Homeschooling for His Glory

We have been homeschooling for about 6 years. From the start, our goal has been to give our kids a solid education. We wanted to raise kids that knew how to think, and had a solid base of knowledge of the world around them that would allow them to be equipped to judge philosophies out there. Our search led us to Classical Education and since then have been following that path. That said, Classical Education can look different from one homeschool home to another. Today I will walk you through our classical homeschooling typical day. I like to classify our way of schooling as 'relaxed homeschooling' and you will see why. Morning: We all wake up anytime between 7-8:30 sometimes 9 or 9:30 for the boys (especially since puberty hit), each day varies. We almost always eat breakfast as a family, which ends anytime between 9:30-10:30 depending on the day. That time is concluded with our aloud Bible reading time. After breakfast the boys tend to go and do their own leisu...

Our third installment of the Journeys into Classical Homeschooling series features Lisa from Golden Grasses. I have been aware of classical education for decades and always equated it with great books. Our homeschool has always been literature and history rich but my understanding of classical as a pedagogy was really expanded and broadened by reading The Well Trained Mind 15 years ago and by meeting and hearing Leigh Bortiens speak, about 9 years ago. I went home from that meeting, read The Lost Tools of Learning by Dorothy Sayers, along with everything else I could get my hands on about classical education, and we haven’t looked back since. We are currently in a Classical Conversations Community and will have our youngest two kids in Challenge this year; A and 1. In the past we have relied heavily on Memoria Press, Peace Hill Press, IEW, The Lost Tools of Writing , and lately Roman Roads Media , which has recently produced Old Western Culture , re-released The Grammar of ...

Next up in my  series on Journeys into Homeschooling , we have Beth from  As He Leads Is Joy   talking to us about Classical Homeschooling at her house. This fall I will begin my 7th year homeschooling. I have two children. My son who was adopted from Eastern Europe when he was 7. He is now 14 and beginning high school work. My daughter just turned 11 and has Down Syndrome. My daughter was born in Asia. My husband and I are both from America but met in Asia. We lived in Asia for a number of years and now we are living in England. We are missionaries working with Chinese students in England.  I was impressed and intrigued when I listened to the things that my friend's son who was just a few years older than my son had learned in Classical Conversations (CC). I thought that would be a great foundation for my own son. My husband has said that he wished he had a classical education. I attended a CC meeting and the big question in my mind was what to do with my...

Today I am starting a new series on Classical Homeschooling, on how different homeschoolers came to homeschool classically and how they each implement it. Though I follow a classical homeschooling approach, I do it my own way. I typically call myself a relaxed classical homeschooler. You can see what I mean by reading my series on Relaxed Classical Homeschooling. Now I thought it would be nice to hear from other people about how they implement the classical homeschooling philosophy in their own school. This series will run every Tuesday in August, so we will visit with four homeschoolers in total. First up this week is Christy from Unexpected Homeschool Classical Education with Chronic Illness Our path to choosing a classical homeschool education for our currently 13 year old daughter, Amber, started after abruptly removing our only child from parochial school in January of her fourth grade year. We knew we wanted to homeschool for fifth grade, but shocked even ourselve...

On our second to last week of the Summer Planning Series, Susan from  Educating Today   is delighted to share with you all how to plan a delight-directed education. Oh, What a Delight   5 Reasons Delight Directed Learning Helps Children to Focus First, let’s start out by defining delight directed learning . (By the way, this is a great study skill to teach your kiddos.) Always know the definition of what you’re talking about, know what your terms mean, and make sure those you are talking to understand your meaning of the terms or ideas. Don’t take it for granted that they think the way you do. Delight directed learning simply means, that as much as possible, your children’s education is built around their interests and delights rather than on generic textbooks, workbooks or a curriculum’s scope and sequence. What delight directed learning is not: Delight directed learning is not choosing a subject for your children and then letting th...

For week 7 of this Summer Planning Series, we have Amy from Eclectic Homeschooling talking to us about Creating Your Own Unit Study. Over the years we have been homeschooling, unit studies have been the highlight.  My kids have really enjoyed them and learned well with them.  I must say that it is my favorite way to teach as well. Creating your own unit study isn't too difficult.  It just takes a little time.   It is also an excellent choice when you have a library handy and don't have much funds for homeschooling.  I've laid out the steps I've taken to create a unit study.  When I plan a unit study, I don't add in things like math, reading, language arts, or other subjects.  I just use the format to explore topics in depth. 1.  Decide on a topic First of all, decide on a topic.  It could be on a content-based subject like history or science, or on a topic near and dear to your child's heart. 2.  Choose a spine A spine i...

Today is day 3 of the "Homeschooling Essentials" blog hop. It is time to look at a very important topic: the Curriculum. I know for a fact that the topic of curricula will come up in many of the different bloggers' post on the hop this week. If you are going to talk about the essentials of homeschooling you cannot avoid the topic of curriculum since you kind of need to have something to teach to your kid.  Homeschooling, after all, is home education . Now the question is how to approach this particular topic. The way I see it, the topic of curriculum can be dealt with in several ways. But for me I will focus on what I believe are the things that need to be considered when thinking about curricula. 1) Your goal As I mentionned on Monda,y Homeschooling is a long-term project. You are forming, educating and preparing your children for their lives as adults. So, some of  the questions to have in mind are: What do I want my children to know? What do I want my c...

On our last post in this series, it is now time to put things together. How can I talk about a relaxed classical homeschooling style? The way I see it, classical and relaxed can work quite well together. Classical homeschooling focusses on what needs to be achieved and sought for. It is about goals, that of teaching my kids truths, values, beauty, goodness. Relaxed homeschooling addresses the way or atmosphere in which education is pursued and done. As much as I hold to a classical philosophy of education, I do not think that it has to necessarily be done in a very rigid way. The way I make sure that my kids are classically homeschooled is in the kind of material or curriculum we use. I am very eclectic in our curriculum choices, but I usually tend to choose material that emphasizes the areas I mentioned on day 3 of this series. Materials that focus on: Language Arts skills Critical thinking and logic Good books of literature History and humanities Even as I make sur...