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Starting Out
When I first started homeschooling, I had no idea what my homeschool style was. I wish I had spent some time finding my homeschool style before purchasing curriculum. My son had spent kindergarten in a Classical Charter school where the elitism and superiority ran strong, so I naturally thought classical was THE superior educational method to use. I was an all in, true believer in the classical method because the school constantly told me how great it was.
Classical
Before starting my son’s first grade year, I bought anything that seemed classical. We focused on memorization as recommended for the grammar stage, and started a four year history cycle. I tried to mimic what was being taught in the classical school, even though I was so unhappy I didn’t send him back for first grade. Yeah, that lasted until, umm, October.
Traditional
Then I tried some more traditional type programs. While the traditional programs were a little bit more in my comfort zone, our homeschool still didn’t feel like it was living up to the image I had. My idea of warm fuzzy cuddles on the couch while my son learned just wasn’t happening. I had visions of hands on projects and engaging content and traditional didn’t live up to my ideals.
My Father’s World
The following year for second grade I made some changes. We settled on using Adventures in U.S. History from My Father’s World. MFW is described as a mix of Classical (still couldn’t give up on the superior classical method), Charlotte Mason and Unit Study. Peyton also jumped into the mix for kindergarten that year. He did some workbook pages and tagged along with Carter’s program. He really loved the state studies and could take a blank map, name each state on the map, and tell you the state capital, bird, and flower. We were definitely on a better track than we were with more traditional programs.
I found My Father’s World to be a lot closer to what I wanted for our homeschool. Looking back, I can see it was a great year. I found that I really love the approach of learning through living books. While it wasn’t a perfect program, it was much better for us than the classical and traditional programs of the year prior. In fact, I liked it enough that I purchased the curriculum for the following year. As I started looking through the next year’s curriculum, I discovered it would be a terrible fit for our family. That’s a story for another day.
Charlotte Mason
Then I learned about the Charlotte Mason method. Learning is based on living books, no drill and kill. I loved the idea of giving my kids an educational “feast” that included poetry, art, music and nature study. But, the Charlotte Mason method doesn’t include as much direct instruction in the areas of math and language arts that I like. The CM method was definitely getting me closer to what I was looking for.
Lessons Learned
In those early days, I spent a lot of money and time learning what I didn’t like. I made the mistake of being married to an educational philosophy that I believed was superior, but it wasn’t me. My kids are not classical learners either. It sounds totally cliché, but every child is unique and we need to teach to that uniqueness, or we lose one of the main benefits of homeschooling.
What We Do Now
Realizing that I am an eclectic homeschooler with strong leanings towards Charlotte Mason and literature based educational styles has made all the difference. It took me way too long to realize that there really isn’t a superior style of education. I pull what I like from different methods and create a learning environment that works for my kids and doesn’t feel like torture to me. I use traditional methods for math and language arts, while taking ideas from Charlotte Mason’s methods of narration and living books for other subjects. We start our mornings with fun read alouds from Sonlight and good books are a huge part of their day.
Maybe I’m a slow learner, but now that we are six years into this homeschool thing, I feel like we’ve settled into our groove. Finding my homeschool style made all the difference. I still like to curriculum hop for content subjects (I can’t help myself) but we are pretty settled on what we’re doing now.