Sunup to Sundown with a House Full of Children
By Judith Kowles
Added Sunday, November 05, 2006
"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." Matthew 11:28-30
Jesus says, "My yoke is easy..." Are you stressed with your children? With your husband? Do you feel like you MUST do ALL the suggestions and EVERY page in the textbook or curriculum that you are using? If God has called you to homeschool, He does NOT intend for you to be stressed and burned out under this task.God has placed a unique and special calling on the hearts of many mothers and fathers, especially during the past couple of decades.
For most women homeschooling in our society today, the greatest responsibility rests on the mother because Dad is at work. As we Moms carry out our homeschooling responsibilities, God is impressing upon us that academic achievement is not His main concern. Simply stated, God's main concern is that our children end up with hearts consecrated to Him. On the other hand, if academic achievement is OUR main concern, each additional child God gives us increases the pressure to "keep up" academically, thereby pushing God's goal of "consecrated hearts" further and further away from becoming a reality.
Everyone's idea of a large family is different. Your "large family" might be 3, 4 or 5 children. Our large family has 7. In the article that follows, I hope to share some of what I have learned in the past 14 years so that you might find encouragement as you travel along your "narrow road less traveled." So get real comfy with a cup of tea and let's settle down for a long chat.
Education has affected every aspect of our lives. Charlotte Mason, who was an educator from the late 1800s, stated that "Education is an Atmosphere, a Discipline, a Life." I've found this to be true and have discovered that 'school' is not something that happens from 9-3:00 each day. Because of the atmosphere we have purposefully created in our home, education starts the minute the children's feet hit the floor in the morning and lasts until their heads hit the pillows at night. This atmosphere is designed to be a discipline, a life that establishes the quality of our relationships with one another.
At the beginning or our journey, when we were homeschooling two small children, I felt the usual pressure to place them in a preschool program. The Lord's hand was graciously on our lives even then as I remember saying, "Why do we need to send them to preschool when I can teach them myself!" By the time our oldest was 11, we had seven children; five six and under. I know what it is like to homeschool with a baby, toddlers, preschoolers, and all the in-betweens! Looking back, I actually miss those days filled with babies who so often fussed while we tried to read aloud. I wouldn't exchange those times for anything in the world.
I have learned through the mistakes that I made while the Lord patiently directed me to take on His yoke. Now, my children range from 7 through 19, and we are still on our homeschool journey.
A Fly On The Wall
I always wanted 'to be a fly on the wall' of another homeschooling family. My home was sometimes noisy, chaotic, and the wiggles never seemed to completely make their way out of their little bodies. I was once at a friend's house who homeschooled her 5 children (ages 4 to 10). Her house was absolutely quiet while her children did school in their various bedrooms. I was convinced that something was wrong with me. Whenever someone drops by our house unexpectedly, my children all crowd around the front door and we probably looked ridiculous, all eight of us, hanging out the door to welcome our guest! Just come on over for a virtual visit as I share with you a typical day in our house and how we got where we are.
Our Typical Day
Our day starts at 6:30 AM when my oldest daughter (who is 17) starts to play the piano. I like to get up earlier than the children. Hopefully, by that time I am refreshed in the Lord and ready for them. My children have all chosen to read their Bibles. They do this while my daughter practices, so the house stays relatively quiet during this time (except when my 7 year old bounds down the stairs singing, talking, ANYthing to catch everyone's attention). He is not reading yet, so he sits on my lap while I read to him from the Psalms or read a Bible story. Although, two of my children learned to read with little effort at age five or before, the other five children were not ready to read until 7, 8, or almost nine. I know that reading aloud to my son will develop his reading readiness and I am not concerned that he was not reading by age six.
A word about delayed learning: When I read the books written by Dr. Raymond and Dorothy Moore, I realized I needed to slow down. In the book, "Better Late Than Early" the Moores state, "Rather sharp developmental differences appear between boys and girls during the early years. Nearly all of us have sat in schoolrooms where girls were generally considered to be brighter than boys." And... "Girls simply mature faster than boys. During the early years, girls are commonly six to nine months or more ahead of boys in maturity. So they are more nearly ready for school. Their superior early achievement is one of the clearest proofs of the importance of readiness in school." The Moores have advocated homeschooling for over 50 years. They have encouraged a relaxed approach to homeschooling with sound research as to why institutionalized education is not working. My frustration is that, even though I intuitively understand the need to be a relaxed homeschooler, I still tend to stray back to a traditional educational mind set.
