Tuesday

What to Expect When Homeschooling Middle School

Nothing strikes more fear into the hearts of homeschool parents than realizing that those easy elementary years are behind them and high school looms ahead. Suddenly they find themselves teaching sixth, seventh, and eighth grades and realizing that a different child has appeared in their house. How do you teach this person? How do you prepare them for high school? How do you deal with all the challenges that middle school brings for you and your child? Let’s start by looking at what to expect from your child during these years.

What to Expect When Homeschooling Middle School
1. Hormones
So this might be obvious, but do not underestimate the power of these body chemicals to affect your homeschool day. Of course every teen is different, so for some this will have more of an impact than others. I know that in our home it’s been Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Days, hours, minutes of relative calm followed by a sudden 180 degree turn of tears, frustration, anger, or sullenness.  Needless to say, it makes homeschooling interesting.

2. Social Needs
The summer before Grace started sixth grade she came to me asking for more social interaction with her peers, specifically in a learning environment. I scrambled around and found a co-op that fit our family and our budget. From talking to other homeschool parents, her request coinciding with entering middle school is not unusual. Playdates at the park with friends, one extracurricular activity, and being home with siblings and parents was no longer enough. As a caveat, my daughter is naturally an extrovert, but this need is commonly felt among most kids this age. An introvert might express this differently, but this natural gravitation toward peers is totally normal.

3. Physical Growth
Considering that my thirteen year old daughter is only an inch shorter than my height of 5’10”, I can attest that these years are a time of great physical growth. A teen’s body changes more than any other time in life other than infancy. All that growing means teens and tweens need more food and sleep than usual. Those homeschool days of up and at ’em with the dawn will probably come to a screeching halt as your middle school student needs more rest. Snack time will definitely become an important part of the day as well. The increased sleeping and revolving door of your kitchen inevitably causes changes in how your homeschool functions.

4. Need to Feel Connected
Children who enter middle school not only need social interaction, but they need to feel connected to the world around them. They want to be needed. They want to find their niche. What do I enjoy? What am I good at? What role do I play in my family? Where do I fit in my circle of friends? How do I contribute to my faith and place of worship in a meaningful way? Navigating these questions is a rite of passage for middle schoolers whether they realize it or not. It allows them to define themselves and create a network for future independence.

5. Mental Growth
Not only do our children grow physically,  but their mental processes take a leap as well. They begin to think deeply about events and decisions. As neo-classical homeschoolers label it, they have entered the dialectic stage, where children move from fact acquisition to exploring the deeper nuances of historical events, scientific discoveries, literary characters and plots, and the moral implications of all of the above. They start to question everything! I even find my thirteen year old critiquing my parenting decisions, “When I’m a mom, I won’t do XYZ.” By the way, I’m writing these down and can’t wait to bring them up again. Bwahaha.

6. Straddling Between Childhood and Adulthood
When I tell people that I used to teach eighth grade, they usually look at me in sympathy. Once I explain that I loved teaching that age, then they look at me in shock. I explain that I love middle school kids because they have enough adult in them to be independent, but enough child in them that they like to play games and be goofy. Having one foot in childhood and one foot in adulthood is a good way to describe this age. It’s this transitioning between two worlds that gives middle school children the reputation of having smart mouths and being sassy to parents and adults. The are trying to navigate this new maturity in mind and body, but they still have childish tendencies at times.

So what do these six things mean for your homeschool? That’s the question I will address in the next post about how to specifically deal with these issues in your homeschool. A quick answer, though, is that your involvement as the parent and teacher is paramount at this age. They need you more than ever and you will need patience, understanding, and a lot of chocolate.

What has been your experience when homeschooling a middle schooler?

Chelli

Little Known Charlotte Mason Resources You Need to Know

Charlotte Mason’s educational philosophy is all about those books, so it’s no surprise that one of the most frequently asked questions I receive is, “Where do you find the books you want your kids to read, especially living books for various subjects?” Now if you have been around Charlotte Mason homeschooling circles for any amount of time, then you’ve heard of the major players in the Charlotte Mason game, Ambleside Online and Simply Charlotte Mason being the two big ones. I want to share my personal favorite Charlotte Mason Resources that I use for various reasons, but there’s one thing I can promise you. These are not major players on the Charlotte Mason stage yet, but they are ones I turn to when planning out all those delicious books we’ll read and how to fit them all into a week and a year.

           Little Known Charlotte Mason Resources
In no particular order…

1) Wildwood Curriculum: This curriculum is very new and being compiled by homeschool moms who are studying Charlotte Mason’s turn of the century schools for inspiration in book choice and scheduling, but also trying to keep the book choices secular, as modern as possible, and inoffensive to minorities, indigenous people, and women as possible. Usually older books that are commonly used in Charlotte Mason programs definitely need to be edited on the fly when reading to remove disparaging descriptions and word choice about these groups.  Right now (as of this blog post in May 2017) only forms 1B and 1A (ages 6-9) are completed with book choices and curriculum suggestions for each subject.

What I’m Loving about Wildwood Curriculum: Their attempt to bring Charlotte into the 21st Century.

