Ah the end of summer, and beginning of the new homeschool year. It’s easy to walk into a new year with high expectations, excitement, and a long wish list of activities, subjects, and books to cover throughout the year. But what is it that actually makes a successful homeschool week?
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The beauty of homeschool is having the time and freedom to travel and go adventuring whenever we want. Unfortunately, travel isn’t free. It can be low cost, but there’s no way around the cost of gas at the very least. And so it helps free up the adventure budget by finding different ways to save money in the day-to-day.
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“In my day we stayed out ‘till the street lights came on and only came home for food.” How often do we talk about our childhood with this nostalgic sense of roaming the neighbourhood, carefree with our friends, or sometimes alone? The idea that childhood anxiety was even a possibility had never crossed our minds.
When I compare to the childhood that my own children are having, I can’t help but feel a sense of loss for them. Today we live in a world where children are mostly in school with forced learning and testing, organized sports, or inside doing homework and playing video games. Those children who are outside are generally (at least in our area) locked behind giant fences, rather than riding bikes in the street or playing unsupervised at the local park. We live in a world where parents are reported to the police for letting their children go to the playground alone or, God forbid, be in the front yard without adult supervision. We treat children like they’re the bottom of society and not capable of being trustworthy or able to make their own good decisions.
I find myself struggling to move on, convincing myself that if we just go play in the neighbourhood more, that the local children will come. But it seems that I am stuck in a past that on longer exists. And along with this new way of life for children has also come a significant increase in childhood anxiety. Could this shift be connected?
It is widely known that half of all anxiety disorders begin before the age of 11. With childhood anxiety on the rise, this presents some scary numbers for our future adults. I can’t help but question whether the drastic difference in the childhood of the past vs. the childhood of today is a major culprit.
Today we have a lot of what we could call “helicopter parents”. I also notice a lot of parents who talk to their children like they are fragile little beings (“Oh Suzy, be careful! You might get hurt! Jacob, don’t climb up that slide, you might get hurt. Don’t touch that mud, you’ll get dirty. Put on your coat or you’ll get sick.”). Then we have parents who don’t let their children play out front for fear of the legal repercussions, or worse, kidnapping. What I believe we are creating here is a group of children who are being raised with an intrinsic belief that the world is dangerous, and they are at risks at every turn. No wonder anxiety is on the rise!
“When parents have higher levels of anxiety, their child is at increased risk for having an anxiety disorder. This association is particularly strong for maternal anxiety. Overall, it also appears that when mothers are overprotective and attempt to protect their child from potential harm by controlling their behavious, this increases children’s risk for anxiety disorders.” (1.) But it doesn’t have to be this way. Sure there are scary things out there, but the rise in anxiety in our precious children is detrimental.
Naturally, we believe that homeschool is not so much about education as it is about a way of life. Moreso, we have found joy and freedom in an adventure based homeschool. But this isn’t just about personal experience: there is actual evidence to back up that adventure play is the road out of childhood anxiety. “Children who engaged in more adventurous play that elicited excited or fearful emotions had decreased symptoms of anxiety and depression compared to those who participated in unadventurous activities, according to a recent paper published in Child Psychiatry & Human Development.” (2.) In a nutshell, risky play results in healthier kids.
And to add to it, playing outside is the best route to health. “More outdoor time is linked with improved motor development and lower obesity rates and myopia (nearsightedness) risk. Safely getting some sun also helps us make vitamin D that our bodies need to stay healthy and strong.” (3.) Not to mention that fresh air and connection to the ground (grounding) are beneficial for both mind and body. There’s a reason we like to kick our shoes off and feel the sand, the grass, and even the dirt beneath our feet: it is literally helping regulate our bodies. Rather than jumping to medicating our children (not to say that medication isn’t sometimes necessary) why not go back to our roots, first. Time outdoors, playing freely, like children have done for thousands of years.
Whether you’re a homeschooler or not, clearing your schedule and making time for outdoor play is imperative to the health of our future generations. In a world where we’re moving indoors, constantly on screens and working with AI, let’s remember to get our babies back where they belong: in nature. I guarantee it will benefit more than just the children.
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Camping season is upon us here in San Diego, as the school year draws to a close. While camping in San Diego is very doable all year, there is nothing better than summer nights under the stars, complete with campfire songs and sticky s’mores.
Now, before I dive into the best San Diego campgrounds, I think it needs to be mentioned that everyone has their own preferences, specifically when it comes to HOW to camp. If you’re a glamper or require a daily shower you probably won’t like at least half of my list. While some of these campgrounds aren’t high end, they also aren’t completely primitive (no amenities). But each of these campgrounds offers something special, and most will give your family a beautiful, quiet, nature immersed experience.
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Ever had a week where you just want to run away and hide for a while? We’ve had a really challenging year, but the stress levels last week were just extra. The small amount of “official” homeschool we typically do was mostly put on hold, but there was just so much going on that I found myself even wanting to walk away from momming for a few days. Definitely not my best week, or a good representation of my role here.
