We are officially thirteen (and a bit) years down the track and you could not pay me enough money to roll back the clock and set a different course. Today the line-up is as follows: boy (13), boy-girl twins (12), girl (10), girl (8.) girl twins (6). Home education is a way of life for us and I have no idea what similar age children are learning in government schools. My children master subjects at the rate of their ability rather than at the pace set by the government and have highly-specialized, slightly obscure areas of knowledge which would never be make it onto the UK school curriculum anyway.
They play outside in the garden for hours, grow strawberries, sew dolls clothes, create YouTube Lego movies, read books, play chess, write stories and bake cakes in their free time because it would never occur to them that pursuit of interest is anything but fun. They also squabble, make a mess, have bad days and press all my buttons at times. I am not trying to pretend we are anything that we are not. We love the rhythm that home education permits. We take holidays in term-time and have books open during the holidays. We have lazy Monday mornings because of a busy Lord’s Day with two services. I begin most days well and become grumpy post 7pm. For all the tears and upsets and curveballs that consistently come in our direction I can honestly say that the Lord has been good to us. He has shown himself to be faithful to the faithless (me!).
We are in a different stage of life now and I have been forced to reflect on the way we home educate and become more purposeful about what we are doing.
1. Outsourcing
The big step for me this summer has been finally outsourcing some of my oldest son’s work. This is hard for me! I love learning with my children and I feel pangs when I cannot keep up with the rate at which they acquire knowledge. However, the reality is that it is becoming harder to teach seven children a multitude of subjects well.
After quite a bit of prayer and a few false starts, we were pointed in the direction of Veritas Press Omnibus Primary. https://store.veritaspress.com/omnibus-i-primary-self… Quite frankly, I think it is amazing! Over the past couple of months, my son has read and studied Genesis, Exodus, Kings, Samuel, The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Code of Hammurabi. He is about to embark on the Odyssey and Herodotus. I am at risk of breaking the tenth commandment (thou shalt not covet) most days when I watch him taking notes on the videos and I hope that someday I will be perhaps be able to complete the course alongside my younger children.
I have also outsourced Physics to an online course (Arise Homeschool). I do not know yet whether we will go the IGCSE or the High school diploma Route but this seems to cover both bases. It is encouraging to both of us that despite having done relatively little physics over our home educating lives, he is well able to understand the material, complete the assignments and do all the Maths involved!
2. Focusing my Efforts
When my children were younger, I did not really need to spend much time learning what I was teaching. As long as I had a solid curriculum to follow, I could teach reading, Maths, spelling and history with minimal brain effort on my part. Now I am getting to the stage where I can no longer bluff my way through! If I do not actively put some time aside for learning, I am going to start struggling soon. So, I have made it my goal to keep track with my oldest child in Maths and Latin. The first reason for this is that I really enjoy these two subjects. The second is that if I study to keep pace with him, I will also be able to teach the other children as they rise up the ranks. Effectively, I will kill six more birds with two stones!
Practically, this means that I have planned some time into my week to study these two subjects. The effort is paying off to a certain extent. It is far easier to answer questions when I have already worked through them myself. When I had babies and toddlers around my feet, I don’t think I could have managed this focused study, but life is different now and I can accomplish more in terms of academics.
3. Savouring the Moment
I do not know how life will pan out in the end. Of course, I have hopes and dreams for my children. Yet whatever the future holds, I find myself genuinely enjoying the moment we are in. As my children grow older, I notice that they are actually becoming quite witty and they make me laugh a lot. We have reached the “opinions” stage and it is amusing to see how lively discussions play out over the kitchen table. Over the past few months there have been heated debates over whether or not Oliver Cromwell was a dictator, whether or not the colonies were right to seek independence from England and whether or not Martin Luther should have nailed the 95 Theses on Wittenberg Cathedral!
The children are also using information that I apparently taught them against me. “Hey, you said two weeks that bears could run at 30 mph and now you are saying polar bears can only run at 25mph. Which is right? Or are they slower because they have to run through snow!?” Who am I to argue with this kind of reasoning?!
What Has God Put in My Hand?
A number of years ago, I heard a talk about Moses. When he reached the Red Sea, God told him to use the staff that he had in his hand to part the waters (Exodus 14:16). I often remember this, because home educating is very much about using what we have in our hand. When making decisions about any of our children, we decide based on what we know of our abilities, our financial resources and our time. It is a pointless exercise to lament what we do not have the opportunity to do. God has endowed all Christian home educating families differently and whilst our tracks may differ slightly, our ultimate desire is that we will raise children who serve and love the Lord in their generation. I am praying for this. Won’t you pray with me too.
