructive in our lives, and without a doubt can have negative effects on our homeschool practice. It usually sneaks up on me (see what I mean about insidious) and I don’t even realize I’ve let it into my mindset until I see the following behaviors in myself.

Fear makes me compare myself and my children to others in a negative light. Either they are bad or we are bad.

At times I have compared my children to others, fearful that we are behind in something. This is absolutely unproductive thinking.

I homeschool my children to give them a family-focused, personalized education. Why should it matter to me what books other nine year olds are reading or what level they are at in math? It shouldn’t.

And let’s not even go into the comparison game we sometimes way too often play as mothers. Talk about destructive behavior.

These comparisons, motivated by fear, are definitely mistakes I can own up to.

Fear makes me panic and make hasty, uninformed decisions.

Over the years my children have gone through short term “slumps” of feeling lonely or bored.

These might last a few days or a few weeks. And during intense growth periods that feeling of just being off can last longer.

Motivated by fear that my kids might not be “properly socialized” if they experience occasional periods of blah I have over-responded to such situations with too many outings, activities, and social opportunities. This pattern of behavior leaves us all exhausted.

We need to listen to our children and do our best to meet their needs, but boredom and yes, even occasional loneliness are part of the human condition and can’t be “activitied” away.

Photo by Renee Tougas

In fact, learning how to deal with this natural part of the human condition is a skill we need to teach our children. When we rush in to fix every single moment of pain or boredom – with outings, video games, or sugar – we do our children a disservice in their growth and development.

When I see comparison and panic rearing their ugly heads I know I need a mental shift.

This is not a one day, quick fix solution but an on-going transformation and renewing of my mind through prayer, gratitude, scripture reading, connection with loved ones, time in nature, and other meditative practices.

Photo by Renee Tougas

Misha wrote an excellent article here at Simple Homeschool about slaying the giants of insecurity, comparison and fear. If you struggle with fear and need strategies to help overcome that her post is an excellent read.

Can I share a little secret with you? We all struggle with fear, even our friends and family who send their kids to school. So don’t think for a moment, “Oh, if I was only sending the kids to school I wouldn’t have to walk through this uncertainty”. Oh no, sister, you’d just be walking through different fears.

Choosing to give fear even a teensy bit of wiggle room in our lives will mess with our homeschool happiness.

And that has been my biggest mistake – giving fear a place in my mind and in some of my decision making.

I’m not going to ask you what you fear. Jamie already did that. Instead I’m going to ask you to be proactive.

What strategies do you use or plan to use to renew your mind and speak truth to your heart in those moments of fear?

Many of us are starting a new school year this September even though we aren’t catching the bus to do so.

Our family homeschools year round. For an excellent article on different ways to structure your school year I recommend Toni’s post Creating a Homeschool Schedule.

For record keeping purposes I start our school year the beginning of September and wrap it up at the end of the following August. So for these past couple weeks I have been putting together our family learning portfolio for the 2010-2011 year and getting ready for the 2011-2012 school year.

Today I want to share with you how I organized the planning and record keeping for this upcoming school year. Instead of trying to write it all out and take photos to illustrate I decided to do a video, my first here at Simple Homeschool.

In the video I show the planning sheets I use for keeping track of our weekly learning as well as other general plans and ideas. Many of these I make myself in a simple spreadsheet. (If the video isn’t showing up you can access it here.)

I also print out and use a few of the pages from the List PlanIt Home Education ePlanner.

The calendars I show came from Organizing Life As MOM. Jessica is a fellow contributor here at Simple Homeschool and has a complete Organizing Life As Mom homeschool pack available.

Those are two resources to check out if you are looking for ready made planning sheets.

How do you get organized for the school year?

This past spring all of us here at Simple Homeschool shared our curriculum choices. In my contribution to that series I talked about the curriculum we’ve used so far for elementary reading, writing, and math.

But of course there is a lot more to our homeschool routine than just those subjects.

Today I want to share how we teach science to our elementary aged children in the context of every day life, without a set curriculum.

I have found science to be one of the easiest “subjects” to teach our children.

I know it will get trickier as they get into the higher grades and so we plan to start using curriculum sometime during the junior high years.

But so far interest-led science has worked well for us.

Here are the four methods we’ve used.

Nature Study

Nature study is a popular practice among homeschoolers and for good reason – it’s a wonderful, hands-on way to learn about the natural world.

Although we often think of nature study as being for young students (in the Charlotte Mason tradition at least) famous naturalists like John James Audubon spent a lifetime doing nature study.

Nature study isn’t a precursor to real science it is real science.

Much has been written about the why’s and how’s of nature study, including last Friday’s post and other great posts here at Simple Homeschool.

Here’s a few more places to check out:

• The Magnifying Glass A collaborative online nature journal
• Nature Study, FIMBY Style It doesn’t all have to look like classic CM
• Life Sized Field Guides from Journey into Unschooling
• The Outdoor Hour, Nature Study Close to Home Home of the popular blog carnival
• Nature Study in action at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers

Play

One of my children’s favorite activities is to build paper airplanes. My son particularly enjoys this and I’ve found a few how-to books over the years to encourage this activity.

I sometimes question encouraging this activity as planes whiz over my head and land in awkward places around the house.

Photo by Renee Tougas

Building paper airplanes is play. Building paper airplanes is also the beginnings of the study of aerodynamics.

Your child’s day is full of this kind of play.

Building, mixing, taking stuff apart. Digging, planting, putting stuff back together.

Many of these will make a mess of your kitchen, living room, and yard but it’s very worth it, science is necessarily hands-on.

