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When I first started to read about homeschooling – way back in the early 2010’s when people still read blogs (ha!) – one of the aspects that really resonated with me was the way in which the whole family could learn together. I learned that a mother could be reading aloud and all her children were there – from the preschooler mucking around with blocks on the floor to the high schooler doodling in a notebook on the sofa. This sounded just so special to me – and so, we have done this from the very beginning.
Now, I never ended up having a tribe of children with a vast array of ages – I have two children quite close in age, at sixteen-months apart. But this has not made family-style learning less rich – it has worked perfectly. Aside from the very early years when there was a distinct difference in skill (one could read and the other one could not), they have always used the same levels in curriculum. Nowadays, they do Math independently and personal reading – but everything else? We’re still doing all the wonderful homeschooling things together, and I genuinely can’t see it changing any time soon.
So what do we love doing, homeschooling family-style?
All the Read Alouds
Books have been an instrumental part of our homeschooling journey.
Before we had even considered homeschooling, books were part of our family life and culture – the library has always been a weekly trip, and I have been building our family library since they were babies. And, part of our daily routine through (most of) these years, has been having family read aloud time. I grew to understand the vital importance of reading aloud to my children from my father (children’s literature was his professional career, at university level) and through people like Sarah MacKenzie from Read Aloud Revival. Her book, The Read Aloud Family, as well as Gladys Hunt’s Honey For a Child’s Heart expound the wonders and beauties of literature and the building family culture through books. Jennifer Pepito’s Mothering by the Book is a recent addition to my Mother Culture collection.
Over the last seven years, we have read some wonderful books together – The Secret Garden, My Father’s Dragon, Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf, The Tanglewood’s Secret, The Treasure Seekers – and so many more. Our collective experience and journey through these books has knitted us together, giving us many moments of “Do you remember when…?” or “That’s just like…”. Just yesterday, whilst on a walk together, Rosie asked me what she should do if I had an accident on the street. One of the options I suggested was yelling and waving her arms to any passing car. Without a beat, she said, “Just like in The Railway Children.” I don’t know why I was floored, but I was – we read that book almost three years ago, but she still remembers the children waving down the train with petticoats and handkerchiefs!
Stories have shaped values of what is good, true, and beautiful together in our homeschooling life. Reading aloud has also introduced the children to difficult and tricky topics that aren’t part of their reality, but which expose them to life’s challenges in a way that protects, yet, prepares them. They have also resonated with characters in stories and the feelings that a situation in a book created – whether loneliness with Heidi, or deep anger in Treasures of the Snow, or fear like Brie in Viking Quest. Stories are powerful, and it is the primary thing I encourage new homeschool mother’s to make a priority of in their day for all their children together.
Shared Topical Learning
Unit Studies Belong with Family-Style Learning
In 2020, after only two years of homeschooling, I was on the verge of giving up. Our son is such a fiercely independent learner, but also needed structure and activities to do that were not always about him. It was (and still is) vital for his character. But no curriculum we tried brought joy to our days. Five in a Row just wasn’t working so well anymore, even though we had loved it previously. I was really in despair, the whole world was in lockdown, and our days were fraught and difficult. Turning to the Lord in prayer and supplication, He answered me through a simple but beautiful curriculum that still works well for us to this day, five years on.
The unit study-style curriculum of Gather ‘Round Homeschool has blessed us immensely. The children love the topics, the style of their workbooks, the varying activities in each unit, and the way that I have personally tweaked the curriculum to suit our family. We have studied the units Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania, Ancient Civilisations, Creepy Crawlies, Earth Science, Space, and quite a few more. This year we are enjoying Antarctica and Middle Ages, with Dinosaurs near the end of the year. There are so many to choose from.
These units are the core of our homeschooling days, and many of the read alouds we experience together are topically tied to the unit we are studying. And, the very best thing about using Gather ‘Round is that we are doing the bulk of our daily learning together. Aside from Math and a little assigned reading I require of the children, the rest of our learning is centered together with our read alouds and Gather ‘Round. It is truly a family-style curriculum, and was fundamentally created for that very purpose. I am not being dramatic when I say that God used Gather ‘Round to save our homeschool – and, in many ways, my learning relationship with my son.
If you are just beginning to homeschool, or you have been for a little while, and you feel like everything is fragmented and starting to resemble the high school idea of a subject here, and a subject there – can I encourage you to dive into the practice of family-style learning? Whether you have a couple of children or many more, bringing almost everything together simplifies everything for you. And, truly, simplicity is a marker of longevity in the homeschool journey. A homeschooling mother has many things to manage in her life, and by homeschooling family-style, this eases some of that management – especially the more children you have.
Not only does family-style simplify your homeschooling life, you will be creating a family culture of togetherness. As the years pass, your shared imaginative and learning experiences will shape your relationship with your children and their relationship with each other. This is because, at its heart, homeschooling is about relationships and, by doing homeschooling together, you are building the very blocks that lay the foundation for life-learning and family happiness.
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