More Of Our Typical Day: Suns Up! Chores Done?
In her wonderful set of booklets entitled "Wisdom's Way of Learning," Marilyn Howshall says, "When training children in chores, try to view the tasks not just as something that needs to get done, but keep a mind set of training their character in responsibility, and training their hearts toward self-initiated service toward you and the household. Repetition with your instruction over the years will yield the bountiful fruit of helpful, unselfish children who are a blessing to you and to others." (Develop a Lifestyle Routine by Marilyn Howshall, p.12).
Our list of Lifetime Learning Chores:
- Develop regular responsibility
- Contribute significance to the household
- Teach volunteer service to others beginning within the family
- Provide raw material for real-life booklets
When the piano stops all the children scramble to start their chores, glad that it's time to make the vacuum cleaner roar, fold the two loads of clothes generated daily, bring in firewood, and whatever other tasks are necessary for keeping a family of nine running smoothly. Chores are such a wonderful way to teach the character we desire our children to have. 'School' is not just the academics, but involves everything that happens in our day. It is a Lifestyle of Learning as each aspect of the day brings opportunity to train our children to love one another, be diligent, cheerful, and to glorify God in all that we do.
My oldest son cared for our chickens and ducks until he started to work full time a year ago. Through this responsibility he developed a strong interest in poultry and studied many aspects of their care. He also raised and cared for our family dog and even took a class to train it. Now his younger brother cares for the chickens, ducks, and dog and has taken it upon himself to learn what is necessary to care for them.
Taking care of animals has created an interest in our children in the heart warming animal stories of James Herriot. We also have a small rabbitry where we raise Jersey Wooly and Mini Rex Rabbits. We show and breed our rabbits and several of my children have a Rabbit Notebook which includes every topic imaginable. So, you can see that what started out just as a chore has become a delight directed family learning experience where we have read books both together and independently, and have used the Internet to research answers to whatever questions we might have. Animals also provide a wonderful means to develop godly character in our children.
Now that my youngest is 7, my days are likely to flow more smoothly than they did when five of my children were little. From the moment the children are up they are learning! Once everyone is dressed and ready for the day, we complete our chores before breakfast. As I have said, chores (just as much as academics) are part of the learning that prepares our children for life. This part of the day should not be neglected as it will give fruit as your children mature if you are diligent while they are small. It is a time in which character is taught through the daily tasks that must be accomplished in the home. They will learn diligence, the ability to stay with a task until it is done, thoroughness in completing the task, not to mention working well with others. This last trait is important because it relates to how we learn to love one another. For me, this is a real biggie.
Children tend to magnify the shortcomings of their parents because of the principle "more is caught than taught." That is why it is important that I learn to truly know Him because without LOVE, I am NOTHING! I Corinthians 13. To me, my home is a reflection of who I am in Christ. When I was single and on my own I discovered that I could not learn in a disorderly environment. This has also been true for my children.
When I was a newlywed, I knew very little about the skills necessary for keeping a home. So, from the time my children were small I have included them in such daily chores as cooking, cleaning, animal husbandry, and gardening. My goal has been to give them the necessary skills so that they will not have to go through years of learning these things once they are on their own.
Again: "When training children in chores, try to view the tasks not just as something that needs to get done, but keep a mind set of training their character in responsibility, and training their heart toward self-initiated service toward you and the household. Repetition with your instruction over the years will yield the bountiful fruit of helpful, unselfish children who are a blessing to you and to others." ("Wisdom's Way of Learning" by Marilyn Howshall, p. 12).
