How has your homeschooling changed over the years?

[Carrie12345]

I'm curious as to how we tend to evolve in our homeschooling, particularly old timers with an interest (to whatever degree) in Classical education.  If you've homeschooled for 5 or more years, how is it looking compared to the way you started out?

[HomeAgain]

Well, we use a lot of the same tools as we did when we started more than 10 years ago, but I'm a lot more confident in how I use them.  I've honed my educational philosophy and style to know where we're going more and be able to see the big picture when working with a little child.  In turn, this makes me more patient, less afraid or stressed. 

When I started out, I used the first edition WTM as my bible.  I was worried about how my kid matched up to the hypothetical kid in the book.
Now, I use the first edition WTM as a guide.  It's one of a few tools that still remain on my shelf.  And I still prefer the 1st edition to all the curriculum recs in the later versions that bog me down.  I've learned to see who my kid is first, and create an educational plan around him instead of fitting him into an educational plan, if that makes sense.

I'm not sure how to answer the poll because our school still looks the same from the outside, but has so many invisible changes that it's a whole different relationship on the inside.

[sweet2ndchance]

Much the same as HomeAgain, I'm unsure how to answer because most of the changes are not visible to the naked eye.

I'm much more confident teaching my 6th kindergartener this year than I was with my first kindergartener 15 years ago. I am able to more freely pick and choose what parts of a curriculum to use and what parts to skip without worrying that I am "doing it right". I worry far less about making sure my 6th child is "socialized" because I worry less what other people (including family members) think in general now that I'm older and wiser.

Our schooling in general looks more like a homeschool now and less like school at home. My expectations of what school should look like is probably the most dramatic and noticeable change to an outsider

[Momto6inIN]

We've only been hs'ing 5 years, we started when my oldest was in 8th grade. We have changed curriculum quite a bit but stayed primarily with the same style. I think I've become more confident in my choices and and a better teacher, mostly because of these boards :)

[Wheres Toto]

I chose 7-8 but we're actually coming up on 9 years, but one year was "preschool" I guess, with a good deal of changes.  

We started when ds "graduated" from Early Intervention at 4 years old.  That was when we realized that public school wasn't going to be able to meet his needs or handle his quirks.  We started out pretty relaxed since I didn't feel much pressure since we were starting early.  We did a lot of hands-on, unit studies, trying out different things.

After a few years, I realized that ds actually LIKED worksheets and did very well with them.  He learns very easily from things he sees and not at all from things he hears.   He also didn't like bells and whistles, he wanted straight-forward, get-it-done, show me what I need to do and let me do it stuff.  So, we did a lot of paper work using Math Mammoth, Evan Moor, but also a lot of hands-on stuff for history, science, art, etc.    Lots of games to work on math facts and language arts.  Pretty relaxed, more of a routine rather than a schedule.  Lots of field trips, outside programs.

Then I went back to work.  They started out doing Time4Learning for 1/2 a year, then we hired a private teacher.  She was very relaxed but very school-at-home with what she did do.  She also didn't "believe in acceleration in elementary school" so ds especially was bored and didn't progress much.  That lasted 2 years, then dh's job situation changed, I wasn't happy with the teacher, so I quit my job and returned to homeschooling them myself.

I guess we're pretty school-at-home in the materials I use, although we don't stick to a set schedule, and still take time for field trips and fun activities.  Ds is now in 7th grade so his work is getting harder and I'm feeling more pressure to make sure his writing skills (his biggest weakness) are up to par.   We're pretty good at working with his quirks, but we've also only recently figured out dd's adhd and anxiety issues.  

[Lang Syne Boardie]

20 years, pretty much the same. It's less confidence in my methods and more the speed of life (and the pocketbook). I can't be reinventing the wheel. WTM and CM were always easily adaptable; it's stacks of books that I may use slightly differently for different kids.

[DawnM]

I am no longer HSing, but my HSing was all over the place.  I honestly would have done best with 3 different approaches for 3 different kids, but I tried so hard to make it work for everyone.

My middle begged for workbooks.  I was so anti-workbook that I didn't let him!  In retrospect, I wish I had just let him do what he wanted to do best.

