We made a BIG decision to take a giant leap of faith & begin homeschooling our children this upcoming year! I am feeling very excited for this new journey, as well at very nervous.

Each day as I am learning more, gathering my resources, and seeing my vision coming together, my confidence is building & the nervousness is quickly fading away.

Although I do not owe a single person an explaination; my biggest factoring decision was the way the world is going. Honestly, I don’t feel safe sending my children out into society anymore. I should not have to worry if they will make it home when they leave for school each morning. I should not have to worry what my children are being influenced of by others at their most vulnerable and moldable stages. I believe homeschooling with allow my children to maintain their innocence, something I was robbed of from a very early age, each year only getting worse.

It may sound counter-productive to some, but I hope to eliminate stress from our lives. Getting five kids of five different ages up early in the morning to get a few of them ready for school is a miserable process that starts our day with negativity, lots of tears; both mine & theirs, the daily struggle to get kids who aren’t ready to wake up yet out of bed, fighting & yelling at each other, fighting the time to make sure my kids bellies are full; the slower eaters crying because they weren’t finished yet, rushing out the door in chaos every morning…. not a healthy way to start our day.

When you begin your day in a state of chaos, every single day, you really begin to lack joy & forget how incredibly blessed you are. You live in a constant state of fight or flight, just trying to make it through an hour at a time. Weekday mornings have been a MAJOR stressor since we first began school.

Then repeat the process halfway through the day for school pick up, only to go backwards in time until bedtime. Rush in the door, fight about homework, fight about clean up, fight about routines, and why my kids can’t have phones like the other kids, rush the clock to get them in bed, only to start over in the morning. I can’t live that way anymore, & we shouldn’t have to. We weren’t meant to.

I also am excited to teach my children other subjects. I will teach Ukrainian language to my children. I will teach them home economics & handicrafts. I will teach them gardening & sustainability. I will teach them important life skills that the schools today do not offer our children. They will take piano lessons from their older brother, Kaden. We will learn character building.

We will practice slow living. We will learn at our own pace, together. We will enjoy the process. We will enjoy life & all it has to offer. I’ll share our journey in the process.

Methods

1. Charlotte Mason

This method, known as “the feast of homeschooling, focuses on shorter lessons and lots of outside time. It is nature/art based, but includes an endless amount of education & resources.

Charlotte lived & taught by 20 principles:

• Children are born with personalities
• Children have a will to be good or bad
• Teach children to respect authority
• Use daily tools to teach children
• Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life
• Environmental education provides natural surroundings
• Disciplinary education forms good habits
• Provide life skills education to cultivate ideas
• Build upon a childs natural curiosity
• Build learning skills to gain knowledge
• Feeding a child’s mind with a generous curriculum
• Relations education builds connections
• Provide a feast of knowledge for growth & stimulation
• Narration is a key tool for learning
• One narration reading is sufficient
• Use the right way to guide moral and mind growth
• Occupy a child’s time with positive conditions
• Use reasoning skills only for mathematical truth
• Moral principles will lead children to make the right decision
• A child’s spiritual & mental life are intertwined.

To me, it is a better option than Unschooling. I enjoy the concept of Unschooling, but I cannot live in such a state. I thrive on structure, planners, visual charts, routines, complete organization….. I can’t live my day spontaneously. I would wander around aimlessly, accomplishing nothing. We still get the freedom & best parts of Unschooling, but in a more structured/guided way. It feels safer to me, especially as a new homeschooling mother.

I highly recommend these books if you are interested in learning more about the Charlotte Mason Method:

2. Montessori

This method looks at the child as a whole person through child-led learning with real life tools in a safe setting.

I have already been using this method for all of my children for their entire lives. We do not allow many plastic toys in our home, we strive for wooden, educational, & gender neutral. We are learning to adjust that though as the kids grow and find their own interests. We also focus on having interactive toys for them: a child-size grocery store, kitchen, flower shoppe, doctor office, etc so they are able to role-play & learn life skills on their own through play.

In the homeschool world, I would be considered an “Eclectic,” because I am using 2 or more different teaching methods to focus on the individual needs of each of my children.

Since I have all different ages, it just makes sense to all work together but dive deeper in independent work at their appropriate ages. Charlotte Mason & Montessori make that work for ALL of my childrens ages.

At the end of the year, we meet with a certified teacher for our end of year review to present our curriculum for the year & all that we have learned in order to “pass” the year in place of standardized testing. I am SUPER proud of my curriculum!!

They are still allowed to participate in sports & extra curricular through the school which is a great way to socialize & stay in contact with their school friends. Mia is currently a cheerleader & Ella begins volleyball next week!

I am incredibly excited for this new journey for us & documenting it all here along the way.

Until next time ♡ Mama Morozov