The Son In Us For A Lifetime
During breakfast, or soon afterwards, we start our day with Bible. We often memorize passages together and I have been amazed at how my children's 'speech difficulties' are improved just as a blessing of this daily habit. We have always done this together, toddlers to teens all together. As character and obedience is something that can be taught through whatever activity the children are involved in, this also has been a time for training the younger ones.
Gathering Around The Table Time
- Train the heart
- Develop discipline of habit
- Develop learning skills
Table time is the time of our day for the disciplines of writing and math. During the winter months, especially, the children start their day with copy work activities. They copy from the Bible into a Bible Notebook with the goal of someday transcribing the whole New Testament. Children learn to talk through 'copying' the conversation of adults and we have found this to be the same with written language. In my opinion, the easiest way to learn language arts is through copy work. The child can learn punctuation, grammar and usage, spelling, and the mechanics of writing through the daily use of copying good literature. I have used this method for years. The definition of "burnout" is trying to give 5 or 6 children different spelling tests.
A Few Suggestions
- Learning the mechanics of grammar is best put off until a child is at least 11 or 12, thereby saving the time of trying to teach and re-teach a discipline that a child is not ready to learn.
- Waiting until your children are older means that it is possible for them to be taught the same skills together.
- It is more meaningful to learn something when the need to know it arises. Unless a child makes something his own (gains "ownership" of the knowledge) he will likely not retain it no matter how many times you teach it.
What about math
The longer I have homeschooled, the more my attitude has changed regarding how to teach math to younger children. I was not the best math student and naturally did not have confidence in my ability to teach it. We parents always want to "discover" the ultimate curriculum before we begin teaching a subject. However, in being so curriculum dependent, we often end up squelching our children's desire to learn by putting them in a formal program too soon. It has taken me so long to learn this that only my younger ones are benefiting from my newly learned perspective.
What have we used for math that has actually worked for us? I started off every one of my children with "PRE-MATH IT!" This is a wonderful math program, utilizing dominoes and some terrific math tricks that children never forget. I no longer depend on a traditional curriculum for math because (although these might work for you) none of them totally suited my children's individual needs or allowed them to learn mastery of concepts. Some of the children surged ahead while others needed more repetition than a curriculum offered.
Following "PRE MATH-IT!" I found "MATH IT!" to be a great help in teaching those wonderful tricks of math. I wish I could say that I teach all the children from the same math book and page, but that only happens when we read aloud! My five younger children have differing abilities, none of them being in the same "place" at the same time. One forgets how to "carry" but never on the same day as the other. One is ready to learn multiplication but another suddenly can't remember how to add (which he needed to solve the multiplication problem!). The children do their math at the same time but that is as far as it goes.
Another wonderful way to teach math is through playing games! Oh, do my children ever love games! Monopoly is a favorite as well as several of the Muggins games. There is much more I could say about teaching math skills but the booklet, "Taking the Frustration Out of Math," by Mary Hood, will give you more information and encouragement which might fit your family situation.
A Lifetime Of Reading 'Real Books'
If you have even two children, homeschooling can be a challenge. The more children you have, the greater the challenge seems. Throughout the years, I have constantly tried to evaluate how I was doing. Ever so gradually the Lord helped me move away from the traditional mind set of education to an understanding of what true education really is.
"True Education is teaching children how to learn, equipping them to learn, and guiding them into their specific life-purpose by God's design." (The Science, Art, and Tools of Learning, from the first of four booklets, Wisdom's Way of Learning by Marilyn Howshall)
If you choose to follow the 'traditional' approach with its attendant grade levels, you will find yourself attempting to fill your child's day with "have-tos" and "shoulds". If one child is in third grade and the other is in first, your day might seem never-ending! Think of me with seven! I would be teaching around 40 different subjects on various levels. I would be burned out, irritable, striving (and I mean striving) for excellence and not finding the rest because MY yoke is not HIS yoke, and MY yoke is surely not going to be easy!
When you homeschool with a traditional text or workbook approach, the education is canned, isolating the children (whether in the same room or not) into separate learning units. It is difficult to keep up with what the children are learning as one of them might be studying plants and another the human body. Your job is then reduced to correcting the workbooks (which creates the need for tedious testing), scoring , and grading of work. I tried this one year and I wasted valuable time that I could have spent with my family living life and doing 'real' things.