[Loowit]

It changed a lot the first couple years I homeschooled.  I started when DD was in kindergarten and she is graduating this year.  The first few years I did much more school at home sort of style.  It was all I knew how to do at the time, because that is what homeschoolers I had known did.  After a few years I was getting burnt out and started doing more research and became much more eclectic in my choices and more confident also.  I do a sort of classical style, but tweak it a lot to fit with my children's needs.

Just this year I ended up switching one area quite a bit.  I still keep with a mostly classical style, but dramatically changed how I am teaching writing and grammar.  I was nervous at first but it is actually working out well so far I think.

[Aurelia]

I started out being certain that I was going to use R&S math and English all the way through high school, and we were going to do everything the WTM way. ...  It turns out DD needs spiral curricula, not mastery, and is dyslexic, so the heavy focus on rote memorization failed spectacularly. 

I've learned to try to tailor my curriculum choices to my child, rather than my child to my vision of how home school should be. 

[Holly]

Having homeschooled just over 10 years, I voted that we've changed quite a bit.  We seem to be on a continuous pendulum between Charlotte Mason and classical for the most part.  We went with a 100% CM curriculum this past year, and mid-year my kids were miserable with most of our books.  It occurred to me that our most successful homeschool experiences have been through classical curricula (or CM/Classical hybrid programs like ELTL).  So for term 3, we completely swung to the other end of the pendulum and are all much happier! 

[freeindeed]

We've changed a great deal. We started out with unit studies in the early years and now we use a classical approach in high school.

[freesia]

We are finishing year 13. I am primarily schooling the same. What is different is that I thought I'd be more child led, but my first liked me to guide and after that I was buried in little kids and just kept on. High school has been more organized by me than I thought it would--but that might change. 

[hollyhock2]

Going on 11 years here, and my style is primarily the same, with some minor changes. The biggest change has been becoming more relaxed, realizing there is no rush to the finish line, and also that there is no "right" way to homeschool. There are many paths to graduation and you have to do it the way your kids need you to. You can't be so tied to a method or a style that it becomes more important than the kid in front of you.

[shinyhappypeople]

Finishing year 9.  Know that saying, "Wherever you go, there you are?"  Yup, that describes my homeschooling.  For a long time, there was this awful conflict between what I thought our homeschool should look like and what it actually did. I was relaxed, eclectic, with a heavy dose of unschooliness.  But I wanted to be this super-structured, rigorous, CM/neo-classical/living books homeschooler.  Never worked.  We always defaulted back to relaxed, etc., because wherever you go...

Anyway, at this point, I've just accepted this is who we are. I won't be embarrassed about it and I've given myself and my children permission to be who we are as homeschool mom and students.  So my ideals and self-confidence have changed.  But how we actually do things over the long haul has remained stubbornly the same, so I guess I'll just roll with it :) 

[Garga]

Sort of the same.

At first, I struggled to understand what a real curriculum was.  I'd get those workbooks from Walmart of "First Grade Math!" and think it was a full curriculum.  I was frustrated that it was just a bunch of worksheets without any lessons teaching how to do the math.  I had the series of "What your X grader needs to know" and used that for history, literature, and science. I didn't really understand that there were actual curriculums with teacher's guides that methodically taught a subject.  I also did have a few bits of real curriculum mixed in, but I just couldn't tell the difference between "real" curric and a random workbook from the store.

I finally figured out how to find actual year-long currics somewhere at 2nd grade for my oldest.  I think that was when I first read WTM.  I didn't use the book as a bible, but it did show me how to find real curric.

And from there, I've been doing things mostly the same.  I have to say, that we're a bit "school at home" here, especially now that my oldest is in high school.  It's hard for me not be to "school at home" with subjects like chemistry and algebra.  We get a text book and work through it.  Well, actually for math, science, and language, we get a text book and pay for an online course and the online teacher works through the book with my son.  

As others have said, I'm a lot more confident in what I'm doing now and I'm better at it.  I wish I could go back and re-do a few of my oldest's years, just to make them run smoother. But I'm not sure I'm capable of teaching any other way than the way I'm doing it.

 

[Garga]

14 minutes ago, shinyhappypeople said:

Finishing year 9.  Know that saying, "Wherever you go, there you are?"  Yup, that describes my homeschooling.  For a long time, there was this awful conflict between what I thought our homeschool should look like and what it actually did. I was relaxed, eclectic, with a heavy dose of unschooliness.  But I wanted to be this super-structured, rigorous, CM/neo-classical/living books homeschooler.  Never worked.  We always defaulted back to relaxed, etc., because wherever you go...

