Our Year Round Homeschool

Today is our first day back to school after a break of about two and a half weeks. Our family does year round homeschooling simply because I find that the children retain what we learn when we're working year round. I don't have to spend a great deal of time on review and we generally plan two weeks off after we've worked ten weeks, with the exception of holiday time when we work things out a little differently.

With a variety of ages ranging from seven months to seventeen, we have been pretty creative in the way we approach school but the method that appears to work best for us is doing group study for most subjects and independent for some others. Naturally, the children have their individual math curriculum but most of our other subjects are done as a group with some independent work broken out by skill level.

Our day starts off with Bible and Character. We believe that the most important thing we can pass on to our children is God's wisdom and we do that through their Bible teaching. God tells us that we are to teach His words diligently to our children, making them sharp, and talk to them about His words when we sit with them, when we walk with them, when we lie down and when we rise up (Deut. 6:5-7). So my husband and I believe it is a priority to make sure that our children are in an environment that teaches them about the Lord throughout the majority of their day because of the principle in the Deuteronomy 6:5-7 scripture and Bible and Character study is viewed as the most important element of our study for that reason.

The rest of our school day is combined with a variety of reading and hands on projects. My ninth and twelfth graders are currently reading Don Quixote and it's been a pleasure to see how they've enjoyed 17th century literature. My younger ones are doing the abridged version of Don Quixote and have also really enjoyed some of the living books we've read on the history subjects. We believe that God's hand has always been in the history of the world, we choose curriculum that highlights how God has shaped this world so that we can show our children that just as things unfolded from Adam and Eve to Christ, He is still shaping this world for the things that are to come. I'll be talking about some of the curriculum we've chosen for this year as we progress.

Our girls are studying home economics to learn how to be efficient keepers of the home. We learn through Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House and a few other resources. This book is the absolute most thorough book I've seen and the reviews on it are outstanding. I use this book as a reference and decided to teach from it this year. We'll also be creating our own sewing patterns and sewing up some pajamas for the boys this fall. I think they'll be better housekeepers than their mom!

 I'm excited about our school week. I think it'll be a great year of fun and learning for us all.