Term 3: What's Changed, What Remains the Same

When I first started gently homeschooling my oldest child for kindergarten, I didn't divide our time into semesters, terms, or quarters. We were basically unschoolers and enjoyed a relaxed homeschooling approach with lots of read alouds, a simple morning time, and tons of playing outside, meeting up with friends, and field trips.

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If I did divide our time into any chunks, it was into months, as I would often choose some loose topics--usually drawn from the ideas we were reading about in The Story of the World, which we read as part of our morning time. For example, one month we read about ancient Egypt and another we read picture books about Islam.

As my son grew older, I got more interested in the Charlotte Mason method, so I experimented with dividing our formal homeschool time into 3 terms of 12 weeks as she did. And the verdict is . . . I love it! And while I don't think that there is any special quality about 12-week chunks of time, I do think there are some benefits to chunking your homeschooling endeavors into sections--even if they are loose or permeable.

As the term changes in our homeschool, some studies like composer study/music appreciation, artist study, and poetry study are breathed new life as we introduce new composers, artists, or poets. And many other subjects, like natural history, geography, and history may get new books to replace or come alongside the ones we are still reading from the last term.

Most importantly, the change of term gives me a chance to assess what has been working, what never worked well, and what could now use a change. It is also a great time to implement any new knowledge or insight I've gained about the Charlotte Mason Method from reading and discussing her volumes with my in-person reading group, following other Charlotte Mason method homeschoolers online, and listening to A Delectable Education podcast.

So here is a snapshot of what big and little changes we are just beginning to implement, as well as what is staying just as it has been:

Our strict homeschool schedule

Suprise! It isn't going anywhere. I love our "strict homeschool schedule" aka our timetable. I even wrote about why I love it so much and those reasons still apply.

However, the schedule I dreamed up about a year ago before our new baby was born needed some tweaking. After only minor changes this homeschool year, I needed to overhaul it to make room for a brand new subject.

Also, I wanted to move drawing out of our Monday lineup as grumpy children back at lessons for the week were not enthusiastic about their least-favorite lesson, I also wanted to shorten our Wednesday schedule by holding back a few lessons until the afternoon. We have been attending an open swim with our homeschool group at 10:30 am on Wednesdays since January and I'd been flying by the seat of my pants with our schedule to get us there close to on time each week.

As I put the schedule together, a few other changes occurred. Some lessons were shortened, including my son's reading lessons and history. This made time for a new subject as well as time for two 20-minute handicraft lessons instead of one 30-minute lesson.

The new schedule debuted last week and I think the changes were worth the 45 minutes I poured over scheduling cards and spent time typing it all up. It also gave me some ideas and some confidence about planning up a new schedule for next year when I'll have a fourth-grader who will be adding a few new subjects as a Form II student.

A Modern Language

I had long promised myself that I would add a modern language to our homeschool when (and only when) I had figured out a way that I could handle it.

Several months ago, while listening to a podcast featuring Talkbox.mom, I had my eureka moment. I felt that the Talkbox.mom subscription could be the perfect product to help me and my family learn a language together.

It was a bit pricy to me, but if it could teach me (someone who took years of Spanish and never felt very capable) to speak another language with my kids, I would give it a shot.

I was planning on getting just one box and then pausing the subscription until I was ready for another in order to control the costs (each box is $80). However, my father-in-law offered to gift the German talkbox subscription to us as a Christmas gift. We finally received our first box just in time to roll out our new study for term 3.

And my totally honest verdict after one week? I think it is a great way to learn a language! Our first box is all about snacks and eating. Every member of the family down to the 4-year-old is speaking German about how hungry we are (or aren't) every day and we are just starting to learn how to ask for specific foods.

I am not an affiliate for the program and do not benefit from recommending them, so believe me when I say that the materials and audio are high quality. And if you want to learn a language conversationally, then learning phrases the way Talkbox.mom has you learn them is the best way to go.

We'll see how we do once the novelty wears off, but I'm optimistic that we can keep chugging away learning a few more phrases every week.

Small Changes to Geography and History

I changed the way I've been doing mapwork to correspond to our history and geography readings. We are now looking at a map before readings. So far, so good. I definitely think it helps my older child remember where things are taking place as he is reading independently.

I also cut out some history readings I had planned for the boys. Over the past 2 terms, we had missed a few days due to field trips or illness. Also, a few of John's readings took too long for me to read in one lesson so I split them up. I needed to make some intentional deletions to get to the books I really wanted us to finish.  So Peter will not read any more Boys of '76 and John will not read any more 50 Famous Stories Retold.

Shorter Reading Lessons

To create time for a daily German lesson and to attempt the lesson length recommended by Living Library's scheduling cards, I shortened most of my first-grader's reading lessons to 15 minutes. Honestly, I'm not sure about this one!

I know that he is most attentive toward the beginning of the lessons, but I also know that he is going to need to spend more time reading to get to fluency. However, after one week, the shorter lessons seem to be working better for him. He just seems less fretful and less resistant. Is it because he is reading better or because the lesson is shorter? I'm not sure. We'll just take this subject one term at a time for now.

More intentional afternoons

Afternoons have been a little out of whack, and honestly, it has been this way for a while.

We have never gotten into a good rhythm, probably because there have been only 2 days a week max when all the kids are at home all afternoon (I didn't even realize our weekly schedule was so crowded until I wrote that!). Also, because I've been run down from having kids and a baby who want 3 meals and clean laundry every day :-)

So, I'm pulling back from some fun activities outside the house in favor of more free time at home. This should give us 4 afternoons at home most weeks to provide time to get piano practice done without rushing, develop a better habit for short walks in the neighborhood, as well as more time to learn useful work in the kitchen, which is a win-win for the kids and me.

It is always the stuff outside lessons that is the hardest for me to establish new habits, so wish me luck!

Do you make changes during your school year? Any new changes in the works for your homeschool?