Hi friends!
We have been navigating some big life changes (don’t worry – they’re all good!) and giving ourselves the space and grace to find a new rhythm and routine with each new change. This blog post will focus on our biggest life change – homeschooling!
I started our homeschool journey in early February, which is the start of the school year in New Zealand. I made the decision in October 2024, and considering application processing times, I had to quickly decide which teaching method(s) to use and submit two applications for exemption to the Ministry of Education (one for Jack, the other for Diane). I was able to complete the exemption applications in record time, so they were submitted by the end of October.
For anyone who hasn’t heard of an exemption application, if you want to homeschool in New Zealand, you must submit an exemption application for each student you wish to pull from the school system. If granted, your child will receive an exemption from school. This is a one-time process (unless you decide to re-enrol your child in the school system and pull them out again) and expires when they turn 16, at which point an exemption from school is no longer a legal requirement.
By God’s grace, both applications were quickly processed and approved, with no further information required. I was both excited and nervous, because from that point onward, the responsibility for my children’s education would be solely mine. What a heavy calling! In the haste of researching and trying to meet deadlines, I didn’t have enough time to really think through how I wanted to teach or what resources I wanted to utilise. And to be fair, had I had the proper time to research, I probably wouldn’t have made different decisions because I had zero experience at that point.
At that time, I decided to use the Charlotte Mason method with Jack and the follow-the-curriculum method with Diane. My reasoning for using Charlotte Mason with Jack is simply due to his short attention span and his difficulty with reading and writing. Sadly, he was being left behind in the school system. The Charlotte Mason method emphasises read-alouds, oral narration, the use of living books, and nature study. This combination removes the barrier of reading and writing for young children who have not yet developed those skills (and this includes older students experiencing difficulty) and allows them to learn by listening to the materials and telling in their own words what they have learned. The Charlotte Mason method makes education enjoyable by making the stories and subjects covered come to life. Nature study gets everyone outside, exploring the world around them. There really is no better way to tackle science! I find this method very enjoyable, and the subjects are a spread of a rich feast. Not only that – Christ is integrated into every subject. That is a huge win for us, as it’s important to us for our children to have access to a Christian education.
For Diane, I chose the follow-the-curriculum method because she did incredibly well in the school system. She has beautiful handwriting, she reads full-on chapter books like they’re going out of style, and she immensely enjoys her worksheets. I truly felt that for her to enjoy homeschooling, it had to resemble the work she did in the school system. So I ordered textbooks and workbooks for her.
Jack has taken well to the Charlotte Mason method. I am amazed by the level of detail he includes during oral narration of books we’ve read. He remembers details even I forget! His favourite subject is Bible/History/Geography (they are combined). So far, he has aced all his exam weeks. Exam weeks look different in Charlotte Mason – there is no studying leading up to these exams. Rather, each day during exam week, students are asked to recall in detail something that they’ve learned over the previous term (there are 3, 12-week terms). Sometimes the questions are specific, other times the student chooses the topic to discuss. The exam questions are designed to celebrate students’ learning, versus highlight what the student doesn’t know (which is what formal tests do).
As for Diane, she sees us doing the Charlotte Mason method and, over time, has grown weary of her worksheets. She thoroughly enjoyed the follow-the-curriculum method for the first 2 terms, but now she’s finding it too redundant, and I have been slowly transitioning her over to the Charlotte Mason method. From the start, we have included all the kids in our Nature Studies (science). They all enjoy it, and observing our surroundings has no age limit. As the year has progressed, I noticed that I was having a harder and harder time being creative with Diane’s art projects. She blew through so many art projects in a short time (and our budget for them). On the other hand, I noticed that Jack’s art was much more paced, and he was learning skills as well (hand sewing, machine sewing, crochet, etc.) That is when I decided that Diane would follow what was laid out in our Charlotte Mason curriculum for art. And this change has been incredible! Not surprisingly, she’s taken to it even more than Jack and has taken up things like sewing and crocheting in her free time. It’s neat to see all her creations!
Click for Part 2:
The Cullums Immigrate 