Canned curriculum violates God's purpose. Scholarship should be individual and creative through a process of learning that produces a delight-directed student, a student who knows how to learn and will pursue the development of his God-given abilities. You will not reap the fruit of individuality in your children if you clone their education. This approach to child-rearing and homeschooling will suffocate our children's individual purposes. Violation of this principle will result in settling for a generic education, one that does not prepare an individual for life according to God's design. Wisdom's Way Of Learning by Marilyn Howshall
I have found that in our home the easiest approach to homeschooling is one which is more relaxed. I realize that each home is different and the needs of each family and child varies as God has a destiny which is unique for each individual. But, our job as parents is to guide our children so that we and they can identify what calling God has for their lives. I am sharing what we have found to works for us.
Teaching the Subjects
Rather than have each of my children pursue a subject from different textbooks, (and on different grade levels where I would find it impossible to completely know and involve myself in what they are learning), we approach most of the different subjects together.
This is one way that God has made my yoke easy. We begin with what my oldest two are learning and my younger ones simply learn the same thing at the same time. After all, if you take a certain subject and look at the typical, graded, textbook for each grade in that subject, you will notice that rarely do all the textbooks cover the same topic at the same time in the different grades. In fact, the year we used the traditional textbook approach I noticed that each child was studying something different even though we were all studying, say, history. That was too much work! So, instead, we decided to all use one textbook for history or science and I read it aloud to all of my children. For most subjects, this worked well since there was a unity in our learning and much time saved.
Another reason I didn't like the textbook approach is that my children did not have to develop critical thinking skills because the answers they were searching for were provided for them, in bold print, in the form of multiple choice questions. I also found that any decent book, even one from the children's section of the library, had more detail on a given subject than most of the textbooks offered to homeschoolers. Textbooks are little better than a general survey of a subject; or, at best, little more than a Christian encyclopedia.
What I have found works best in the education of our children, and with the least amount of stress for our family, is to do unit studies. For years, I used a popular unit study curriculum put out by another homeschool mom. I have always been drawn to the unit study approach for our family. For six years I purchased a prepackaged unit study curriculum only because I feared doing "my own thing." Curricula which is written by one homeschool mom for her children becomes generic when you try to use it with your family. Following the Holy Spirit's leading for our family turned out to be the easiest way to go for me.
Looking back, I was as much in bondage to the prepackaged unit study as I would have been to any textbook curricula. It is possible to teach your children in a nontraditional way, yet still force-feed them in the same way as you were taught in the public school system. I think it takes time (in my case years) for us to be renewed in mind and for the Spirit to correct our thinking of what education really is. At this point we no longer use a 'canned' unit curriculum but one that I make up myself simply by choosing 'Real Books' to read aloud or that a child can read independently as part of the unit we are studying. [If you aren't familiar with unit studies, see The Elijah Company catalog for an explanation of this form of homeschooling as well as books to help you with this approach].
According to Raymond Moore, children of the same age may be as much as 4 or 5 years apart in individual ability. Why, as homeschoolers, do we think we must imitate a system that doesn't work AND causes division within our own family?
Recently our family was learning about the Lewis and Clark Expedition. We read aloud some 'real books' which met the interest of the varying levels of my children. [See The Elijah Company catalog for help in finding good books]. My oldest daughter also read independently one of the books on Sacajewea that would not have interested the others. The boys became Lewis, or Clark, or a river man, while the dog became 'Seaman' (the dog on the actual expedition). The two younger girls took turns being Sacajewea. They read about it, wrote about it for their History Notebooks, and learned about some of the plant and animal life along our own river just like Lewis and Clark did along the rivers they traveled.
When teaching many children, learning about history together is enough to give the unity you are looking for. It provides cohesiveness while peaking the children's interests in a given subject. It was because of a unit study on birds that my oldest daughter (9 or 10 at the time) acquired a lifelong passion for learning about birds. Her unit study has never ended! Several years ago, when we were studying creation, my son (around 13 at the time) devoured the books I had chosen to read aloud before we got around to reading them as a family.