Children’s play is not “supplemental” to their learning. It is their learning.

The connections they make in their own minds as they build paper airplanes, mix baking soda and vinegar, plant a garden, and dig in the backyard lay the foundation for their future study of physics, chemistry, biology, and geology (to name just a few).

Photo by Renee Tougas

So much of what children do, the activities they naturally engage in, are scientific inquiries. If you follow their lead you’ll find ways to use their play as a jumping off point to study a scientific subject more in-depth.

Questions

This winter my husband and son took a day trip to the New England Aquarium because my son loves the ocean and aquatic animals. Marine biologist is one his many “when I grow up” aspirations.

The destination itself was a science activity. But one of the conversations they had in the car on the way there triggered a whole separate study in mechanics.

It all started with a question, “Daddy, how does that machine work?”

Questions are the first step in the scientific method. Children ask lots of questions. It’s how they learn. Children then are little scientists in their own right.

Teaching your children science can be as easy as helping them find the answers to their questions. Thank goodness for Google.

My own son’s question about machines led to an explanation about hydraulics (my husband’s an engineer and can explain this pretty easily, it would have required some investigation on my part) and subsequent child-led study.

Photo by Renee Tougas

This wasn’t part of any curriculum and wasn’t in my “lessons plans”. It all started with a question and willingness to help our children understand their world.

Kids are hard wired to ask questions and seek explanations. In other words, they are hard wired for science.

Reading

Reading is intertwined with the above three points but is also a stand alone science activity.

You read when you use your guide book to identify plants, follow the instructions in the paper airplane book or look up the answer to your question.

Not everything we learn about science is always initiated through nature, play, and questions. This is where reading is so important.

Having a variety of science books on hand (with a homeschool libary or regular visits to your public library) will expose children to ideas they might not otherwise encounter.

I can’t even begin to list all the science exploration we’ve done this way. Sitting on the couch or around the kitchen table.

Our children have loved David Macaulay’s Way Things Work and The Way We Work. We also own a variety of children’s science reference books published by DK and Usborne, to name a few.

Photo by Renee Tougas

Our goal for elementary science is not to cram our kids’ heads with scientific facts and information they have little use for. Instead we explore the natural world, build brain connections with hands-on inquiry (play), encourage and answer questions, and discover new ideas with good books.

Early years science–it’s “Elementary, my dear Watson.”

What are your goals for elementary science? What methods do you use?

A note from Jamie: This post first published on June 11, 2010. With many of us gearing up to make smores and set up tents at some point over the summer, it seems like a good time to revisit these thoughts from Renee.

Summer is a great time to be outdoors. A time to get away from it all, relax and play as a family.

One way to make the most of summer and to really enjoy nature together is to go camping.

Camping is a fun, affordable and memorable vacation for many families. It also presents excellent education opportunities.

So why not get out there and take advantage of the following things you’ll learn when camping.

1. Nature Study and Outdoors Appreciation

What better place to learn about plants, animals and natural history than in the actual outdoors?

You can take books along to help you identify different plants and animals. Or you can take photos and look it up at home.

Many state parks and campgrounds have rangers and environmental educators who offer educational talks. Some sites have interpretive centers featuring history, cultural studies and natural science.

At the very least you can often find a brochure and read up a bit on the area yourselves. Many of these offerings are free or relatively low cost.

Photo by Renee Tougas

2. Environmental Ethic

There is nothing like actually being in the outdoors to develop an environmental mindset.

Being in nature together – hiking through the woods, swimming in streams and sitting around the campfire at night helps children and adults alike want to preserve outdoor spaces.

Maybe your family likes lean-tos in the back country and follows a strict leave no trace philosophy. Or maybe you prefer to pull a trailer to your favorite campground and make sure to leave the site better than when you arrived.

However you enjoy camping you should always aim to leave the outdoors a better place than when you found it. Imagine the environmental impact if we lived by this principle in our everyday lives, not just when camping.

Photo by Renee Tougas

3. Dealing with Discomfort

Camping and getting outdoors pushes many of us outside our comfort zones.

You might be sharing a small tent space (little kids usually love this part), the weather may be crummy, or the physical activity of it all may tire you out.

The goal of family camping is not to push people beyond what they are capable of. The goal is to have fun, make memories and be together. But often it is dealing with the discomfort of the outdoors that builds both great memories and character.

Photo by Renee Tougas

Some of our best family memories, the ones we most vividly recall, are of uncomfortable camping situations.

Like the time we camped at the seashore hoping to hear whales and instead heard the foghorn every 15 seconds – all night. And then were awoken in the wee morning hours by the lightening storm and torrential rains that drove us out of our tent to seek shelter in the car.

We have camped many times, but what I remember most are those less-than-perfect times. They have become my fondest memories.

4. Food, Clothing and Shelter is All You Really Need

We all know this to be true but there is just so much stuff in our daily lives that interferes with experiencing the freedom and simplicity of living lightly.

Camping helps you pare down to the essentials and learn to appreciate having less.

Simple food tastes fabulous after a day of activity outdoors and you will appreciate the comforts of home so much more after “roughing it” for a few days.

Photo by Renee Tougas

When writing this post I asked my family “What do we learn when camping?” My nine-year-old’s immediate and honest response was “We don’t need lots of things to keep us happy.”

From the mouths of babes.

The more you experience nature and get outdoors the more you learn you don’t need a bunch of stuff to be happy.

That is simple living and simple homeschooling at its best.

If you are interested in resources for family camping and adventures together you can check out Family Outdoors–specifically you may appreciate Have Tent Will Travel.

Photo by Renee Tougas

What lessons has your family learned while camping?