Extra hard weeks, months, and years aside, nobody is perfect. The internet so easily paints a picture perfect life in our heads, then we feel crappy for falling short of what was never a reality. Nor is it achievable, anyway. Or if it is, it’s probably not healthy. So to help you feel a little better about your own mess ups and dirty secrets as a homeschool mom, here’s a few confessions from my own real-life adventure homeschool lifestyle. Buckle up; I’m about shed some light on what goes on when the camera isn’t out.
I’m usually still in my PJs at noon. Sometimes until closer to dinner time. Pretty much I have little motivation to put clothes on unless I absolutely have to leave the house. So if you drop by before noon, don’t judge me. Also, maybe please keep all drones away from my backyard. In summer time I don’t wear pants.
We don’t have an area for digging and it’s not going well. Nope. No mud kitchens here. We had a “digging spot” for a while, but one kid decided to make mud balls with rocks inside and throw them over the fence at cars. So since that obviously wasn’t going well either naturally we had to ban all fun from the backyard. The children now find other ways to destroy the house. Three cheers for creativity.
Some days we don’t do schoolwork for no other reason than I don’t feel like it. Honestly, I’m leaning more and more into Unschooling these days, anyway. Give the kids some chores, tell them to make their own fun and call it a day of natural learning. A+.
Some days I don’t go outside. GASP! I know, and this from someone who is always saying to get outside. Well sometimes a girl just wants to chill at home in her PJs all day. Besides, down time for mindless Instagram scrolling is probably how I’ve found the majority of exciting places we’ve ended up exploring.
We’re not well equipped adventurers. We don’t own much gear. My 12 year old only owns one pair of shoes (they’re sneakers). We have no rain jackets or hiking boots. No emergency water filter straws or rain boots. No extreme cold weather gear or hiking poles. The first aid kit I carry in my water backpack amounts to chapstick and approximately 3 bandaids. Also tissues in allergy season. I’m also directionally challenged and awful at reading maps.
Contrary to the previous confession, at one point I think I owned 11 different baby carriers. How many kids did I wear at that point? Two for sure, sometimes the middle kiddo would ask to get carried. But baby carriers are like shoes and accessories. You obviously would never wear tennis shoes to a fancy dinner date (unless you’re my 12 year old), nor would you wear snow boots to the beach. You also wouldn’t use your purse in place of a backpack in most cases. Well baby carriers are basically like that. Basically… Plus I like to colour match my moods when possible.
My kids play video games and watch mind numbing television. It’s really not my preference. If I had it my way, we would throw away all the screens, except for one that we would only pull out sometimes for educational purposes. But my boys really like video games and watching Pokemon. And I like when they’re all sitting happily in one place for a blissful hour of time when I can actually complete a thought or two without a slew of interruptions.
If my little kids bathe once a week it’s pretty much a miracle. My older kiddos at this point are realizing that they smell bad and their hair gets greasy if they don’t shower quite frequently. But the little ones… uhg. It’s still like wrestling with a wet cat. Being clean is not something they care for, and I don’t generally have the will to fight them. So if you see my kids with marker all over their arms and legs and dirt streaks on their faces and feet, just know that yes, they’ve probably looked like that for at least a day or two. Or five.
One of my kids doesn’t like hiking. Yeah, I know. Ouch. He’s never been my great outdoor explorer, and has always gravitated toward screens and other hobbies. That’s okay – I know that hiking isn’t for everyone. But he’s a good sport and I don’t give him the option to stay home. I figure in the end, he’ll either learn to appreciate it or for the rest of my life he’ll remind me how I constantly dragged him out into the woods or the desert to torture him with sunshine and fresh air.
We don’t have a homeschool room, desks, or even a lot of books. Now, a couple desks in quiet places would actually be great. And I wouldn’t mind having more books. But 7 people living in 1400 square feet, or sometimes 150 square feet, really leaves not much room for anything extraneous. Also, I prioritized having a guest room. #sorrynotsorry
I’m sure if you followed me around for a week you’d have a long list of other things I should add to this confessional. But hey, I’m sure you’ve got a list, too, and hopefully mine makes you feel a little better about yours. I really do love scrolling through the beautiful Instagram photos, but let’s also remember to keep it real and encourage our fellow homeschool moms to rest assured that the rest of us have a mess behind the pretty pictures, too.
Figuring out how to hike with kids was a big learning curve for me. As a child I loved outdoor exploration, but my parents weren’t into hiking so my adventuring was generally done alone within the vicinity of home or wherever we were traveling.
As a young mom, it hadn’t occurred to me that hiking would be a good family activity. I loved the outdoors and missed things like outdoor exploration, climbing trees and finding hidden treasures. But the only things I saw other moms doing were short trips to the zoo, local playgrounds, or maybe a walk at the bay. No one was tromping through the woods. No one was finding caves, or hidden treasures. No one was looking for new places to play with creeks, frogs, and mud. Everyone seemed to be gravitating toward man-made fun where kids were told to wear shoes, never go up the slide, and douse themselves in hand sanitizer before snacking on their organic puffs.