Anyway, at this point, I've just accepted this is who we are. I won't be embarrassed about it and I've given myself and my children permission to be who we are as homeschool mom and students.  So my ideals and self-confidence have changed.  But how we actually do things over the long haul has remained stubbornly the same, so I guess I'll just roll with it :) 

 

Ha!  I've always wished I could have a touch of the relaxed, eclectic type of homeschooling, but it's just not in me.  I'm super-structured and rigorous even when I don't want to be.  I'm that way about a lot of things (except for housecleaning.)  It's not something I try to be.  It's just how I was made.  :)

[Farrar]

I find it hard to answer because of course my homeschool has changed. My kids are older. i mean, of course the style I'm using is different teach teenagers than to teach kindergarteners. It sure ought to be.

Philosophically, I'm still mostly in the same place with a little evolution. We're basically relaxed, eclectic schoolers. It's always been my goal to ramp up slowly over time, to be able to use the kids' passions as they got older. There are some things that I anticipated would work a certain way that have worked out - like that we would be classicalish for the grammar stage, more project based for the logic stage, and then more classicalish again for high school and that's *mostly* come true. But other things I didn't predict at all, like that my kids wouldn't be voracious readers. But it's always been part of my philosophy to be responsive to my kids and who they are, so it's hard to say that I've changed on this, ya know?

[RootAnn]

I agree with many here. I've gotten more comfortable (not confident, maybe more relaxed?) with just going with the flow. I don't stress as much when we just can't fit something in or if my kid doesn't have a clue about _________. I've learned I have late bloomers and sometimes it is better to wait to do something than try it five times and fail each time when they are younger.

Use some of the same stuff and in other ways, it looks completely different. 

[FairProspects]

Ha, it's radically different. We homeschooled 6 years, 2 years in private school, and back to homeschooling next year. My biggest issue was that I never expected learning disabilities and that radically changed how we educate.

[MinivanMom]

Our homeschooling hasn't really changed at all. There have been a few minor changes in curriculum or books. And we have added in more classical elements and more structure over the years as my kids have gotten older. But our underlying philosophy - which was heavily influenced by the book For the Children's Sake - hasn't changed at all. 

I am much more relaxed. With my older kids, I was very concerned about them being ahead academically and connected socially. After 10 years of this, I know that I didn't need to be so worried. Our approach has worked well. Now my oldest dd has chosen to attend public high school. Maybe some would say that's a radical change, but it doesn't feel like it. Our approach to education and our attitude about learning are still firmly grounded in those CM ideals, and I can see the long-term impact in her attitude and approach to school.

[prairiewindmomma]

In 2005 I started off with Janet's Sonlight preschool schedule from a yahoo group. I  continued with Sonlight for a few years. I was kind of a Ruth Beechick-CM blend in the sense that while Beechick focused on the 3Rs, I wanted to add CM discipline/art/nature study.  I liked the stack of books that Sonlight provided, and I read them stack method.  I didn't buy many textbook/workbooks at all for those early years--Miquon math, and that's about it.  As the years passed, I kept read-aloud time, but we spent more time on handwriting and math.  My children wanted and needed that.  I played around with Montessori ideas regarding life skills, but as we began to uncover learning disabilities and other issues, we went to more workbooks/prescheduled materials. I didn't have the time to prep anything anymore and I needed more open and go.  I also needed to start differentiating curricula between my children. Oldest moved into almost exclusively WTM materials.  I didn't have time for nature walks or long afternoons spent painting or reading aloud.  For me to spend individual time with each child for math and english throughout the day, we moved into a highly scheduled workbox system. This year, with needing to add a fourth kid to the table, I just sat and looked at it all and realized the impossibility of truly meeting each of my kids' needs.  I sent a third grader off to public school (I after school her in math and english). I sent my preschooler off to half-day preschool (I do math and phonics with her when she gets home).  I finally have enough time to work with my SN son, and I have some hope of keeping tabs on my oldest. 

Did I ever think I was going to send kids to public school? Nope.  Is it what we all needed? Yup.

