Making It All Fit

Posted by Melissa | 0 comments

In 10 years of homeschooling, this year began as my hardest year yet. Five of my six children were now in our little homeschool, leaving just one toddler roaming its’ halls. Of course, she keeps me on my toes, but that part was feeling like a cakewalk compared to the actual work of homeschooling five children.

As we approached day forty of our homeschool year, I realized there were several subjects we were never getting to with any regularity—history, science and geography. Except for my 13 year old (who does a complete DVD-based program), our focus this year is the basics–math, reading and writing. All the children had some areas of weakness and we determined this would be the year we strengthened them. Ironically, some of the weakness occurred because we had focused on history, science and geography in recent years to the detriment of the basics. Live and learn!

With six children to keep track of and educate, I felt like I was trying to squeeze a size 14 day into a size 8 schedule. I was stretched in many directions every single day. Teaching many subjects, keeping everyone on task with their independent work and checking schoolwork, it didn’t seem possible to squeeze more into our already long days. I made several attempts to juggle things around, but nothing was jiving. How would I find time for history, science and geography?

Finally, I hit on a simple idea: Devote one whole day each week to these neglected subjects. I cleared most everything on our schedule to make room for history, science and geography, as well as any hands-on projects we could fit into the day.

Plenty of homeschoolers do this with regards to co-ops. They might clear one whole day for all their co-op classes and activities, never worrying that they aren’t getting the standard subjects in that day.  So although I hadn’t joined a co-op, shifting my mentality was a boon to our schedule.

Here’s how it worked at our house: I picked Wednesday to be the day for history, science and geography. I encouraged the older children to start on some math before our school day officially began, so that was in the works without any effort on my part.  And even if that didn’t happen, the children were already doing 2 math lessons a day on, so I wasn’t worried they’d fall behind.

When we all sat down together, we still started the day with prayer and our devotional, but then moved right into our science. We had time to explore some websites that related to our reading that day. Next, we worked on geography. And finally, history got done. We were even able to start a composer’s study and listen to some music from around the world. It was refreshing to enjoy the pleasures of these enriching subjects without the pressure of finishing the 3Rs first or have them hanging over our heads.

There may be some Wednesdays where we have time for experiments or even learning games. In fact, one of my goals this year was to have a day devoted to hands-on learning and educational games. After we get a good groove of this new weekly plan in place, I hope we’ll be able to sprinkle in more learning fun.

Every day doesn’t have to look the same. For us, this is a great way to fit in the subjects we didn’t have time to do. It brought a renewed excitement for me as I taught these enjoyable subjects and I also relaxed knowing we had a plan to get to them. The kids enjoyed having a totally different day. Sometimes, it just takes thinking outside the box to make things work. But isn’t that what’s so great about homeschooling in the first place?

Melissa Morgner is a happy wife of 17 years to her college sweetheart and mother to six loud, but lovable children ranging in age from 13 down to three. After ten years of homeschooling and sampling way too much curriculum, she takes an eclectic approach in their little schoolroom, choosing resources that best suit the children and the teacher. Her busy household puts her gifts of juggling and winging it to the test each day. She steals moments here and there to write on her blog, Day In Day Out, about the lessons she’s learning from the Lord in the routine but privileged tasks of mothering and homeschooling.