Homeschooling

There will be a meeting about homeschooling with catholic mothers, and I found this very important, every time I got to listen and share with fellow homemakers about this task, it has been refreshing and inspiring, so I wanted to post some comments about our own homeschooling beforehand.

As I mentioned previously, there is a balance to be acquired again and again between content and form. Let's say we have a vessel to be filled with water, and let' s say this vessel starts to loose its form, and starts being less solid, showing flexibility and porosity to such extremes that the whole content of water leaks out. Now let's imagine the other side of the picture, when the vessel starts to solidify even to the extent of the receptacle, thicker and thicker till there is no space for the water, which is then left out.

The same is also seen in the jewish mystics, when they were talking about the pillars of judgement and mercy, and how one should attain the middle space, a space that was more than just the half way between them, but a superposition of them, named Love or in our New Testament nomenclature, Christ.

Now the principle is found in many areas of our lifes, and it is very obvious in homeschooling in our home: When I was teaching out of my own doings, the form was lacking, and days would pass without schedule or real advance, we would become demotivated, and what is to become of a teacher without motivation? On the other hand, when I leaned too much on set curriculums, there was also the danger of becoming an authomat, just work for the sake of work, and the motivation would also disappear like a cloud in the winds, and boredom would set in.

What we found to work in our home is albeit a dance between these two ideas, enough form to keep up the content of motivation going on, but not too much that would suffocate it. We follow the curriculum of Our Lady Of  Victory, which is very good in having things planned for the day and with the contents of solid catholicism, and then we interwined with our own blocks or projects.

This is our schedule, with some notes on the side to explain whys:

7:00 wake up time, getting dressed and first breakfast with husband beffore he goes to work.
7:30 tiding up the rooms, making beds, etc...
8:00 Violin practice, piano,, etc.. ( we found that is better to do first things first, like with math!)
8:30 prayers and formal school ( Our Lady of Victory)
10:00 second breakfast or brunch
11:00 rest time with reading stories
12:00 outdoors time
13:30 snack
14:00 rehearsing plays, handworking projects, blocks, etc..
15:00 preparing the house for husband, picking up rooms, laundry, dinner preparations, etc...
15:30 husband comes from work and we have dinner ( it is so early! but we followed the advise of Nancy Campbell, to have a meal right away, to foster unity and homelyness)
16:00 - 18:00 variable time with the whole family, library, errand to grocery store, activities, etc...
18:00 rosary and reading time
19:00 last snack and bedtime for the younger ones, personal reading for the older ones
20:00 general bedtime

Sometimes we have switched the formal school time with the outdoor time, since our youngest prefer to have exercise first! But generally we found this general schedule to be working for now. It is very flexible, and depends on the day but it is nonetheless a form that carries us through.

 I also look ahead when the children are older, when probably it would be beneficial to have them enrolled in a program like Our Lady of Victory or others, where outside teachers keep track of the work.

As for prayers, I was looking into the Divine Office, but a first glance seemed to deter me from it, not so easy..., so I am waiting for the right time to implement it with the family. We just do the graces for meals and formal prayer before school, the rosary, and prayers before going to bed.

But mainly, what underlines the unfolding of our homeschooling is how much we educate ourselves, how much we are aspiring to be followers of Christ, how much nourishment and graces we obtain from the Sacraments, how much we love and obey our husbands, how much we strive to come closer to God and let him spill his Love to the world.