10 Things We Don’t Do in Our Homeschool
We so often talk about how to homeschool, things to add, to try, to buy. But what about the things we choose not to do? Do those say something about the inner workings of the homeschool and family life? As they say, when you say no to something, it leaves space to say yes to something else. We cannot do it all, we should not do it all! Maybe, hearing more about what we all don’t do will give each of us the courage and confidence to embrace what’s authentic to us, even if that means not doing what everyone else is doing.
Right now, in our homeschool...
We aren’t in a co-op
I find this is the first thing that every well-meaning person asks about when I say we’re homeschooling. As if the co-op is the only thing that would make us still normal and acceptable and not too weird. There are so many variables here, and just because a group of people gather together doesn’t mean it’s a valuable use of our time. Sorry well-meaning folks, we don’t have a group like this close by, and if we did, I’m not even sure if we would be in it at this stage of our lives anyway! ⠀
We don’t do “morning time” or “morning basket”
I love the concept of gathering up a little basket of resources and having some cozy reading and activity time right after breakfast! But I like to interlace our poetry and singing and artist study, etc. in between our more dense subjects, so putting those into morning time takes them out of the rest of our day and I didn’t love that. We start our day with our preschool things, like meditation and a fairy tale and a poem. Or sometimes we even start with more active things, because my kids wake up with ENERGY and sitting to cuddle and do slow morning basket type things just doesn’t match their energy level.
We don’t do every Charlotte Mason subject
We don’t do a handful of the Charlotte Mason subjects, even though I consider our homeschool to be mainly CM in method. I’d rather do fewer things but do these things well than try to do it all and drop the ball all the time. In the book Essentialism by Evan McKeown, he talks about being more selective with what we choose to include in our lives - doing less but going getting more out of the things we say yes to because we aren’t spread so thin. I have taken this in with a lot of consideration, and realized that Charlotte Mason’s “wide feast” with short subjects really WAS spreading us thin - not in an exhausting way, but we just never went into deep focus/interest with anything. Saying no to certain subjects for a semester allows us more time to spend a little more time and focus on others. Right now, we don’t do bible, hymns, foreign language, brush drawing, singing, drill, geography (we don’t do it as it’s own lesson, we do mapwork within our history/literature/science lessons) or handicrafts (we do them randomly as a family for fun, but not as a lesson in our school day). We don’t need to do every subject every year all year to have a generous education.
We don’t have a schoolroom
Our house is small and we have to school all over it. Usually, it’s on the floor because we can spread all our stuff out! The floor is the biggest table we have, so we use it! But our supplies all live in the living room on various bookshelves and carts and baskets.
I don’t have a lot of hands on “stuff”
I don’t strew adorable themed studies that make such great flatlays on instagram. We don’t have a lot of little “stuff” like that, I don’t think like that, I don’t think we even know how to learn like that! Dang are the pictures inspiring though! Our lessons mostly come from books, or real life things.
I don’t do school five days a week
Right now we do school Monday - Thursday. We have an appointment every Friday that’s almost an hour away. We leave after breakfast and get home in time to have a late lunch. By the time we eat and clean up and look at the clock it’s 1:30! It just doesn’t work for us to do anything school productive by then, so we use Friday afternoon to do some chores and catch up on things.
I don’t use a paper planner!
Gasp! Yeah, I don’t even use the ones I created and offer on my site. I did use to use them because that is how I think and plan and track. But I use Trello so heavily now, I don’t really need the paper.
We don’t belong to any religion or go to church
I’m too secular for the religious groups and too religious for the secular groups. I’m just a person with varied thoughts and a spectrum of beliefs. I do love learning about religion, and so do my kids.
No chores during school
I don’t clean and do housework in the middle of the school day. I block and protect that school time as much as I can. Yes, things do come up some days! But not folding laundry. Bathroom sinks can wait. During regular school hours, the priority is education. I would like to model priorities and focus, so this is a part of that.
I don’t make the kids get dressed or do chores before we start school
We have breakfast and start pretty much right after we finish eating and putting those dishes away. Usually, we get dressed when we pause lessons for lunch! Unless it’s warm out and we have already been outside to play.
There are probably so many more!
Are you with me on any of these? Or the opposite of me?! Tell me some things you don’t do in your homeschool! Especially if you feel like “everyone” does something but you don’t do it. I bet you aren’t alone.
This post was inspired by Julie Bogart’s YouTube video and Jessica from The Waldock Way