[happypamama]

This is my eleventh year homeschooling, and I voted "primarily in the same style."  While my older children's educations look different from my younger children's, that was always by design.  I'm much more of a laid back unschooly type with younger children, and we transition into more formal work starting around third grade, with middle and high schoolers having a much more formal and structured program.  But even that is different depending on the child.  I was all for the "Mom reads history aloud to everyone" sort of method for the first several years, and it worked well for my oldest.  But then my second child is not at all an auditory learner, and he was missing everything and not having a good time either.  So I started handing him SOTW to read to himself, and he took off.  He loves history, loves working on his own.  Then my third child isn't a strong reader, so I read aloud to him and the younger ones.  

 

My ability to do a lot of projects and such has been limited in the last few years because of time.  I used to do more when I had fewer children, and I will probably do more with my younger ones now that they are moving out of baby stage and can do more.  With a big gap in the older kids, it's hard to do time consuming projects that benefit only one or two children, if that makes sense, but if all three younger boys can get something out of an activity, it's more likely that I will find time to do it.  Does that make sense?

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

I started with Walmart workbooks and making up my own stuff. From there I moved to buying “real” curriculum. That turned into a monster of supplementing with 100 different things in an attempt to achieve perfection for each subject. (SM, BA, and LOF all at once - what was I thinking?! My poor kids!) Juggling all that curricula combined with trying to spread an enormous CM feast led to a series of elaborate schedules - block, loops (multiple loops at one time), year round, sabbath week, 6 day/week - several of those going at once. We got so little done then!  

I’ve since calmed down quite a bit and simplified. We’ve been getting so much more done! Next year I’m simplifying even more and choosing some programs that cover several subjects at once. I’m being careful not to choose too many subjects that overlap each other also. I’ve even chosen one that’s considered light around here and using it behind (gasp!). Some parts will be easy for my kids and I’m ok with that. I probably won’t even try to “catch-up”; I’ll just use it as scheduled and stay behind (double gasp!) There’s some stuff in there we haven’t covered yet and review in the rest won’t hurt them. I’d used it before but switched to find something more rigorous. My current motto is: “The curriculum that gets done is better than the perfect one that doesn’t.” 

[Michelle in MD]

We began in 2001 and I'm in my mid 50's now...I still have five schooling at home, including a 6yo.  All my older children have done very well in college, so that gives me confidence with our choices, which have ranged over the years from WTM to CMish to "mom-invented" and back again.  I use more Memoria Press products now because the structure does us all good.  We've always used their Latin curricula but I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could use many of their other materials in a (sort of) relaxed way...we call the workbooks our "guidebooks" and we employ lots of discussion and drawing with each subject, two of my kids' favorite things.  I was also surprised to find that they, too, like the structure and predictability of our MP days.

I'm still in good health, but I've got an eye on the future, especially with my youngest child, in terms of how best to approach our situation if I should encounter health concerns or have to care for my aging parents at some point. I suppose I think a lot about homeschooling longevity these days, which goes with the territory if you've been  blessed with more than the average number of children.

[Targhee]

8 hours ago, FairProspects said:

Ha, it's radically different. We homeschooled 6 years, 2 years in private school, and back to homeschooling next year. My biggest issue was that I never expected learning disabilities and that radically changed how we educate.

Yay you're back with us, on the fringe ;-) Might need to PM you and get all the details!

[Targhee]

I think the biggest changes were in the first three years.  Though I didn't do "school at home" I did have a fairly school-ish mindset. And then we identified the 2e nature of the kids, and I had to undo a lot of preconceived ideas (I'm continuing to undo these ideas all the time).  I did some reading, watching, listening, and deep thinking about the whys of homeschooling, and the hows of homeschooling square pegs.  And I took a hard look at the kids in front of me, what they really need, what they are capable of, and expectations I was holding on to that I had no right to hold on to. And each year we have to change things, not just to meet their needs but to meet our circumstances and to take advantage of where we are in life at the time.  

