High school seemed so far off when I began homeschooling in 2015 - it is surreal to be here in what seems like a blink of an eye.
I love sharing what we do in our homeschool and wanted to come to the blog to talk about some of the successes I have found with the Charlotte Mason method. First of all, I want to share a phrase that I heard Cindy Rollins say at a Wild + Free conference. This phrase has stuck with me all these years - especially this year as I homeschool a high schooler. Her advice to the homeschool mamas was "inspect what you expect." As mothers it is really easy to let some things go - we're busy planning meals, cleaning the house, taking care of children, etc. Having a high school student requires planning to inspect what you expect. In a lot of homeschool groups on social media I hear advice that our high school children are self learners and everything will turn out just fine as long as you give them great books and have them write narrations. Or maybe by this age they have found homeschool tutorials that they send their high school students to "expect" them to do just fine with another teacher. If that "inspection" is not done by the parent there is a possibility that bad habits will creep into the teenager's life and character. I'm preaching to the choir and would like to share with you how I planned our high school year to allow for the "inspect" portion of the quote!
Plan specific dates to sit down for reflection and goal setting.
When we started the school year I selected 4 Fridays to sit down with Christian at the end of a quarter. (September 30, December 20, March 14, May 16) Charlotte Mason schools are typically on a 12 week term schedule but I found our family rhythm works best in a semester rotation. In order to make sure we are completing our goals for things like Algebra, I plan out 4 quarters of 8 week lessons. That gives us an extra 4 weeks for any "catch up" school work that needs to be done, or redirect if anything wasn't working properly. As Charlotte Mason homeschoolers we know that education is so much about atmosphere, discipline, and LIFE - redirection is bound to happen when life hits unexpected twists and turns! These dates help me organize our goals for the year to make sure we stay on task. This is the paper I have on the refrigerator because I know if I stuff it in a folder I won't always remember it!
Share your philosophy with your high schooler
After sitting down with Christian and talking about each subject I realized I had never really shared with him about how the categories of Knowledge of God, Knowledge of Man, Knowledge of the Universe work. We studied Aristotle's life last year and connected it back to his classifications. (From the book Aristotle: Dean of Early Science by Glanville Downey.)
Understanding the "why" of how we homeschool seemed to open his eyes a little to the importance of the work we do. The practical way I did this was by showing him my folder of the
Lesson Planning Template by A Delectable Education. We are able to use the transcript I made for 9th grade and the planning templates to see what our goals for each subject should look like - and what a blessing that through homeschooling we can create a specialized individualistic plan! High school is Forms 4-6 if you are new to a Charlotte Mason education.
Time ≠ Learning
A resource I put together for homeschool parents of high school can be
downloaded here:
As homeschoolers I feel like we are still caught up in the "credit system" trap and it is unfortunate that society still has expectations for these credits as it relates to graduating and entering higher learning institutions. I believe that time does not equal learning but it is a good guideline of how much a student should be reading, writing, and discussing. I kept these things in mind as I planned each of our subjects and so far I have been so pleased at the work Christian has done! In fact, when we sat down this week to review the books he has read for our literature component, one of the reflection questions about The Hound of the Baskerville's mentioned another Sherlock Holmes novel that he just started. The question was "Holmes remarks in another novel that Watson 'sees but does not observe.' How does that make him a useful narrator for a detective story?" When Christian read that aloud he exclaimed "Hey! I just read that in A Study in Scarlet!" I love that our literature dive into Sherlock Holmes has opened up an interest for him and he is loving the original writings - I count that a win for vocabulary instruction! LOL! (For a recommendation, get the Arthur Conan Doyle books with a glossary at the end. Our edition by Oxford World's Classics gives a page number reference at the end to look up unfamiliar words and terms.)
Make time for yourself to plan!
I'm offering consultations as well and would love to sit down with you to listen to what you hope to accomplish in your child's education. I have some time before January 15 if you would like to talk during the holiday break! Please message me to set up a time - my rate is $40 for one hour one-on-one.
https://kindandcultivated.home.blog/grid-blog/consultations/
Thanks so much for reading this post and I hope it is an encouragement to the amazing privileges of homeschooling and the beauty of the Charlotte Mason method! Merry Christmas!
(A "rizz" photo of my high school freshman)
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