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We’re officially in those berrr months and I am so here for it.
Our little river town is teaming with school drop offs, fall festivities and changing leaves. Our homeschool is teaming with new life(our newest addition to the family), new and old curriculum, lots of laundry, animal chores, meals to plan, prep and cook and caretaking for family members inside and outside of our home.
I wish the latter half of that description could sound as picturesque as the first half but it just doesn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful. I don’t take lightly the opportunity homeschool my kids and invest in these years in this specific way. It’s a blessing. Still, in this season, I feel the weight of sleep deprivation and life circumstances acutely. To be honest, that has made it really difficult to get excited for this homeschool year.
I’m usually giddy to pick out curriculum, make plans for morning basket and imagine the nature walks and art projects. I love this sort of thing. Imagining, planning and collecting all that we need is one of the highlights of this season for me. But this year it felt like one more thing. One more thing to research. One more thing to purchase. One more thing to add on to my already full schedule.
Instead of trying to get myself pumped for this year I decided to take a different approach. I’m just showing up and doing it. In the middle of my tired. In the middle of mess. In the middle of postpartum.
Its not fancy or super exciting but it’s getting done. We’re doing morning basket still, just less books. We’re learning grammar, reading comprehension, writing, spelling, geography, science, history and math this year but it’s more condensed. Less tasks, more practice. Less tasks, more consistency.
If you’re thinking that the idea of going over all of those subjects with your kids sounds exhausting or intimidating, let me be the first to tell you, it doesn’t have to be. We combine a lot of these subjects in our morning basket and their individual work is on a rotation schedule(meaning I rotate certain workbooks through the week) so that they aren’t bogged down by tons of work each day. These methods have been what has carried our homeschool this year. Putting it on the calendar, choosing consistency and being kind to ourselves when it doesn’t all get done.
So in the middle of this mundane homeschool year I’ve decided to show up in this space to share how it’s going, what we’re doing and how we will adjust our tasks and homeschool schedule to meet our needs over the course of the year. I’m going to give you some insight to what our weeks look like. I’ll also share with you some of the products that we use daily/weekly.
A couple books. that have inspired me in perseverance and simplifying our homeschool are Teaching From Rest and The Read Aloud Family both by Sarah Mackenzie. These books both paint a picture of building relationships with your kids through cultivating a peaceful homeschool environment and reading aloud. If you are homeschooling, considering homeschool or just a parent looking to connect with your kid, I highly recommend these books.
If you’re like me and you need to listen to some of your ‘to read’ list while you do chores, then listen to Teaching From Rest and Read Aloud Family. If you don’t have an account consider singing up for Audibles 30 day Free Trial. This is my favorite way to read books as a homeschool mom who has more time to listen than to read.
Morning Basket
Some of you might be curious what this morning basket thing is. I first heard of this concept listening to Pam Barnhill’s podcast Your Morning Basket(Now named Homeschool Better Together). The concept is that you combine several subjects in a time of reading and memory work that everyone in your homeschool, regardless of age, can do together.
For example, our morning basket may look something like this: prayer, theology discussion, manners book, memory work, history, geography
Because our schedule rotates we might switch out history for science or art. Another example: we might switch out manners for literature or a language lesson. As we continue on this schedule we are able to cover multiple subjects throughout the year without spending hours doing morning basket and losing everyone’s attention before we’re done.
This is admittedly my favorite part of homeschool. I love a good picture book and I enjoy the discussions I have with my kids. I feel like we learn more in this part of our homeschool than any other part. However, I am aware that morning basket doesn’t work for everyone’s homeschool and I totally understand. This is just the way we knock out multiple subjects so that our time doing book work is more focused and less likely to be met with resistance.
I will explain more about what we’re doing for individual subject like manners and geography in a future post.
If you’re thinking, “My kid isn’t going to sit still for morning basket,” you’re absolutely correct. They need practice. Because we’re homeschooling our kids we can decide when and in what situation we practice sitting still and when we give our kids freedom to move while they learn.
I prefer my kids practice sitting still for prayer, memory work, geography and some of the read aloud portion . These are the first things we do in morning basket and thankfully these activities are rather interactive. For the rest of morning basket I allow them to color or pick something simple to do while they listen(a fidget toy or legos can work well for this time).
My biggest rule for this time is remembering that my kids are little humans who are learning to pay attention. We choose to be flexible in our homeschool. If my kid needs to move to listen(kinesthetic learning) then we make a way for that to be done.
As I wrap up this months homeschool journal, I’m looking forward to a year of slow and steady. A year of get out and walk and snuggle up with a book and four wiggly kids. A year of learning again and again what it looks like to teach my kids and to learn alongside them. I hope this was encouraging for you.
May your fall be a peaceful time of settling into rhythm.
The Crunchy Vagabond 