Planning a (Small) Family's School Year

The new school year is soon to be upon us who are involved in teaching, learning, or both, in any educational setting. I am a planner. Chances are, you are too. So, how am I going about the planning for our small family’s academic year, in a rather unique situation? Come along for a rather autobiographical post.

Charlotte Mason-Style Planning

I've talked about Charlotte Mason's educational philosophy in a number of posts, including these topics:

• Reading with babies
• Reflections on re-reading
• Reflections on C. S. Lewis
• Late-winter reads
• Spring cleaning the shelves
• Outdoor reading and nature study
• Gardening metaphors
• Reading after graduation
• Nature study
• Roots of classical education

My primary source for more systematic discussion of planning in a Charlotte Mason style comes from Simply Charlotte Mason. Areas discussed include (in)formal education, habits, chores, and homeschooling (though at least one private school uses the Charlotte Mason method to provide blended private and parent-led homeschooling).

(In)formal Education

A pair of core principles in Charlotte's philosophy are (1) the personhood of children from birth and (2) the responsibility of the parent to set a "feast of ideas" in front of children to engage with. If you're sticking to the method for a number of years with your child(ren), some good tips regard scheduling, educational materials, and individualization. Materials should definitely include more than just books--add in art, tactile objects, and hands-on chores. Individuality of each family should breed flexibility within each day, week, month, and year.

As far as scheduling or planning a school year, it's useful to start with the biggest possible picture and gradually drill down. That is . . .

1. Educational philosophy. What are your goals for each child's overall education? See also The Commonplace channel hosted by homeschooling mama Autumn Kern.
2. Calendar year. What books and subjects do you want to cover?
3. Three terms of academic year. These are natural breaking points according to "trimester" schedules, plus typical Mason educators use 2 half-terms per term. How many chapters or shorter books do you want to cover in a term?
4. Weekly schedule. Which subjects on which weekday? Typically, 1x/week subjects tend to be picture study, music study, nature study, and instruction in arts/crafts.
5. Daily schedule. Arrange subjects by alternating level of mental challenge for the child(ren). Try to complete all lessons in as little of the morning and/or early afternoon as possible, after which get children outside or down for rest time. Balance materials, methods/skills, and movements of child(ren). Consider time blocks rather than timetables, especially in years with babies and young children!

Habits

Habits, such as paying full attention to a task, are extremely beneficial to incorporate within schedules. The educator should be intentional about habit categories to focus on for each child (e.g., attention) for 6-8 weeks each, allowing 2 habits to be thoroughly reinforced and explicitly incorporated in each term. What measurable behaviors will that habit produce in a child? The educator needs to repeat the cues and motivating ideas, tapering off so that the child becomes more independent and then fully independent incorporating the habit. I find that a visual cue in my planner helps to remind me to remind Child about whatever habit we're working on, and consistently communicate my expectations.

Chores

Household chores are excellent to incorporate into daily life and education. It's easiest to do so by starting to offer a chore as "play" when a very young child shows interest in using objects for their intended purpose. As an example, Child is currently interested in and good at moving objects between places (unloading dishwasher by handing me each dish), and interested in but not good at sweeping. As the interest shifts, also shift to reinforce the chore completion as a habit with as much intrinsic motivation as possible--this will serve the child well in later life.

Homeschooling Variations

When I was being homeschooled, my parents utilized the support of other homeschooling parents whose skill sets were different. For example, another parent taught dissection due to more biology background, and another parent taught drawing and painting, while my mom taught English composition. In Charlotte Mason education, a few tips for using weekly co-ops (the typical setting for these activities) include (1) clarifying the purpose it plays in your family, (2) doing some co-op subjects at home occasionally to avoid false mental dichotomies in children's minds, and (3) matching up less- and more-experienced parents as mentor-mentee pairs.

Another aspect, at least for Christian homeschoolers, is incorporation of family devotions. Mason typically differentiates between family devotions and Bible lessons. I've referenced the historical development (and implications) of devotions elsewhere. In terms of operational definitions, devotions usually focus on application or regular meditation (repetition) on particular passages, such as the Daily Office lectionary. Lessons, on the other hand, typically focus on literacy (head knowledge and familiarity with the words and history of Scripture and its narrated events), which is critically important to correct interpretation of the biblical text.

