What is the backbone to your studies?

[ALB]

Do you have a homeschool that is "centered" on one subject? Which subject? How does it affect the way you choose curriculum, spend time, plan, etc?

[Closeacademy]

I marked History. But the real backbone is math. I always choose math first and make it a big focus. Then I look for everything else usually centered on history. :001_smile:

[boscopup]

You forgot "other". ;)

 

I try to be relatively balanced. I can't decide for my kids now what they want to do later in life, nor do they know for sure what they want to do at such young ages (I actually changed my career choice as I entered college, and it was a pretty drastic change!). So my goal is to give them a balanced education that they can use to go into any field they choose later on. If we do a STEM focus and one decides to be a history professor like his uncle, what good is that STEM focus going to do that child?

 

My children can narrow their focus somewhat in high school, but they're still going to need to hit all the basics, just in case they change their mind. In college, they can really narrow their focus and declare their degree.

 

Some subjects will take longer to teach than others, but time spent doesn't necessarily equal "focus". I don't focus on math, but math is probably the subject we spend the most time on because we do about 45 minutes to an hour of math each day. He likes math and is good at it. Grammar takes 10-15 minutes. That doesn't mean grammar isn't important. There just isn't that much my rising 3rd grader needs to learn in grammar right this second that will take longer to teach. :tongue_smilie: History is a part of our day, but it's not a focus. In fact, when we start school back up next week, we won't be doing history for the first 5 weeks. We'll be cramming in the science we skipped most of last year. :lol: (yet the kid reads and discusses science ALL the time, so I can't say he didn't learn science - we just didn't do our science curriculum most weeks, which was fine for 2nd grade).

 

I guess if I *had* to pick a focus for our homeschool, it would be "the 3R's", since all of my children are elementary age or younger. Now I don't have to put as much work into some of those as I do others. DS1 is an excellent reader, for example, and reads all day long. I don't have to teach "reading" to him right now except to give him some good literature daily. We have to work a lot harder on writing, as that is his weakness. I'm also throwing spelling into that focus, because it's the reason he's afraid to write (perfectionism). DS2, OTOH, is struggling more with reading while working ahead in math. He is K, so we haven't done much writing yet, but his fine motor skills suggest to me that he won't have much trouble with writing like DS1 does. So reading is DS2's focus this year, but we'll still do math and other stuff. I can't just do the weak subjects, or the kids will hate school and think they're bad at it. ;) I also can't focus on the good subjects and leave the weak subjects behind. They need some balance.

[edeemarie]

When we first started homeschooling I probably would have said history, but we have since moved to a much more literature based homeschool. Literature is definitely what we spend the most time on:)

[ALB]

When we first started homeschooling I probably would have said history, but we have since moved to a much more literature based homeschool. Literature is definitely what we spend the most time on:)

 

Could you expand on this, please? I'm curious about how to be more literature based. Do you still follow a 4 year history cycle, but not try to line up literature to that timeline? Or do you just plan for history based around what book you are reading for literature?

[MissKNG]

Bible, math and science.

[edeemarie]

Could you expand on this, please? I'm curious about how to be more literature based. Do you still follow a 4 year history cycle, but not try to line up literature to that timeline? Or do you just plan for history based around what book you are reading for literature?

You certainly could still use a 4 year history cycle. We are going to be starting with MFW so I guess technically they have 4 year history plus 1 year geography. But really our main focus is literature and everything else is just an added bonus:). Each of the kids picks a book (with some guidance) and we read that book in the evening before bed. We usually spend about an hour doing this and the books we chose are above the level they are reading independently. During the day they each read aloud for 15 minutes from any book that is either at or just slightly above their reading level. We also have 30 minutes of independent reading. We made a list (again, I guided them) of books they want to read throughout the year. So they go to the list and pick the one they want to read. We all read during this time (including me) and even the 3 year old "reads" picture books. I guess I would have to say this is our homeschooling philosophy: if reading and math get done it is a good day- if other things get done too, even better! I spent too much time trying to get everything done my first few years of homeschooling and my kids were beginning to dread school time. Now that I am more relaxed, so are they:)

[Hunter]

Over the past couple decades my homeschooling, self-education, tutoring focus has changed at times.

