Night School

Often, people ask me how we run our homeschool. Do I teach every subject every day? What times do we do school? Do the kids sit at a desk or at the table? I have so many people (it really isn't even funny how many people) tell me that they just want to come sit at my house and watch how we do school, so they can figure out how I do it all. Truthfully, if someone were to come sit at my house and watch me, they'd probably be sorely disappointed. It's not nearly as organized and well planned as some seem to think my homeschool is. But, I thought I'd give you all a small glimpse into our school, so maybe you will be inspired to try something new. (Or maybe you already know this great secret, and your kids do the same thing!)

Each night before bed, Britches and Little Man go grab their book and spend about 30 minutes to an hour reading. This is our reading class. If they have questions about words or meanings or anything, I am there to help them. Otherwise, they just read. 

I don't usually let them pick just anything. I make sure they are reading a good book, sometimes a classic, that has good, wholesome content, and has enough depth to it to be challenging. Britches is reading a horse book she got for Christmas, and Little Man is reading The Chronicles of Narnia. For Christmas, he got the complete set all in one book. So, the book is huge, but he's just focusing on one book within it at a time. Britches was thrilled that she finished her book tonight, and Little Man was very happy that he finished one book and was moving on to The Horse and His Boy.

And that's it. Nothing special about our reading program. No papers to fill out to see if they understand it. If they can tell me what their book was about, they get it. So there's no need for me to "test" them on their book. This is also how my children are able to speak with such good grammar. It isn't because I'm all that great of a teacher in that department. But they read so many well written books, they have learned the correct ways to speak. I have always tried to steer them away from books that used improper grammar or language, because I didn't want that to be what they learned. And it has worked. 

So if you think I have something spectacular going on over here, just know that it isn't all that. School is just life with us. 

If you're finding it difficult to teach certain things to your kids, try adding it in to their day in a way that they don't even realize it's school. If you have a hard time teaching math, try getting in the kitchen and cooking something together. If you can't get them excited about history, go visit a living history museum. If science is their hang-up, create a cool experiment with them, like making slime, so that they are just having fun, or go visit a hands-on science museum. And if you can't seem to get your child to be still during reading time during the school day, try doing night school and just letting your children pick a good book that interests them and let them read away. It's really that easy!