It is often over thought out or formalized when starting a home school, just like when you start a homestead…we buy pre-made everything, feed, structures, feeders, etc. In homeschooling we immediately go out and purchase expensive curriculum or enroll in some online tool that does all the work for us…or so we think.
The Learning Day – All Ages
-
Let your children see you reading, writing and discussing what you yourself are learning.
-
Read from the books you are reading to all your kids, and be sure to discuss what is learned, what is intriguing, and how it relates to your lives. Discussions are the primary tool of learning in the home. Include even the youngest who is capable of complete sentences.
-
Give your children active roles in the running of the home and business; these must be age appropriate. Every child is an apprentice from the day they are born, because they learn everything from you.
The Learning Day – Pre-Literacy Ages
-
Read to your younger children, ask them about the story. Let them read parts of it to you, even though they are only regurgitating what they have memorized from reading the book for the 30th evening in a row.
-
Sing the ABCs, or play songs that do so, but it is ideal if the songs have some fundamental phonics included (i.e. “The A says a”, “The B says buh,” etc.). Once they can sing the ABCs, start slowing down the reading time and show them how to sound out the letters. It is crucial for sanity’s sake to assign partners to read to the younger kids as well, as the skills to teach will be needed when they are parents.
-
Have the children begin to copy letters from handwriting booklets, you can make these with handwriting paper bought at the store, or get marker/chalk boards. When they can do this, have them copy words. After they can read the words they copy, then have them copy sentences from the books that are read to them. You can also have them begin to write stories of their own, using phonics rules…don’t fret misspelling so as to not discourage. The copying of sentences and words will fix this eventually.
-
Have the little ones, that are learning to count, keep track of how many eggs were collected, when they seem to have the one to one correspondence down, start asking them questions about how many eggs we need for everyone to have 1 egg today…then when they got that, ask how many we need for the whole week. Let them work it out for a while on their own with as little guidance as possible, perhaps keep cartons labeled with the days of the week, or in our case several cartons per day as we are a family of 16. Anytime you are working out numbers for feeding, harvesting, etc. include the “littles” in your process.
The Learning Day – Post Literacy Ages
It is at this time learning to read is coming to an end, and reading to learn is beginning.
-
This is when daily discussions about what the kids are reading is extremely important. When you have to explain what you read it enforces retention and comprehension.
-
It is also important that reading religion, philosophy, history, science and economics content to all your children occurs. Sit them all down in the living room or dinner table, read and discuss excerpts that you read out loud.
-
For the skill based content, like math, physics and chemistry, there are copious amounts of online resources to drill these concepts.
-
For your children learning arithmetic, simple drill of adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing various types of numbers (i.e. decimals, integers, fractions, etc.) will be enough.
-
Include your children in construction projects and have them learn measurement of boards and angles of attachment.
-
Include them when you calculate feed macro-nutrient percentages, or scooping ratios for the feed.
-
Fractions, proportions and cooking are essential skills for all kids.
-
Let them build with building blocks, boards, pallets, etc. They will gain an intuition about Geometry and logic even from a very young age.
The Learning Day – Secondary School Ages
It is now that your children’s wisdom is really taking off.
-
You will really need to identify with them what their strengths and talents are, and let them take off with those.
-
The formal teaching of logic and rhetoric are very important at this time.
-
They can begin self teaching all the subjects and keeping common place journals where they put all the notes, concepts and definitions into them.
-
In these journals it is important they write mini essays where they follow the Feynman technique or an equivalent technique to self-assess their own understanding. All the reading and discussion up to this point in their life will make this much easier.
-
Mathematical Sciences and the Humanities will be enforced with the Feynman technique by its unique ability to develop rhetoric, the art of effective writing/speaking.
-
Logic will be foundational so that coherent, consistent thought will be produced.
-
The creative arts should be encouraged, and there are online resources for these (i.e. art, music, storytelling, etc.)
-
Basic statistics should be taught, but this is dependent on strong foundations in logic. This is just to prevent the lies and distortions in the media from being blindly believed.
-
Applied Geometry and Basic Algebra can enable critical thinking and life skills in managing a homestead…but if their is mathematical aptitude, it is highly encouraged to pursue mathematics as a philosophical way of thinking and approaching the world, so advanced mathematics can be taught for its own sake, just like philosophy or the natural sciences.
Key Take Aways
This broad outline is intentionally non-prescriptive, so you can buy the books you want your kids reading, and the books you wish to read and share with them. Also, for mathematics and science so much is available online. The New Peasantry is developing curriculum guidance and resources for the humanities, mathematics and natural sciences, that enable parents to guide their children’s learning.