 

3R

 

Bible unit studies

 

Latin/Greek/Hebrew

 

Now I find myself becoming art centered, I think. :confused: With a HUGE emphasis on handwriting and handwritten composition. And gasp, it's hard to believe, but some literature is working it's way into the curriculum. I'm mellowing as I age, and becoming a lot less hardcore.

 

Rereading Ecclesiastes last year really put some brakes on me, and I have never been the same. And being introduced to Waldorf.

[Five More Minutes]

You forgot "other". ;)

 

I try to be relatively balanced. I can't decide for my kids now what they want to do later in life, nor do they know for sure what they want to do at such young ages (I actually changed my career choice as I entered college, and it was a pretty drastic change!). So my goal is to give them a balanced education that they can use to go into any field they choose later on. If we do a STEM focus and one decides to be a history professor like his uncle, what good is that STEM focus going to do that child?

 

...

 

Some subjects will take longer to teach than others, but time spent doesn't necessarily equal "focus". ...

 

I guess if I *had* to pick a focus for our homeschool, it would be "the 3R's", since all of my children are elementary age or younger. ... I can't just do the weak subjects, or the kids will hate school and think they're bad at it. ;) I also can't focus on the good subjects and leave the weak subjects behind. They need some balance.

:iagree:No one area (math, history, science, literature) determines when or how we study in other areas. That doesn't mean we're never making connections across subjects: I do try to have good books on hand that extend our history and science topics. But history doesn't predominantly determine which books we read and when; neither does our literature decide how or what we'll study in other areas.

[Dinsfamily]

I would say we're literature-based because that's what ties our components together, but I have a little different focus for each dc. My oldest is STEM focused because he is gifted in that area, likes it, and plows through material. My 2nd is Language Arts/Latin-focused just because he loves it so much. I anticipate he'll move onto fine arts at some point.

 

I think boscopup brings up a good point that we don't know where these kiddos will end up (at least those of us with young ones) so I try to maintain some kind of balance. I just told a friend of mine that I will try to prepare my kids for an military academy/Ivy League type education just so I won't be limiting their options in the future.

[Sahamamama]

You forgot "other." :D

 

We'll start Latin this year (for the 2nd grader), but our focus is not and will not be Latin (at least not yet). ;)

 

We'll also begin our study of History (and continue Geography), but at this point I don't consider History or Geography our most important subjects.

 

We'll study Earth Science, but again, not as a central subject.

 

Our focus (in early grades) is on mastery of basic skills in English & Math and basic content in Bible & Literature.

[Critterfixer]

Other. Everything around here seems to orbit the language skills. I'm not sure whether that reflects a deficit in my own education or some issues I see with the boys in that area, or whether it has to do with my hFA son who had so much trouble with narration and now is turning into a writer.

I've never really thought whether this was unbalanced or not. For some reason everything just seems to go there.

[happymomofboys]

History is my backbone, but I use literature to teach it.

 

By making history my spine, I'm able to incorporate pretty much all of our other subjects except math and Latin, and I can even include them sometimes. :D

[....]

Science and math. (My kids would say science, I would say math.)

[jar7709]

I picked science because our lifestyle is naturally pretty science-oriented...but it was a hard choice between that and literature because the majority of our learning is through books, and language skills are central to how we obtain, interpret, and pass on information.

[missmoe]

I'd say we are more skill based. And the content area differs season to season.

[Chloe]

I would have to say "other" as well. Math and Reading get done, if nothing else.

[ErinE]

I put history, but no one subject gets the most emphasis. History helps guide our literature, but I try to bring in good classical literature as well. Since my kids are younger, I require reading, writing, and math every day. Math is the one subject that is never skipped.

[Artichoke]

Another other here -- In the years that my dc were involved in debate, that was usually the focus of our homeschool and the other subjects were chosen to fit into the resolution as much as possible.

[momto2Cs]

Literature.

 

I do plan on reading once a week from a history spine. If my kids want to go deeper, I'll add in literature that specifically ties in. We do science 3 or 4 times a week, mostly interest led.