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What does the week of a homeschool family look like? Well that will all depend on the family. Actually you’d probably get almost as many different answers as families you ask. We tend to be a diverse bunch!
But you’re here because you’d like some adventure in your life, and maybe because you resonate with our sort of laid back style over here. So before I lay out what our week looks like, let’s take a minute to talk about our style of home education, because this plays a HUGE roll in how we’ve come to this current schedule.
If you looked in on our week a few years ago, you probably wouldn’t even recognize us. Being parents who came out of public and private schools, we only knew the typical school model for education. I knew there was something else out there, but I didn’t quite know where to find it. Over time, with research and meeting other homeschool families I started to figure out what it was that really jived with what we wanted for our kiddos and family life. (Side note, this is an ever evolving process. A perk of homeschool is that you can always change, at any time to better suit your family.)
For one, our homeschool IS a part of our family life, and our family life is a part of our homeschool. We believe that education is what naturally happens as a result of experiences. And so we put our children in the way of experiences that will help them grow and learn (think unschooling/child-led learning). In addition, I really resonated with some aspects of the Charlotte Mason (CM) method of homeschool, and so we do the majority of our non-experiential learning through “living books” (think books that are regular stories that you can relate to… not text books).
CM is also where our practice of nature study came from, and the entire reason I realized that we could use adventuring as a whole aspect of our lives and education. One other practice popular in the CM world that we adopted and love, is “morning time” (also called circle time and morning basket. You can learn more about our morning time here). Lastly, we have followed a few formal curriculums over the years, but generally I prefer to make up our own (except for math… that is one subject I INSIST on outsourcing!).
So with those things in mind, here is a typical week for us when we are not roadschooling:
The first day of our “school” week, Monday is the day we set aside as our most important day. I am NOT a procrastinator, and for the sake of keeping anxiety at bay like to front-end load my work. And so Mondays are the day we most focus on accomplishing what I’d like for us to cover for the week. We spend about an hour, sometimes more, in morning time, and then we all split up to accomplish our own personal work. This includes individual study, study with mom, and chores. Usually the kids aren’t finished until after lunch-time, but once they are done they get a little bit of screen time and the rest of the day free to do as they like. (At the moment, the three older kids go to a class in the afternoon for an hour or two on M/W).
Free day. Sometimes we will use Tuesdays to get ahead on our work if we know we would like to adventure somewhere on one of our typical “school” days. This can also be a catch up day if anyone did not finish their work from the day before. If we’re feeling up to it, sometimes we’ll find a short hike, playground, or regular play date for the afternoon. Or grocery shopping. Because, you know, responsibilities.
The second of our three major school days, the flow is the same as on Monday. We hope to finish our work a little earlier than usual on Wednesdays because our public school friends have a half day, and we go to church at night, so we need to eat dinner earlier.
Adventure day! This is the day I typically plan our bigger adventures, and so I make sure nothing else is on the schedule in case we want to linger for a while, or have a long drive (I’ve been known to drive 2 hours for a good time). However, if we plan a big adventure for Friday, then Thursday becomes a regular day like Monday and Wednesday. We like to keep our schedule flexible so we can more easily schedule adventures with friends, or work around the weather (HAH! Weather in San Diego? Well… yeah, sometimes. But that includes snow and tide charts).
Our final regular school day. Yes you’ve read that right, we only do our “formal” schooling three days a week. The fun thing about our Friday morning time is that we can incorporate any interesting things we found from the previous day’s aventure into our studies. Often this means researching our findings and questions using books, internet, or TV. For example, after noticing an orb weaver web, we spent a morning looking up spiders and learning about their lives and how they make their webs. The kids recorded their findings in their nature journals.
If needed, we will do work on a Saturday, but that’s usually for the weeks that we did a LOT of adventuring and completely neglected our indoor studies. Saturday is typically a day for friends, fun, errands, and cubing competitions or any other sports or clubs the kids might be in at the time.
God’s day!
So there it is! Our week summed up. If you want a deeper look into what we study, or how I manage homeschool with 5 kids and a variety of ages, you can find that here. In the meantime, let me know in the comments what you think and what questions you have!
What if I told you that there is freedom in homeschool when you drop all the expectations of society. That you can leave the walls of home in search of adventure, and that you don’t need a curriculum.
Could you imagine an education where text books aren’t used, tests aren’t given, and grades don’t exist? Where worksheets aren’t required and subjects aren’t formally studied? Can you imagine an education so far from what the “experts” have said it should be, and that instead places family, experiences, and imagination at its center? Can you completely let go of what we’ve been shown is normal and reimagine education steeped in the light of truth, beauty, and goodness?
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