I like to officially start our new school year the first week of September, preferably after a week of vacation. This year, however, we made the disappointing decision to forego our annual trip to the lake. Between financial concerns and logistical concerns (is it really vacation if you have to bring your own dishes and towels?), not to mention the whole pandemic situation, we thought it best to put those plans on hold. I say "put those plans on hold" when what I really mean is cancel. In all honesty, those plans are on hold until we try again next year. But that seems to be the theme of 2020, doesn't it - cancelled plans and disappointment.
Yikes. That was depressing.
Really, my point is that life moves on and I am excited to start our new school year and forge ahead - despite whatever plans Coronavirus has. As I've mentioned before, this is my 13th year homeschooling. It still sounds crazy to say that out loud. I will say that our homeschooling has rarely looked the same from year to year. Sure, there are some constants; some tried and true components that make up our overall learning plans each year. One such constant has been involvement in a co-op. Since our move back to Indiana a little over six years ago, we discovered and joined our local chapter of Catholic Schoolhouse.
While our chapter won't be meeting in person this semester, we will still be using the curriculum as our "spine" here at home. The beauty of the program is that it's Catholic, Classical and flexible for family learning. In a nutshell, it means we are all studying the same things each week but each child does so at his own level. I'll explain more about how this works as we go along. We normally have co-op classes one day a week and four days of school at home based on what they're learning. Our Catholic Schoolhouse day includes things like memory work, art and science - as well as literature discussion, writing and speech for older boys. It includes quite a bit, really, and we will look forward to the time when we can safely resume meeting. I've also spent the last three years tutoring the preschool age group, which I love and will miss dearly. For the time being, however, I won't miss the sometimes superhuman effort of getting everyone to and from Catholic Schoolhouse each week and the exhaustion and recovery period following, since all but one of us are introverts.
Our routine this year is a four day week of work at home, followed by a field trip on Fridays. Our schedule is somewhat flexible if taking time for an outing works better on a different of course. My goal is just getting everyone out of the house for something fun, (hopefully) free, and (mostly) outdoors. I intend to take advantage of every day of beautiful fall weather.
I plan to do a more detailed post about how I plan and organize things, what exactly we use, etc...but we use the Catholic Schoolhouse Tour Guide for most of our weekly topics. During Morning Basket time, we review our timeline cards, saint, composer and artist. This time also includes religion, prayer, read-aloud and books related to our weekly topics, map work, drawing practice, science, art and music. Basically, anything that might otherwise end up as an "extra" but is more easily done as a group is included. After a break for lunch, the boys work on their individual school work and take turns having one-on-one time with me.
It's only been the first week, but so far I'd say our routine worked well. Day 1 I was struggling to corral everyone and get started by 11:00 (it ended up being 11:30) and by Day 4 they were asking to start by 10:00 - I call that success!
I hope your school year is off to a good start - no matter what it looks like!
~ Dori
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