 

Literature though is daily, 7 days a week. We read good books - the ones I read aloud are usually above their reading levels a bit. They range from classic fairy tales, to folk tales, to "classics", and more. They are not necessarily correlated to anything else, but are instead read for their own value and beauty. We usually have several read alouds going on at the same time, some with both children, and then one special one for each of them, as you can see in my signature.

 

We also do a lot of art and art-related learning. Basically, in a nutshell, I am trying to provide my children with a varied and rich liberal arts education.

[Parker Martin]

I was going to say that we don't have one, but math is probably the biggest thing around here. That springs from my son's intense interest. Also, Bible. There is a lot of Bible reading going on in this house.

[wy_kid_wrangler04]

The Bible. I want my kids to have a solid faith! That, to me, is most important!

[WTMCassandra]

I marked history, but Latin is a close second in our house. Along with Greek.

[Julie Smith]

Could you expand on this, please? I'm curious about how to be more literature based. Do you still follow a 4 year history cycle, but not try to line up literature to that timeline? Or do you just plan for history based around what book you are reading for literature?

 

Literature is center to everything we do.

 

Read books, and sometimes discuss them. Through in a little writing and we're good. (I'm good to add spelling for Eldest soon).

 

We usually spend on average 3 hours listening to, reading, and discussing books a day. Some books we don't bother discussing since we have read them before or simple have nothing to say about them. Other ones we discuss a lot.

 

Some books we 'gobble' up and finish in a day or two, other we spread out over a few months. Depends on how much we want to get out of them.

 

We do do history reading SOTW. But I don't worry about how quickly or slowly we go. We don't do the hands of projects in the activity guide since my boys don't like hands on projects. Once we are finished SOTW #1 we might pick a difference history book before starting SOTW #2.

 

We do science by reading books. Some are science curricula (We are fans of Mr. Q science, Thornton W. Burgess nature books, other science books) I don't concern myself with sticking to a schedule. Once we finish one book we talk about what interests us and I pick a new science themed book.

 

We also manage to cover math with books and discussion. We have used curricula in the past when the interest in doing so was present.

 

My boys happily have a wonderful listening attention span, and memory for what they hear.

 

I have been intrupetted at least a dozen times writing this. :glare:

[LittleIzumi]

STEM!! My oldest has been a little scientist from a very young age. It is her passion. My other girl doesn't have a preference yet, but if she prefers literature & writing it won't be too hard to accommodate her. That's what homeschooling is all about! I don't think that all the observation & discussion we do around science & other issues regularly in our home would do a humanities nut any harm at all. Now we take turns in reading, non-fic for the older and picture books for the younger. It works. :)

[Corraleno]

Greek, Latin, and math are the core subjects we do every day. The rest is interest-led and goes in phases. DS is obsessed with linguistics and ancient history, while DD is more interested in biographies and American history. We do lots of science, but it's mostly hands-on, project-based, as interest arises. We do field trips, nature study, museum visits, robotics/electronics/building projects; we play chess and other strategy games; we do lots of art projects; we hike, geocache, ride horses, and travel (just spent 2 weeks in Greece with Lukeion!).

 

We're kind of LCCers in the morning but more unschooly in the afternoon. :001_smile:

 

Jackie

Edited June 12, 2012 by Corraleno

[MinivanMom]

Well, the basics (math, reading, writing) are the foundation of our homeschool, but I would say we are history-based. We use history cycles to tie everything else together. I see us moving towards being more literature-based and putting a greater emphasis on serious science as they get older and move into the logic stage.

[Mrs.Gregg]

STEM for the most part. My older daughter made it known early on that she loves science and every career that she has ever spoken about is in that related field. My husband works in a STEM career and mine is Healthcare. While not a true "STEM" career I do have a more science background. I'd also chose History because we equally focus on that. My younger daughter follows along with sis but also really seems to have a love of history. Mostly we balance between it all but if I had to sum it up I'd say STEM.

[sagira]

Reading, writing, and math - I chose Literature, because we read whole, living books for Literature (the subject), Natural Science, History, and of course, Reading (the subject). I would say all three combined: reading, writing, and math are the backbone right now as my children are developing these skills. As they mature we will continue honing and perfecting these skills, but the focus will shift to Literature, Science, and Languages. All three given equal importance.