[happypamama]

2 hours ago, Michelle in MD said:

We began in 2001 and I'm in my mid 50's now...I still have five schooling at home, including a 6yo.  All my older children have done very well in college, so that gives me confidence with our choices, which have ranged over the years from WTM to CMish to "mom-invented" and back again.  I use more Memoria Press products now because the structure does us all good.  We've always used their Latin curricula but I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could use many of their other materials in a (sort of) relaxed way...we call the workbooks our "guidebooks" and we employ lots of discussion and drawing with each subject, two of my kids' favorite things.  I was also surprised to find that they, too, like the structure and predictability of our MP days.

I'm still in good health, but I've got an eye on the future, especially with my youngest child, in terms of how best to approach our situation if I should encounter health concerns or have to care for my aging parents at some point. I suppose I think a lot about homeschooling longevity these days, which goes with the territory if you've been  blessed with more than the average number of children.

Thank you for sharing this.  I started homeschooling when I was 30, when my oldest was 5.  I’m 41 now and am looking at homeschooling for at least 13 more years, maybe another 18-20 if we do have another baby, and I do worry about my health, wanting to be able to help out my older kids, and needing to care for my parents too. I love my children and love homeschooling them, but I think those are legit concerns — I’m glad I’m not alone!

[....]

We've been doing this 10 years.  Yeah, tons of changes.  We started off reading through a SL core and adding in WTM version of language arts/writing.  Then, we tried following WTM.  At the end of the second year, I realized that my oldest two are just really weird to teach.  Nothing that was "curriculum" was working with them and we were all miserable.  I started designing my own curriculum for them.  We did the unit study method for several years and that morphed into me letting them choose what we wanted to study.  Then, we had our 5th and we did a year of Ambleside online.  CM seemed to be a great fit for them, so I put together a couple more years of school based on living books, narrations, lots of nature study, etc.  But, still trying to cater to their interests and taking a lot of suggestions from WTM...  Last year, our real lives (lol) became a little overwhelming and dh bought the younger kids MFW.  They finished their MFW year and it was a great, easy-going year (probably the easiest year we ever had, besides the year we did AO).  This spring, we bought the next level of MFW  for dd10, a MFW preschool level for ds3 and two SL levels for 3 teens.  That's what we're working on right now.  We're about 3 weeks into the new school year.

Despite all the changes over the years, some things were very consistent.  We read through the entire SOTW series.  They also worked through the entire Writing with Ease series and 2 levels of Writing with Skill.  

[PeterPan]

My values have stayed the same (academically, spiritually) but I've had to flex them to fit the child. Like the others, I'm more confident in how to get there, which of course improves your flexibility. Methods couldn't stay the same, because my 2nd dc literally can't do those things. However the values we're pursuing (breadth, having a foundation of skills, caring about people, etc.) are still there. 

[Clemsondana]

When I started, my goal was for them to learn as much as possible, in a way that was as pleasant as possible, in the most efficient way possible, at the right level for my kids.  With that as the goal, I'm not really tied to a particular method, and that has varied between my 2 kids and also changed as they get older.  One kid has always hated hands-on projects because it's so inefficient - why build a model when you can read or watch a video and see pictures of the actual thing?  For the other kid, a simple nonfiction reading assignment (whether i read aloud or they read silently) would involve complaints of 'How am I supposed to remember this?', so that kid has done more modelling, drawing, or making charts because that is what they remember.  I've tried some different things to optimize the 'as much, as pleasant, and as efficient' goals.  I liked the idea of using some historical fiction, but one kid completely melted down because he couldn't figure out what was history and what was fiction. so my idea of incorporating work with fun (that kid is a voracious reader) didn't work in that case.  We've used 'read from a stack of books about the topic', we've used workbooks, we've come up with plans that have different work on different days, but they all support the main academic goals.   Most efficient is also not necessarily the least time consuming on a daily basis - MCT language arts, with all of its wordiness, has been fantastic for both of my kids, so even though it seems 'inefficient', the fact that it works and I don't need to review forgotten concepts makes it very efficient!  My biggest change has less to do with curriculum and more to do with attitude - learning that you don't have to finish a lesson each day, that you can schedule a book to take 1.5 years or 1 semester or whatever fits our needs, has been the biggest adjustment.  

[2_girls_mommy]

We are in our 11th year. I put with lots of changes, but I think it has been more ebbs and flows and adjusting to each year's needs and constant growing of the kids and their needs and taking advantage of opportunities when they arise than actual changes.   I have pretty much stuck with the structure and guidelines of WTM style teaching and S&S for the most part, as well as it fit my kids. 

