Eclectic-unschooling for 2021-2022

This new homeschool year deserves to be more joyful. Why? Because my children deserve it. My family deserves it. There is enough challenges in the times already.  Our home is our cocoon of safety, peace, joy, and love. And so will it be with our homeschool.  How will this year be different with the previous years? We're heading full on with our Morning Time, and we'll be more of the eclectic-unschooling type, more-interest-led, and project-based.

For my own "professional development", and to help me navigate, I got hold of books specific for the journey:

• Better Together: Strengthen your family, simplify your homeschool, and savor the subjects that matter most (Pam Barnhill) - a Morning Time guide.
• Homeschooling with Gentleness: A Catholic discovers Unschooling (Suzie Andres)
• A Little Way of Homeschooling: Thirteen families discover Catholic Unschooling (Suzie Andres)
• Project-Based Homeschooling: Mentoring self-directed learners (Lori Pickert)

I usually just register for the free access of homeschool conventions, but this year I purchased passes (I can do this every, or every other, year) for two homeschool conventions ("paid account" had me really tuning in):

• Catholic Homeschool Conventions 2021 (I love that it gives me a lifetime access to the incredible talks!)
• Connect Homeschool and Intentional Parenting Summit 2021: Thrive at Home

 

Here's how our days are going to look like:

Morning Time starts at the breakfast table with Catholic Sprouts Podcast, and daily newsrounds from CNN 10, and/or Children's BBC Newsround.  Call to prayer with a hymn (it has been Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah), this allows the kid to transition from what they're doing to our main Morning Time. We pray the Rosary from Mon. to Thurs., Divine Mercy Chaplet on Fri., and St. Michael Chaplet on Sat. followed by the Gospel for the Day. 

For our Morning Time lessons, I use pre-made plans I bought from Pam Barnhill's Your Morning Basket (less planning for me).  And add some more materials that I want to cover (more planning for me) that includes Religion, Virtues, Classic literature, picture books, Filipino tales, and leadership.  

Project-based-wise, I let the older brothers pursue their own interests.  I had them plan their own schedule, and subjects they want included-- Religion (Faith & Life 7), Math (Sir Cumference seris, , Science, History, Literature, and  Writing. They also get to choose the topics they want to read.  No workbooks or assignments.  

For the first grader, we're doing Phonics, Handwriting, & Spelling using programs from Catholic Heritage Curricula.  We did not finish Math-U-See Primer last year, so we continue to work on the 2nd half of the book, afterwhich, we'll use picture books from the Five in a Row booklist & lesson guides along with subjects that include Science, Social Study, and Arts. Five in Row is a multi-level, literature-based unit study program.  For Religion, we are using Faith and Life 1 (she works on the activity book enthusiastically, as with most of her materials).

As for the four-year old, he unschools, along with the goal of reading to him 4 books in a day. He's also tuned in for our Morning Time.  And the 18 month old, she's a budding bookworm.  She loved to be read to, like the rest of them did (and still do).   

With the pandemic still raging on, our mental health priority takes a front seat.  It reminds us to re-think what should matter in our homeschooling, in our home-- our relationships, everyone's health and safety, our sense of peace, joy, and a full love tank.  The academics, they can be had at a more relaxed pace, with a more simplified content, because no one's really "left behind". Trust that learning happens naturally.  There are graces that God pours in this season, and the important thing is to open up a room for that.

 

Cool to Unschool

I've been telling those who bother to ask what we've been up to that we've been on vacation for the longest time, since January, and our school year starts on September.  And that's for our 1st official year of homeschooling.  Come to  think of it, since homeschooling is not just going-to-school-only-it's-done-at-home, but more of a lifestyle, really, homeschooler's don't really go on vacation mode.  I've just realized that we're not really on vacation but just on the more unstructured extreme of homeschooling-- UNSCHOOLING!  We've taken a break from M1's textbooks, all those phonics, math, and writing.  But we continue to read.  Everyday books lie around, they scan pages, fascinated by the pictures.  At times they ask me to read, at times they don't.  They open story books and encyclopedias.  And of course, they learn from their play, from building blocks to pretend play.  They learn from the things around them.  Last week, they swam with whale sharks. When we got home we read on whale sharks, and other sharks.  We sometimes watch video clips of wild animals.  They're fans of the blue whale.  The other day, we again went to the beach.  M2 insisted we take home some sea water so he can conduct an experiment:  he wanted to see what will happen if we mix the sea water with oil.  Imagination flourish.  Today, they had their art moment (without any cue from me).

From the book, I'm reading, it says, trust that the kids are learning.  I believe they are. It's like knowing kids are growing and getting taller each day, you can't tell that everyday, but when you take their measurements, there's no denying that they've grown.  I'm not sure about M2, but M1 sure got my introversion, but engage them in a talk, you'll be amazed by the knowledge they've amassed at their age.

Meanwhile, I'm still in the middle of the book.  It gives me comfort in times when I can't sit down and be like the ideal homeschool moms blogging about their creative homeschools, that for our family we're doing just fine.