Theme Days, or What We're Up to These Days

Last summer the kids and I, every Friday, went on an adventure.  Sometimes other families from our homeschool group joined us, but many weeks we were on our own.  We had SO. MUCH. FUN on these adventures.  We haven’t been able to recreate them during the winter months – partially because of crazy busyness, partially because of illnesses.  We are eager to get back to these.  We went on nature walks, to the zoo, out to Walnut Grove to visit Laura Ingalls’ dugout on Plum Creek, and other adventures that live on in our memories.

It was after we’d been going on these adventures all summer that a good friend introduced me finally convinced me to check out BraveWriter.  And now I am hooked.  I’ve been reading The Writer’s Jungle by Julie Bogart, founder of Brave Writer.  Brave Writer helps parents teach their children how to write – not just write with grammar and semantics, but to write well and to find their own voice.  Julie also puts out videos every week to encourage parents to let go of the school formalities and let their children explore the world.  She has certainly encouraged me to step out of my comfort zone and explore new ways of teaching and new ideas of exploration.

At the same time I was learning about Brave Writer, I stumbled upon a YouTube channel called FUNSchooling the Sensational Six.  This is a family of unschoolers, and through her videos and her Facebook page by the same name, she also encouraged me to give up the strict and rigid school schedules in favor of a more relaxed approach.  She also has themed days each week to help her to introduce her children to new things – another way of strewing information for them to discover and then use to grow in their own endeavors.

For years I have followed Charlotte Mason’s philosophy and methods exclusively.  I started by using SimplyCharlotte Mason, and then I combined it with AmblesideOnline.  Later I used both as book lists but created my own curriculum.  As more and more children became school age, and especially after adding 2 more school age kids through adoption, it became more and more difficult to maintain that scheduled day I had used and forced ourselves into for so many years.

Last year I finally broke and went to straight unschooling.  For months.  It was survival mode, but it worked.  On so many levels, it worked.  It freed us all to get to know each other, relax, follow our passions, and work on purging the extra clutter from our home (a major contributor to my high levels of anxiety).  As we had amazing adventures and made memories together – as we began exploring this thing called “unschooling” – as I began listening to Julie Bogart’s encouragement and wisdom from years of experience both homeschooling and coaching other homeschoolers – I changed my methodology and philosophy.

Charlotte Mason will always be my first love.  I still give my children only beautiful, moral, living books.  I still believe they are persons, with their own free wills and with their own unique God-given strengths and abilities - in fact, I almost wonder if unschoolers believe this on a deeper level, or multi-levels.  I still hold my children to high moral grounds.  I still purposely study God’s Word with them and help them commit His Words to memory and heart.  We still have routines and bedtimes and wake-up times and chores and certain items we must do daily.

But I’ve changed my approach in how I go about teaching them and strewing new ideas in their paths.  Julie Bogart encourages parents to be brave, and she certainly has helped me to find my courage!  We now have theme days, inspired by FunSchooling the Sensational Six.  We now have added in a few elements from Brave Writer.  And as I read The Writer’s Jungle and learn more about how to better teach my children writing and using the English language, I’m sure I will tweak more of our days.  We will always go through seasons.  We will always have things we can adjust and do better.  But for now, this is where we’re at.

So now we're not really Charlotte Mason homeschoolers, nor are we true unschoolers, but we are somewhat relaxed, and we're doing things in an alternative way.  I'm not sure there's really a name for what we are.  We are just a unique family doing things the way that works for us!

I wanted to give everyone a peek at what that looks like for us for the moment:

Every morning Monday through Thursday, we start with Bible Study.  We handle this on a loop.  For more about looping schedules, these are great articles here and here about what it is and ways to do it.  Our Bible Study lasts for approximately 45 minutes, but I do not stick strictly with this time frame.  If we're in the middle of something, we keep going.  If we're getting restless 10 minutes early, fine; we'll quit.  But more or less, all the kids can handle about 45 minutes or so.  I'm not completely satisfied with this loop yet.  I wish we could do memory work every day and Bible Study every day.  We do find ourselves getting to it 2-3 times a week, so it's not terrible, but I do wish it were even more often.  I may change this in a month or 2 if I still feel the same way about it.  But for now, this is our loop we use.  I've laminated our schedule so I can mark where we left off in our loop and write down what we're currently studying.  Dry erase markers work well on laminated sheets.

Math Mania Monday begins our week.  These are various math books & activities to show them that math doesn’t have to be boring and tedious, but math involves life and fun.  It’s how God ordered the universe, and I read somewhere once, it’s like learning a foreign language.  Unless you’re math-minded, of course.  :P

Read to Me Tuesday is a day of reading literature, books of various topics (non-fiction & fiction), and reading instruction as needed.  I also have the kids rotate practicing reading aloud to everyone else (with help, as needed, of course).

Write it Wednesday is all about… Writing!  This is when we do our Brave Writer free writes, our Poetry Tea Time, copywork, spelling & dictation, etc.  The Preface to The Writer’s Jungle talks about an 8-week free write, so right now, that’s what we’re working on.  They had their first one this past week and really seemed to enjoy it!

Think About It Thursday is where we throw everything else.  Composer and Artist studies, Apologia and other science activities, Passports (our geography unit study), visiting the library and the park, playing games, and a couple of specific things that are for just the oldest 2.

And Fridays are our adventure days.  Right now we have a homeschool group we explore with.  I’m not sure how long that will continue, so for now, I just have both listed.

Of course each student has their own independent work to work through, as well, during the week.  XtraMath.org has been great at getting them to practice those math facts and get them down.  The younger 4 are working through Horizons math, and for now I just help them as they need help or read it to them for the non-readers.  The older 2 are working through Teaching Textbooks.  Mixed feelings from both of them on that one, but for now, it works for us.  The older 2 are in 7^th & 8^th grades, so they have a heavier workload than the other 4.  Of course the toddler has nothing except “stay out of trouble.”  Ha!  In the afternoons I want them to choose either a handicraft, a nature study, or art or drawing to work on.  I got this idea from a seminar I attended with Nancy Kelly from Sage Parnassus.

Another thing that has been working incredibly well for us is writing up our routine for the day on the white board and erasing as we go.  The kids know what to expect all day, and it keeps me focused, too.  Who woulda thunk?  Haha!  Usually I also have a running to-do list for myself on there - phone calls to make, perhaps, or something to do for church, maybe, or a specific request from my husband - and sometimes I'll put extra jobs for the kids if there's something specific I need them to do.  For example, my oldest locked herself out of her treasure box, so one thing I need to put on there for her to do is to find her code that she has written down... somewhere....

And that’s what we’re up to for now!  I feel like it's working well in this season, and we all seem to feel more relaxed.  We are all learning at our own levels, even though almost everything is together.  I plan to do a post about each of the theme days, going into more detail about each thing we do.  Feel free to ask any questions in the comments below, and I’ll try to answer them there or in a separate post if I get enough of the same question or it requires a longer answer.  Thanks for reading!