Homeschooling Through Life’s Seasons

Several months ago I looked around at my life and breathed a sigh of relief because it felt like we were smooth sailing. The cold, gray winter was over; we’d finally fallen into a homeschooling groove, the kids were becoming more independent in helping with chores; I’d lost 45 pounds of back-to-back pregnancy weight and had more energy than ever; my business was growing well;  and we were happy.

But it often seems–for me, anyway–just when life is going well and that I’ve got it “all together,” a trial hits. In this case, it was a welcome trial, but also very difficult one in the form of a surprise pregnancy. And about the time we began racking our brains to figure out how it happened (I mean, we know how pregnancies happen, just weren’t sure how THIS one happened!) the sickness hit–all day and all night.

{13 weeks: social media “announcement” via Instagram}

In our early marriage, Jared and I struggled with a infertility and multiple miscarriages. I will never forget the emotional pain of those days and have empathy for those who are dealt a similar challenge. Now we’re on the flip side and have been entrusted with a growing family and have both perspectives. Can I simply state: pregnancy has never been easy for me–in the trying-to-conceive phase, the growing-a-baby phase, and the postpartum phase.

When the sickness hit, (for me, it’s severe and lasts a long time) homeschooling came to a halt, designing came to a halt, housecleaning came to a halt. . . you get the idea.

During the long days of lying on the couch, feeding my kids boxed macaroni and drive-thru cheeseburgers–again, and cradling the toilet–I felt immense mommy guilt. There are plenty of things to feel guilty about when you join the mom-club, but the one that bothered me the most was homeschooling. I was firmly committed to making this thing work and refused to yo-yo them back into public school. But there was guilt and stress about how I could possibly educate them when I could barely shower and keep down my lunch.

{21 weeks: We find out we’re expecting our fourth girl! Big brother is disappointed, but taking it like a champ.}

As I lay on the couch counting down the hours until my husband got off work–allowing my kids to eat a third bowl of cold cereal and watch yet another episode of Magic Schoolbus–I realized I’d need to stop mourning this year’s perfect school plans and begin looking for ways to make the best of the “season” we’d been thrown in. And that’s what led us into three months of “interest-led” schooling.

What is interest-led learning?

As I understand it, interest-led learning is based on two foundational ideas:

• children are born to learn
• forced learning kills the desire to learn

I can see truth in these principles as I consider our journey in deciding to homeschool. It was gut wrenching to watch the spark die in my knowledge-hungry little boy during those years he attended public school.

What interest-led learning looked like for us: 

Maybe not as relaxed as a truly committed interest-led philosophy follower, but aside from finishing up the year’s math textbooks, we put away the rest of the curriculum, and read. A lot.

We read about plants, took a “field trip” to the nursery to choose seeds and seedlings, and planted a small raised-bed vegetable garden. Over the past few months the kids have been learning how to care for the growing veggies, and are now beginning to harvest and taste new things.

Or when a friend sent a wolf postcard from Yellowstone, we pulled out our favorite animal encyclopedia, looked up facts on National Geographic, watched a Wild Kratt’s episode about wolves, re-told The Boy Who Cried Wolf, assembled cut-and-paste wolf art projects, and searched for villianized wolves in popular fairy tales.

As stressful as it was for this routine-oriented mama to let go of the planned checklist, I look back at the past few months and realize stepping away from the textbooks and our curriculum plans didn’t neglect the kids’ education in the way I feared. In fact, having that additional time to play and explore has helped them develop MORE creativity and inquisitiveness.

Throughout the day I often find one or more nose-deep in a stack of books, or spontaneous art projects. They “play” school–taking turns being the teacher (giving me a glimpse of what I must look like in their eyes!), write lists and descriptions of their favorite Star Wars and My Little Pony characters, build imaginative contraptions from blocks and Legos, and make up songs on the piano. They’re learning! And applying their knowledge! And it’s so good to see.

While I’m not sure I’m ready/willing to ditch the curriculum and jump into an unschooling lifestyle for my family long term, I can definitely see benefits to this interest-led learning. Most of all, I can see benefits to relaxing a little, and remembering the big picture, and knowing our schooling can be catered to our different seasons of life.

And this fall with a 4th grader, 2nd grader, Kindergartner, 2-year-old, and nursing newborn will certainly need some curriculum catering!