Finding balance

So, if you happened to have noticed, I have been writing a lot recently about home decorating, design, and organization. I have also been photographing pretty little things that inspire me. At first I thought I was doing this as a way of Spring cleaning. And although that was partly the reason, I realized today that I may also have subconsciously been preparing a homeschooling environment. It makes enough sense really, since I have been preparing myself in every other way. But, it just hadn't dawned on me before today what I was doing. I don't know how I could have missed it though.

For the past month I have been reading "The Charlotte Mason Companion" by Karen Andreola. I picked up this book at the library only as a way to further my knowledge of home educators. Never did I imagine though that I would connect with this method as strongly as I have. It is not a method that has come naturally.. yet it has already caused a great stirring inside of me. I have become challenged by Charlotte's teachings, and already I feel that her words are helping me to strive towards changing my habits for the better. There is one Chapter that particularly stood out to me, "The atmosphere of Home". Charlotte Mason believed that One Third of education is atmosphere.

Without realizing it, I believe that I have been preparing not only my children, but myself for this journey we are beginning to embark on through creating an environment of which is stimulating mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I have noticed a big difference in the attitudes of my children and in my own moods just since having organized our art supplies. The "Montessori bookcase" now finished, has suddenly formed an eclectic art gallery/ collection station atop of it. By surrounding ourselves with a clean, calm, environment where we are free to create on a whim.. we have become much more in tune with enjoying the present rather than focusing on all of the things that need to get done before hand. It all seems so simple now really that I'm quite perplexed as to why it took me so long to reach this understanding. So, you can imagine how this natural progression of change instantly clicked inside me while reading the teachings of Charlotte. But, this is only one of the many things that lined up with me.

Another part of the book I really connected with are the many chapters devoted to Whole "Living" Books and especially Narration. Instantly I knew that this was a way of learning that my oldest would quickly take to, but as soon as I mentioned the idea to him he became worried. I was a bit taken back by his reaction, as I thought he would be more excited. But, I quickly understood that he thought he would be required to memorize pages of books in the same way he recently spent a month memorizing the lines for his school play. Though, once I explained narration in a way that he better understood, he agreed to try it out.

We started with a short 6 Chapter book, "The Adventures of King Arthur" Retold by Angela Wilkes. The first evening I read the first chapter to him, the next evening I re-read the first paragraph of the first chapter and had him narrate it back to me. At first he got caught up on the memorizing the words thing. But I reminded him to relax and tell me about the part of the story I had just read in his own words. He told me what he remembered and I asked if he minded if I wrote down his words. (Earlier in the day we had bought a couple new composition notebooks for this project.) He agreed, and after I wrote down his story re-told in my notebook, he then copied it into his and before I could even suggest, decided that he wanted to make an illustration to go along with the story. Our first lesson ended in him asking if we could continue again first thing in the morning and maybe even do several paragraphs a day. Wow, coming from a boy who earlier was so hesitant, his enthusiasm quickly changed!





Now, I know that I have been leaning more toward an unschooling approach, and although I still feel very strongly in allowing children to be interest lead, I think it is also important to pay attention to how your child learns and thrives the best, and to provide activities that nurture that part of him/her. I also want to mention that alongside this pre-planned activity, he has an ongoing book that he has been writing and illustrating purely on his own and whenever he feels like it. And if he hadn't taken to this activity, I wouldn't have pushed it anymore. But since he did, I think it is something that we will continue together.

My oldest is an extremely structured person. Throughout the day he is constantly reminding me of what time it is. Today he randomly called out, "It's 4 til 11:00!" He has been concerned that we will not be able to start homeschooling until we have a proper "classroom". He takes time almost every day to sit at his desk and work in his workbooks. Not once have I suggested it to him ever, it's just what he has always done. He takes his money out of his elephant bag and counts and organizes it at least once a week. He is also obsessed with calendars and dates and all things numbers.

He did not get any of this from me, my days are incredibly relaxed and unstructured and I can barely grasp the concept of numbers. I have always worried a bit in the back of my head about how we could possibly "unschool" when he yearns so naturally for more structure. I hope that he and I are eventually able to find a good balance, but in the meantime.. I think we are at least off to somewhat of a good start. :)