[SorrelZG]

The Bible, ultimately. After that, I'm not really sure how to best describe it. Perhaps foreign language, but it's just not that neat and simple. What gets done every day is the 3 Rs and each foreign language. History and Geography are important to the overall core picture too, though. I just don't believe they need as much of a time investment.

 

Science saturates our day (or DS's, mostly) so doesn't take up much of formal curriculum, nor does it require much from me (he's self-directed) .. I don't know .. I do have a little scientist (naturalist and budding engineer) but our formal school doesn't focus on STEM (at this point) - well, besides math ..that's a vital part of our core, though not necessary formal.

[thefragile7393]

Literature for sure..living books for all subjects

[Mélie]

I wouldn'ts say we have a backbone yet. My older son loves math and they both love reading, so those are what we're focusing on for the most part. I think eventually we'll lean one way or the other (science or history/literature), but it's too early to tell.

[Farrar]

I find this to be an odd question to some extent. I know that some people do this, but I think more people want a balance.

 

To me, it's not about the subjects themselves per se - it's about letting them be a stepping stone to building critical thinking skills to be able to evaluate the world around us.

[Greta]

I find this to be an odd question to some extent. I know that some people do this, but I think more people want a balance.

 

For me, it's about helping me to focus. There are so many good things, resources, books, curriculum out there that I can get overwhelmed in thinking about all the things that I want to do with my daughter. So thinking about what I want the center or the foundation of our homeschool to be, helps me discern between the good and the truly great, and helps me feel a little less guilty about all the things we're not doing! :D

 

So, to answer the OP's question, for us for next year (after a big re-thinking 3/4 of the way through this year) the answer will be: math and the KJV Bible.

[Element]

Literature is the backbone of our studies. I was inspired by the "Great Books/ Great Discussion" instructional method used at Shimer College (although I did not end up attending Shimer) when I was introduced to it in high school. I thought it was the perfect way to learn. I didn't really know how to implement this at the elementary level, so that's where TWTM came in. I've always felt like TWTM fits very well into our goal of giving the kids a lit-based (or at least lit-inspired) education.

[FairProspects]

To me, it's not about the subjects themselves per se - it's about letting them be a stepping stone to building critical thinking skills to be able to evaluate the world around us.

 

:iagree:This is exactly how I think about it. Most often I find that science content is the lens in our house for how we view the world and develop those critical thinking skills, but it has also frequently been through history and literature.

[heritagelearningacademy]

I selected history as I believe I tend to lean towards a heavy focused history. However, I feel science, math and language arts are equally important.

[shinyhappypeople]

"other"

 

I'm experimenting with the idea of allowing art in all it's forms (visual/performing) be the thread that ties everything together. I want to play to my girls' strengths and they're both creative, whimsical souls.

 

Not sure how/if it will work, as right now I'm still just trying the idea on for size.

 

Up until now we've focused on 3Rs in a pretty traditional manner with partial success.

[nandmsmom]

I have a different focus for each of my kids. They are very, very different. One of the lovely things about homeschooling for me, is the ability to customize. My daughter loves to read. She is an excellent and very motivated writer as well. In her case, literature is a huge priority.

 

My son, however, is a math and science kid. He reads science books for fun. That is the focus for him.

 

They may both change as they get older, and I will adapt accordingly. It doesn't much matter what I want for them, it matters what they want and what they excel at. They will still be taught all the basics. They will still be challenged in areas that they do not love. The focus will be on their passions.

[newbieoftwo]

I would say that we are literature based right now. Since my children are young, activities (science, geography, history, or art) usually stem from the book we are reading at that time. However, my son is leaning more towards a science and math base :)

 

I am sure as my children get older and develop their own strengths and weaknesses or likes and dislikes, their studies will revolve around different areas and we will move in to the "other" category :tongue_smilie:

[kalanamak]

I always thought "backbone" meant what subjects you use to teach your language arts!

 

Science was our backbone for teaching language arts until recently, and now we have switched into literature. History is what we use to teach geography, but writing and grammar lessons are currently from literature. I switched from science to lit because his mind got bigger and I felt he was ready for it.