So changes: 

Grammar stage, I was on the WTM cycles for history and sciences at home and loved it. We started R&S for english and maths and spellings and stuck with them for the long haul. But as we got more involved in the homeschool community around us, we got involved in a science class and my kids have now grown up with that class, each year studying what that teacher mom uses for her class. It has worked well for me. I loved doing more experimental and notebooky science when they were younger. I sometimes dream of doing that way but in the high school ways at home too, but I have to be honest. Having her teach them has taken a lot off of me. And having her take mine all the way through Chemistry was a life saver. 

Logic stage: we discovered some learning differences with one of mine, and began investigating how to deal. They had been fairly obvious from the beginning, but I we finally made progress with outside helps and that changed the way we taught her in some subjects. So the WTM way of phonics taught spelling went by the wayside for her for awhile. We learned new ways to teach and paid for outside therapies. After attending many workshops as well and purchasing some materials to continue therapies with her and some that I feel are beneficial to the whole family, we do more of a morning basket time where we work through arts, some topical subjects in an artsy way, and some therapies each morning that we are able. This has been a God send to our family and makes educational subjects so much better, even if it leaves less time for them because we can spend an hour or two on this a day. (but like I said, I weave subjects into the morning work too. ) 

I also at this time took to heart that you can't do it all. I can't stick to SWB's complete everything as laid out and still allow my kids the out of the house dance schedules that they have. I have even read about that in WTM at some place about this is what worked for her to focus on writing, but a competitive gymnast will obviously spend more time in the gym each day and less on writing, etc. So, I have adjusted, but still, am really sticking with the heart of WTM. 

Things that I like, I stick with. We have done years of Memoria Press latin, R&S just about everything, SOTW, and other WTM history and lit recommendations. So i don't change things up as far as curric too much.  

We have had years when we had a full time preschool babysitting child. My schedule was different in that we ran the home on a much tighter schedule that year since I was a paid caregiver. I wanted things to be consistant for her, and they had to be to keep up with it all. I now have a preschooler of my own and will be adding another as an aftercare babysitting child next year, which will probably tighten our schedule up again. Usually though, I write out the perfect schedules as in WTM, we start out trying to keep to it, but it morphs as activities and other things come up (oh, you need to write a research paper for a girl scout badge? Well, put away your english book this week, and we will kill two birds with one stone, type of things,) so we stay flexible and adjust as needed, still following WTM's rec to make one to start out each year! 

Clear as mud and just as concise- typical answer from me. :) 

 

[BlsdMama]

I voted 15+ with a good deal of changes.

 

The truth is with many children vs. one child (when we first started) the dynamics are just SO different that things needed to change along the way.

You want to know the most amusing part?  

I am almost entirely back to what I started with 17 years ago.  I was utterly adherent to the first edition Well Trained Mind.  After several jumps - MFW, ToG, CM, etc., I currently am schooling 8 kiddos.  We are back to using Rod & Staff Grammar, SOTW, Saxon Math, and Apologia.  

It amuses me - after everything I learned along the way, I'm back to where I started.  It's very satisfying in many ways.

[SkateLeft]

18+ years here, and lots of changes.

The first reason is that there are just way more resources available now, especially on the internet. I have a massive home library now, and when we started we were just a graduate student family living in a tiny run-down apartment with nothing.

The second reason is that our family dynamic has changed as kids have grown and left the nest. I went through the phase of life where I was teaching one kid with babies and toddlers under foot, to the phase of life where I was teaching four kids, bouncing between them. I'd ask a question of one kid, and another one would answer. I'd turn around, and one kid would be under the table making her crayons talk to each other. It was crazy. Then gradually we moved into this phase of life where my house is quiet again. I'm essentially homeschooling just one child now, and in a lot of ways, that's so much harder than homeschooling multiples!

I spend a lot of time now sitting around, waiting to be needed. It's been a rough transition.

[ScoutTN]

We are 8 years on this road and have about 8 or 9 left to go. Still enjoying it, but I do miss the early years. 

I am the same in terms of philosophy and many materials, but outsourcing in the upper grades more than I expected (and truly, more than I truly like), because my Ds has ADHD and some learning differences that require more of my time than I expected.