Appears to be Working!

Hello all!

I know this isn't a very active forum. I only check it every few months myself. But I had some news and thought that this would be the appropriate place to share it.

I've been homeschooling my five children for the past seven years. I started when my oldest turned five. During that time I have been almost continuously studying education - specifically how to educate children. I've read books by Charlotte Mason, John Holt, Maria Montessori, Raymond and Dorothy Moore, Oliver DeMille, and many, many articles, blogs, etc by other people. When I first stumbled across TJEd, I was as most people - totally impressed and at the same time not really sure how to implement the ideas in my home. It's been a long journey. One of the phrases that Rachel DeMille always uses - that I absolutely hated - was "trust the process". I felt like I didn't have time to trust the process! Once the process was over, it was too late. It's one of the reasons I felt compelled to do so much research. I needed to find other sources and read their thoughts. Education is not Gospel - it's a bunch philosophies and there are a lot of gray areas and room for flexibility. Over the course of my study I've found a lot of truth behind what the DeMille's teach. I've incorporated much of that into my own home-school. Particularly some of the ideas that many of these other educators taught as well. When I found ideas that multiple educators professed - I paid extra close attention to those. My home-school probably doesn't look much like the DeMilles on a day to day basis. I know I haven't incorporated all of their "ingredients", but there are certain principles that are consistent.

What has occurred recently in our home has been an amazing testament to some of the things I've discovered.

In the beginning of December my husband and I were coming home from a dinner. We were talking about school and some difficulties I was experiencing in our home-school. Out of my mouth came the words - quite by accident - that it was time for my husband to take over the education of our eldest (age 12). As soon as I spoke that sentence, I knew that it was the answer I was looking for. It had long been in the plan that when our children reached scholar phase that my husband would take over. I've been waiting for my daughter - who was showing a lot of beginner interest - to start begging me to let her study. After I spoke these words to my husband, I realized that she probably never would. Why? Because she is such a good HELPER! She sees that I could use assistance with the younger kids, and so she puts down her book and comes and helps. And she's amazing. But she's sacrificing her own education in order to help my day run more smoothly. I figured out that if she was away from home, without distractions, she would be much more likely to enter a true scholar phase.

We started her official scholar phase the following Monday! My daughter has a laptop with internet access, and a totebox with all her books and supplies that she takes to my husband's office each week. He has a little room set aside for her right now. In a month she'll have to study at home as he's moving to a smaller location - but for now this has been the perfect way to create a scholar environment and make that separation that we both need. She has access to her mentor periodically throughout the day as he takes breaks from his business. She starts her morning by doing an hour of piano practice at home and then walks to "work". I don't see her again until 5pm except for a brief break for lunch.

I've just been amazed that she is so happily and eagerly filling 8-9 hours a day with her studies. And that doesn't include the time she spends studying her scripture and reading MORE BOOKS while she's home in the evenings.

This is a child who's experienced a pretty decent Thomas Jefferson Education - I first read the book when she was about six or seven and slowly started implementing principles.

Now that I've had the beginnings of a success story, so to speak, I'm evaluating what I think I did right so that I can continue to repeat it. My younger children are 11, 8, 3, 2 - so there's plenty of years of learning ahead of us.

What I've done right (I think!):
*Plenty of unstructured time to play in core phase - especially with exposure to art supplies AND the great outdoors.
*A LOT of time learning how to work. Chores make up the main part of what I do with my kids until they are about 9 or 10 and become really quick and thorough workers.
*Books! We consistently read aloud and I ALWAYS read my own books
*Never pushing. When the DeMille's talk about the zone (ZPD) - that's real.

What I haven't done:
*stress about not doing math every single day, or not having a real math curriculum. I finally purchased a math curriculum this year. I love it (www.mathonthelevel.com), but before that we did bits and pieces of online worksheets and LOTS of living math (www.livingmath.net) books. I want my kids to LOVE math and I felt it was better to go through math slower and love it, than to push them to keep up with a certain standard and hate it.
*grammar. Grammar is the study of language. In my opinion it's a scholar phase activity. My 12 year old is begging to study grammar right now. Luckily, she has an uncle who can mentor her - he's brilliant and grammar is one of his hobbies.
*Music lessons - until at least age 10. Later is fine.

One of my favorite resources has been Charlotte Mason. I love her writings. I LOVE how important nature is to her. I don't do all of the subjects that she feels is necessary, but she inspires me to introduce so many topics to my children that I might otherwise leave out of our education.

Having my eldest gone, doing her scholar phase, left a big gaping hole in my life. At first I struggled. Even though I knew that we'd made the right choice, it was difficult. I missed her. I missed her help! That first week of taking care of the other four children by myself...ouch! I I really noticed how much my daughter had been helping when she suddenly wasn't there every day!!! I felt completely left out of her education...just when it was starting to get fun - when she was finally old enough to read all my favorite books!
However, I have absolutely loved the results of turning my attention away from her and to her younger siblings. They are thriving. All our relationships have morphed a bit. I love that my second and third children are bonding in a new way. I'm discovering just how smart they are (without an older sibling to have all the answers).

This has gotten rather long. Thank you for letting me share my thoughts. I know that when we first started it was the success stories that gave me courage to continue on even when friends and family thought I was crazy for not (gasp) having a strict math curriculum and teaching grammar regularly. So here's mine, and hopefully it will give someone else courage too!