Our Homeschool Journey – Part 2

I started including Diane in our family read-alouds after our first book was finished. Being a new homeschool teacher, it didn’t dawn on me that she might enjoy the books I was reading to Jack. I started including her (and anyone who wanted to hear the story) in our family read-alouds when Jack requested that I do our daily reading at night. All the kids (aside from Louis cuddled in my arms) sat around me, mesmerised by the Winnie-the-Pooh series. Once we finished that book, I included Diane in the oral narration activity (we do this at the end of each book to recap learning). She did incredibly well! That is when I got the idea to have her orally narrate after her Bible, history, and social studies readings.

It probably goes without saying that I am switching Diane to the Charlotte Mason method next year. She’s so excited about this change, and so am I! It will mean shorter school days, as I won’t be going back and forth between two methods (which naturally come with endless interruptions as I try to help both kids with their work). The curriculum I use, Simply Charlotte Mason, focuses on family-wide lessons, alongside individual grade-level work. We start our day learning as a family (all grades), and individual grade-level work is sprinkled throughout the day as gaps arise (I cook lunch, change a nappy, etc.) Having all the kids use the same curriculum will allow our day to flow so much smoother.

I am really looking forward to next year! I’ve already done my planning, and I recently switched homeschool planning software for the FOURTH time this year. Yikes! The first system, monday.com, was all I knew from work, and it was better suited for teams than for homeschool planning. I made it work while the trial was free, but it wasn’t spectacular, and there was no way to purchase a single seat for a subscription, so I had to part ways. Then I switched to Asana, which is basically the same software but a competitor company, and I was misled to believe that I could purchase a single seat, which ended up not being the case, so I switched back to monday.com on their basic plan while I figured out a solution.

I finally stumbled across the solution in a homeschool Facebook group I was a part of; a fellow homeschool teacher posted a question about Syllabird. I checked it out and switched immediately. It was everything I wanted and more, until it started loading slowly shortly after arriving in Auckland. At one point, it stopped loading and would randomly decide when it would load again; this made planning almost impossible at times. I was getting frustrated! After troubleshooting with the Founder, we discovered it’s because they only have servers in the US. I waited for months, hoping the issues would ease up, but the problem only got worse until I was forced to switch yet again, with only 5 weeks left in the year. But – silver lining! I found Homeschool Panda. It loads every time, it has even more features that I didn’t know I needed (like chores lists and messaging), I can add Matt as a user with his own account, so he can see the daily agenda and message the kids directly, and somehow it’s cheaper per month as well! Such a win! We are using these 5 weeks to get completely acclimated to this new system, so we’re ready to go next year.

I would say this year has been all about trial and error. Trial and error with curriculum, planning systems, setups, routines, and flow. We’ve had to course correct with Jack several times throughout the year already. He’s onto his third math curriculum this year alone. We finally found a good mix for him that he’s happy to complete every day. He’s also on his second Language Arts curriculum. But hey, that’s the freedom in homeschooling: if something isn’t working, you absolutely can change it!

Speaking of freedoms, it has taken me almost the entire year to truly discover my freedoms in homeschooling. I wish it hadn’t taken that long, but you truly do learn as you gain experience. When I first started on this journey, my goal was to make homeschooling look and feel like school. I transformed my office into a proper homeschool room, complete with desks for each of us and school lockers. We started promptly at 9:00am and would try our best to end by 2:00pm at the latest, because kindy pickup would be shortly after. This setup alone made for a rigid framework that caused unnecessary rush and stress. We were always hustling!

Click for Part 3:

Our Homeschool Journey – Part 3