Life Learning: Ditching the School at Home

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This morning our day started at about 9am with a mile long walk, after which I cooked breakfast while the kids cut out play money and played store. After breakfast we began our book work. By lunch we were finished with every thing except math. The second half of the say was spent out doors enjoying the spring-like weather. Today was a typical day of homeschooling for the Molders.

I had the same vision most new homeschoolers have. My children up, dressed and fed by 8am. We start the day at our desks in front of the white board by saying the Pledge of Allegiance. At exactly 8:30 we do Bible, 9:30 is math and so on. Certain lessons take an hour others take 30 minutes. Why? Because my heavily scripted teachers manual says so. Never mind the fact that they were only 4 and 5. Never mind the fact that most of the work was busy work designed to keep children in a classroom setting quiet while the teacher works with those who need the extra help. Never mind that school for 2 children is taking up just as much time as school for a classroom full. And never mind that we ended the day exhausted, tired of being around each other and generally hating school.

Boy was I in for a shock when my idealistic homeschool didn't work out. After a few weeks of trying this I finally sat down and started thinking about why it wasn't working. I hated it. It was boring and repetitive and so much of it felt pointless. If, as an adult, I didn't see the value in it, of course my children weren't going to either!


Not long after I had my epiphany I began to re-structure our schooling. I admit, it was hard. I was just as culturally trained as everyone else to believe that learning could only happen within the context of a seriously structured school environment. I was utterly willing to let school become our life. What I wasn't realizing is that it should have been the other way around. Life should have been our school!

Exploring Moss

Now, I don't mean that we ditched all of our school books and took the unschooling route, but I did stop trying to force busy work, long drawn out scripted lessons, and strict schedules. As I relaxed, so did my children and learning began happening everywhere! In between practicing our addition facts we were outside counting bugs. Instead of spending hours trying to force generic essays to appear on paper we were writing plays and acting them out. We went from hours of tears and frustrations to joyful walks in the park, interesting field trips, and book work that was fit into our lives naturally instead of forcefully. Homeschooling became fun!

There are going to be rough days no matter how you choose to homeschool, but take it from me, when you live like you are learning all the time you will find that both you and your child(ren) will enjoy school far more than if they were sitting at a desk and you were standing at your chalkboard trying to do school at home. Remember, it is HOMEschool not SCHOOLhome.