My children have enough ways to express themselves individually within their Notebooks, through copy work of passages of literature, poems, related magazine pictures, and their own artwork. Each of the pages added to their Notebook is placed into a plastic sheet protector. It gives their work a finished, professional look that they can be proud to show their friends or family.
Productive Free Time: Learning to be Productive, Learning as a Passion
In the afternoons, while my youngest daughter practices the piano, the others read a book of their own choosing. Often, I find them reading again one of the books we already read aloud! Each of my children also has other notebooks in the areas of their own personal interest. In an institutional school setting (which is often replicated by homeschooling parents) children produce piles of paperwork from their workbooks. Instead, my children have each made Notebooks which express their interests and what they have learned. They all have a Bible Notebook, History Notebook, and a Nature Notebook. Examples of other Notebooks which some of the children have created are Notebooks on birds, trains, butterflies, horses, drawing, rabbits, and poultry. During Notebook Time they might choose to research and add to the pages in one of these books.
A couple of my daughters are learning to sew, crotchet, and do other crafts. The boys may do legos, tinker toys, Fischertechnique, or make a very creative setup for their cars. We may go on a Nature Walk down to the river at the bottom of our road. There we might see wild flowers, trees, rocks, wildlife, insects, turtles, birds, and so much more. I love the Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock, as it contains endless ideas for nature study and lots of information to answer children's curiosity. Of course ALL the children keep frequent entries in their Nature Notebook with enthusiasm! We're hooked on the art of Notebooking!
Now It's Sundown
As the day ends, it is time for making supper. And, another chance to learn! So we get out the cookbooks and EVERYONE helps make supper. Does learning ever end? I hope not! Soon Dad drives in the driveway in his green Ford Pickup truck and is greeted by happy children telling about their adventures in the woods down by the river or what they saw right in the woods in back of the house. Ahhhh . . . school is done!! As Mom checks supper on the stove, the aroma of homemade muffins drifts through the air as the girls mix up a delicious salad, sometimes with homemade dressing. The younger children chatter with Dad, telling him about the Ruby Throated Hummingbird that came to the feeder today, and how the Titmouse stole some hair from the dog for a nest, and about the wild rabbit that scurried across the yard this morning, and how cute one of the bunnies was when it stood on its hind legs for a treat. On and on the chatter goes.
A little later, the family is complete as the oldest son returns home from a day driving a concrete truck. The conversations get louder as father and son talk about their day. Technical talk of corporate jet airplanes and current events around the world is discussed around the table as everyone gathers together to continue a tradition absent in most homes today. Dad livens the home with his conversation and explains how a tornado develops or how a machine works. Often he points out something on the globe or map as the children eagerly gather around. Such an exciting teacher. Is 'school' ever really done?
Finally, the family gathers together in the living room and Dad reads from the Bible. We all pray for relatives or missionaries, some close by, others scattered far away. If we aren't exhausted, a missionary biography is read before bed. From Sunup to Sundown... a Lifestyle Of Learning never ends!
With only the raw material of our fragmented lives to work with, we attempt to implement new godly family desires and goals into our EXISTING lifestyles and systems. In so doing, we create additional problems for ourselves, among them confusion and burnout! We use the world's methods to produce something they were not designed to produce. When we finally accept the truth that the old familiar way will not produce the results we want, we are ready to receive the suggestion of a new way. Now we are ready to learn. That is what Lifestyle of Learning is all about: a new way of life, a new system applying principles instead of following programs and a fresh beginning for the entire family... Seek God in your homeschool. His burden is easy, His yoke is light." Wisdom's Way of Learning by Marilyn Howshall
Written by Judith Kowles; wife of Tim and homeschooling (since 1988 and before); Mom of seven children: Aaron (19), Shaina (17), Ashley (13), Joshua (11), Joseph (11), Naomi (9), Josiah (7). We have seven children because God has blessed us beyond ALL measure! The middle three through adoption. Reversals of the heart; the last two because of tubal reversal over 12 years ago.
Copyright 2002 by The Elijah Company.
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