What I’m Using from Wildwood Curriculum: Their list of Tales, History, Geography readers for Levi. This upcoming school year he’ll be in first grade so their book lists are perfect for him. Plus all the readings are already broken down so all I have to do is plug it into my weekly schedule!

2) A Mind in the Light: I first “met” the author of this Charlotte Mason curriculum on the Well-Trained Mind forums. She began putting the curriculum together while giving her own daughters a CM education. Her curriculum is based upon using more modern book choices as well, but with classics thrown in here and there. She’s publishing guides and curriculum schedules to give the world another completely open and go choice for busy CM moms.

What I’m Loving about A Mind in the Light: Her book guides are a HUGE help to the CM homeschool community. As much as I try to pre-read everything for my children, it can be difficult to come up with narration questions, review people and places, and even project ideas based upon the books they are reading. Lisa has done all of that for you!

What I’m Using from A Mind in the Light: This school year I’m using her guide to The Book of the Ancient Greeks with Grace for 7th grade. It’s a fantastic help and includes various questions and assignments, including term exam questions, based upon form/grade level of who is using the book. I’m also using her science book lists for both Sophia (4th grade) and Grace. While these aren’t scheduled out, I take her lists and come up with our own schedule. We’ve all enjoyed her book choices. They are the best!

3) A Gentle Feast: Julie has created a Charlotte Mason curriculum that you can use to teach all the members of the family at the same time, similar to Simply Charlotte Mason, but with a four-year history rotation. There are notes for the parent contained in the parent guide and then each form/grade has their own guide as well, plus a totally planned out Morning Time that corresponds with your school year.

What I’m loving about A Gentle Feast: The focus on family but without dragging out ancient history and a coordinated Morning Time. You know I love me a Morning Time that goes with your year’s studies!

What I’m Using from A Gentle Feast: Probably the biggest inspiration I found was actually in the free scheduling menu found on the main page. I didn’t follow her titles exactly, but seeing how she grouped similar items into blocks of learning really revamped our school year. I created my own learning blocks that we rotate through in our day. It made our time go much more smoothly without feeling tied down. I fully intend to make use of her Morning Time plans for next year even if I use nothing else. It would be so helpful to have someone else do all the work!

4) Wildflowers and Marbles: I hesitated to even include Jennifer’s blog on this list because it is a source of inspiration to many Charlotte Mason homeschool moms. She has been homeschooling for many years including high school so I love to pick her “brain.” I added it to my list because most people I hear talk about her blog talk about her amazing Morning Basket plans and blog posts, however, I find the most benefit elsewhere on her blog.

What I’m loving about Wildflowers and Marbles: Book lists galore, elementary, middle school, and high school! Divided by grade level and some divided by topic, Jennifer always knows what the best books are. In fact, Sophia’s geography reader, Little Stories of a Big Country, was a selection based solely on the fact that Jennifer had it listed in her third grade book list.

What I’m using from Wildflowers and Marbles: Click on any of the term bullet points under the grade level book lists and you’ll find the inspiration for my kids’ weekly assignment sheets. Mine are not as fancy as Jennifer’s with a lot less information, but I did keep the color and the basic concept of printing a reoccurring assignment sheet that they fill in with what was completed. We started using this system last year and it’s perfect. Seriously, perfect.

5) A Delectable Education Podcasts and Sabbath Mood Homeschool blog: So this Charlotte Mason resource is quickly growing a sizeable fan base and for good reason: these podcasts are life-giving to a CM homeschooler. Three homeschool moms, one a veteran, discuss how to implement Charlotte Mason in your home using Charlotte Mason’s own words, her 6 volume original set, as reference. I included Sabbath Mood Homeschool in this entry because one of the Delectable Education ladies, Nicole, writes the blog as well. Her blog focuses on planning out your homeschool day, week, and year using Charlotte Mason’s own school as a model and tons of CM science books.

What I’m loving about A Delectable Education and Sabbath Mood Homeschool: The commitment to only teaching subjects and organizing their weeks in the same fashion as Charlotte Mason. If you are wanting pure, unadulterated CM, these two websites are your new best friends.

What I’m using from A Delectable Education and Sabbath Mood Homeschool: The chronology of history podcast totally changed the way I approached history this year in our homeschool. I was worried it would make things difficult by having various history streams going at once, but they really liked it and we got to make use of our big wall timeline to keep things straight. I made use of Nicole’s Charlotte Mason Scheduling series at Sabbath Mood Homeschool to determine exactly what subjects should be covered for each grade level and for what length of time. Of course I dropped some subjects and changed some things around to fit our family, but it gave me a great place to start as I prepared for this school year. Nicole also has some wonderful science guides that use living books to teach science for grades 4-12. I haven’t used one yet, but it’s on my list to use for high school with Grace.

Obviously there are other Charlotte Mason websites and curriculums out there, but these are the ones I’ve personally used and love. I also never hear them talked about much in most Charlotte Mason circles, so I felt the need to bring their awesomeness to the attention of you guys. Be sure and check them out, and find some great CM nuggets for yourself.

What Charlotte Mason resources have been most helpful to you?

Chelli