 

I did this because I personally think history, full of human motivations and a lot of illogical steps, is better understood by older children. I didn't want to do it in a serious sitdown way until it would no longer have to be Bowdlerized.

 

I am considering making history our spine soon, but I love the look of Mosdos, so I might stick with literature.

 

The single subject that gets the most amount of time is math.

[BlessedMom]

"Other!"

[MyLittleWonders]

Literature.

 

I do plan on reading once a week from a history spine. If my kids want to go deeper, I'll add in literature that specifically ties in. We do science 3 or 4 times a week, mostly interest led.

 

Literature though is daily, 7 days a week. We read good books - the ones I read aloud are usually above their reading levels a bit. They range from classic fairy tales, to folk tales, to "classics", and more. They are not necessarily correlated to anything else, but are instead read for their own value and beauty. We usually have several read alouds going on at the same time, some with both children, and then one special one for each of them, as you can see in my signature.

 

We also do a lot of art and art-related learning. Basically, in a nutshell, I am trying to provide my children with a varied and rich liberal arts education.

(Bolding mine.)

 

This is us as well. There are subjects that are done daily or almost daily (math, Latin, writing), but literature is read all the time, the same genres that momto2Cs mentioned.

[lionfamily1999]

History gives me an outline of what to read and what sciences to do. Most of what the dc learn comes from literature though lol.

[ALB]

Literature is center to everything we do.

 

Read books, and sometimes discuss them. Through in a little writing and we're good. (I'm good to add spelling for Eldest soon).

 

We usually spend on average 3 hours listening to, reading, and discussing books a day. Some books we don't bother discussing since we have read them before or simple have nothing to say about them. Other ones we discuss a lot.

 

Some books we 'gobble' up and finish in a day or two, other we spread out over a few months. Depends on how much we want to get out of them.

 

We do do history reading SOTW. But I don't worry about how quickly or slowly we go. We don't do the hands of projects in the activity guide since my boys don't like hands on projects. Once we are finished SOTW #1 we might pick a difference history book before starting SOTW #2.

 

We do science by reading books. Some are science curricula (We are fans of Mr. Q science, Thornton W. Burgess nature books, other science books) I don't concern myself with sticking to a schedule. Once we finish one book we talk about what interests us and I pick a new science themed book.

 

We also manage to cover math with books and discussion. We have used curricula in the past when the interest in doing so was present.

 

My boys happily have a wonderful listening attention span, and memory for what they hear.

 

I have been intrupetted at least a dozen times writing this. :glare:

I like this description! Thanks! I think that sounds like what I want to do, too. We're using SOTW, but don't really go off on any tangents or do the projects. I like your description of your science, too.

[ALB]

I find this to be an odd question to some extent. I know that some people do this, but I think more people want a balance.

 

To me, it's not about the subjects themselves per se - it's about letting them be a stepping stone to building critical thinking skills to be able to evaluate the world around us.

 

I see your point. I completely agree that most of us want our kids to have a very balanced education! I was just wondering what most people use to organize their studies, if that makes sense. For example, do people choose lit based on a history time period, or on their science topic, or do people choose science/ history because of the literature they are reading? I know its equally important to cover all these subjects, and that most of us would agree that nothing else compares to the necessity of the 3 R's (and Bible for some) in the younger years. I'm just curious about how everyone approaches the content subjects in different ways.

[Julie Smith]

I like this description! Thanks! I think that sounds like what I want to do, too. We're using SOTW, but don't really go off on any tangents or do the projects. I like your description of your science, too.

 

Thank you ALB. :)

 

I have posted on our Science before. We listen to Mr. Q Science. My dh made a audio recording of it. Once we listen we talk about it.

 

I remember hearing about grasslands in the science book. I then talked about growing up on the prairies, and how that effected things. (We had to go sledding off the neighbors roof since no hills around. Then said neighbor got mad and chased us.)

[PentecostalMom]

I would like to have chosen history and literature, because we use Sonlight!

[iafrmgrl77]

I marked history, but I would probably have to say both history and literature. They are so intertwined for us right now. It will be interesting to see whether that changes in the future.

[freeindeed]

I voted for literature. We use a ton of living books.