Do My State’s Regulations Matter?

If you're homeschooling, yes, they do. Here's a rundown:

• HSLDA is a central organization for coordinating legal assistance to homeschooling parents who may be experiencing challenges. 
• I live in a low-regulation state, the most common category. As such, I am required to provide notice that I am home educating each year, and am required to administer an annual number of instructional hours across specific subjects, but am not required to fill out a form and/or track instructional hours until Child reaches a certain age.
• In my state, instructional hours are either provided or supervised/delegated by me. Herein lies a good amount of flexibility, depending on what Child needs.
• Other categories of states' regulations are
• High regulation (primarily East Coast, fewest states). Moderate regulation requirements plus potential for home visits, curricular approval, and/or parents' teaching qualifications.
• Moderate regulation (primarily East Coast and northern states). Notification, selected test scores, and evaluation of student progress is sent to the school district.
• No-notice, low regulation (diagonal band connecting Illinois and Texas). No notification of withdrawal from public school is required.

How Might This Year Look for Us?

As you might have guessed, nobody in my family is actually "in" school at this time. So, brainstorming this post and the year has been interesting!

The Teacher

I'm a life-long learner. But, I'm also a teacher at the graduate level. Due to the nature of the program in which I teach and the university calendar (in its last transitional year), I have been teaching year-round without more than a week of non-instructional break between semesters (which still included at least 1-2 meetings). Summer is my busiest semester, oddly, with 3 different start dates and 3 different end dates across 5 courses, so it is nice to be approaching a fall semester where all my courses have the same start dates and end dates.

As far as I know, I'm done with formal education myself. However, I continue to have an aggressive reading list for theological and professional development, and hopefully getting an occasional novel in there! Lest you worry too much about me having no breaks due to the teaching load, I do have planned staycations coming up in slow parts of each semester. My priorities this school year are:

• Developing a new course in collaboration with some other professionals
• Maximizing time outside, with Child if possible
• Enhancing my bibliography with a published paper or two
• Learning Greek along with Husband in a church study group he's leading

The Pre-Student

Child currently loves "reading," serenading us, trying familiar or varied foods, being read to, and spending time running/climbing around outside! There's not talking much yet but rather taking it all in and delighting in interests. These days, the favorite read-aloud board books have been

• Kloria Press: We All Believe in One True God; Before the Ending of the Day; Now Rest Beneath Night's Shadow; I am Jesus' Little Lamb
• Very Hungry Caterpillar (video) (we've duct-taped two parts of this book so far
• Blue Hat, Green Hat ("Oops")
• My Gifts From God: Animals; Colors; Sounds; sometimes Opposites
• Baby Loves Gravity (video); Coding (video)

My priorities for Child this school year are:

• Plenty of time outside (~350 hours in 2023 as of this post) (check out last week's post for more detail)
• Physical activity inside and outside (don't make Child sit unless necessary) (and potentially audiobooks for mama in the meantime)
• Socially appropriate interaction reinforcement (all ages, animals, other adults)
• Starting Sunday school in September! (North American Anglican description of the teaching on the fact of baptismal regeneration) (childlike faith entails trusting, incrementally learning/consciously believing the articles of the faith, etc.)

Our weekly routine won't change much:

• Music "instruction" - playing a familiar and a "new" piece each day
• Discipleship - praying the Daily Office with Child, whether very brief Midday Prayer or longer Morning or Evening Prayer
• Reading aloud - ideally from a combination of board/picture books and "grown-up" (family-friendly) books, whatever I happen to be reading, which is usually theological or philosophical these days.

The Maybe-Student

Husband is at heart a philosopher (having contributed to this post and this one). However, he's not yet academically trained as one. Since Child was born, he has been reading through his endless TBR with good results. At this rate, he might finish by age 80 if he doesn't purchase any more . . . If he does start graduate work in philosophy, theology, or eschatology this year or next year, that will slightly shift the amount and foci of reading. So, this year, he is focusing on Galatians commentaries, eschatology, and Greek/Hebrew. He's keeping up knowledge integration via reading at night, discussions with others and me by day.

Are you planning for a unique school year? What does it look like?