I’m going to write this blogpost in a somewhat informal manner. I have loads of thoughts and opinions, yet I almost want to refrain from sharing them at all. You see, I get a lot of DM’s in my Instagram asking this very question, “How exactly should I go about getting started with homeschooling?”. I’m pretty sure you’d get a great, possibly generic (but helpful) answer asking Chat GPT a country/grade/curriculum specific “How to get started with homeschool?” question. But I would like to share honestly and authentically from my personal journey. I feel a mother’s heart and the weight of the responsibility when they slide into my DM’s. I often put off replying because it’s such a loaded question and I have every intention of replying when I get a solid gap to think through their unique family setup and what wisdom I would share, but then I end up not replying or losing the DM. Also, I don’t believe it’s wise to piggyback on another homeschool mom’s ways entirely. Our children, our homes and most importantly our WHY for homeschooling is unique. I do think that there is a lot of wisdom, inspiration and resources to learn about from moms that have gone before us. But even taking in this information is a personal journey by the mom and needs to be done with her lens on, considering her children. Not merely passed on from my interpretation as gospel. My oldest two are eight and six years old, so I’m still quite new to this homeschool space. I’ve learnt a lot over the past 7 years of deep diving into the thought of a homeschooled life, and looking back I believe it all played a part in shaping where we are today. The main element that I notice in successful homeschool moms is that they became passionate about the subject of homeschooling. They did the reading of blogs and books, listening to conferences and podcasts and truly invested the thought, prayer and then practical hands-on time in becoming the facilitator and advocate of their child’s education.
Before I start with sharing my journey on how I got started with homeschooling my children, I’m going to give my usual preface. I see myself as a somewhat ‘minimalist homeschool mom’. I have indeed taken full responsibility for our homeschool and all that it entails, but I’m not actually a typical homeschool blogger with all the handicrafts and extras. We have a full life with our own businesses, travel and adventures where we can, and our children have three afternoons quite full with extra curricular activities. I plan on shifting our homeschool to a more pure Charlotte Mason style in the course of this year, as Christian (my eldest) is in his final year of the foundation phase. I’m VERY excited for the next phase, as I used to be a Grade 4 school teacher and have learnt so much about the beauty and rich feast that homeschooling can offer in the intermediate and senior phase years. I’ve had a lot of trial and error in the foundation phase, and I see the worth in the errors too. It’s led us to where we are now. It’s also been about four years since I wrestled with this question “How to get started with homeschool?”. The resources I refer to, or even how I went about tackling this question may not be the latest greatest, but so many methodologies and real life moms I gleaned from have stood the test of time. It’s what I go back to when I look at that all-inspiring drawing board.
In order to formulate all of my thoughts, I’m going to share in a chronological order how we got started. Before we even decided to homeschool, I started listening to the most beautiful podcasts of moms sharing a biblical view of motherhood with very practical tips. At Home with Sally (by Sally Clarkson) was my absolute favourite. Looking back it makes complete sense why I loved her podcasts, her ability to share living stories and create an intentional life is the heart of homeschooling. I devoured all her books and even went back to reread some. Following incredible accounts on Instagram back in 2016 felt like a different experience to what it is today, beautiful still images with heart-felt captions. My favourite Instagram account was Jodi Mockabee. I loved her approach to raising her children. Spending their days mostly outdoors, with rich literature and habit training at the core of their precious family time together.
The realities of being a stay-at-home mom to two littles, travelling quite a bit and both my husband and I running our own businesses pulled a lot of my attention. I wanted to have a slower approach to the foundation phase years. We did life together, every day all day and it was beautiful. Half way through Christian’s Grade R year, we had just returned from a month-long camp in the Transkei, I called on a foundation phase teacher who lives in our estate and inquired about homeschool tutoring. I felt very competent to do general school with them, but I wanted a bit of a check box/safety net for the three R’s (reading, writing and arithmetic). I started leaning more and more towards an ‘open and go’ curriculum, almost doing school at home. Which in reality is something I never wanted to do. However I convinced myself that at least the basics would be covered and because the reality of a mainstream school curriculum is that it only really takes about two hours of table time to work through in a homeschool individualised setting. I was sure that we’d have the rest of the day wide open for loads of time outdoors, and going about life as we had in their toddler years. Adding insult to my injury in choices, not only did I grab a Cambridge Grade 1 – I chose a digital program. While I was excited not to have loads of books, stationary and craft supplies, Christian didn’t enjoy the screen-time at all. The Cambridge curriculum also felt like mainstream school, an excessive amount of repetition and assessment coaching in essence. A lot of isolated facts broken up into short daily lessons with no real through line. I felt rushed to get through all the content, just to have him ready for termly assessments. I realise that this may have just been how the curriculum was presented in this digital program. I’ve also come to know of families that use the educational objectives of Cambridge, but teach their children through different methodologies, with the plan to have them complete Cambridge high school exams later in their homeschool.
We wrapped up the Grade 1 year considering an eclectic, Charlotte Mason inspired Gr 2 for Christian and Gr R for Harriet. The curriculums we chose were still ‘open and go’ to a large degree. We used Jolly Phonics and All About Reading for Language Art, The Good and the Beautiful for Maths and Hand Writing and Little Footprints for content subjects and introducing local living books. Our days became more structured, we introduced intentional rhythms, habit training and a lot of read-a-louds. We’re currently doing Grade 3 and Grade 1, with our busy toddler brother running around and I (mom) am pregnant with our 4th. Our curriculum is still very similar, we’ve just added Afrikaans second language, I grabbed a CAPS grade appropriate workbook for each child at PNA and with conversational skills and increasing vocabulary being my main ‘why’ for teaching Afrikaans, we will be intentionally reading Afrikaans living books. I’ve learnt a lot through trial and error. I truly value a slower pace and enjoy our days together. I’m also two weeks into an eight week Charlotte Mason CORE course, presented by the Charlotte Mason Institute. While I have a four year teachers degree in mainstream school education, I personally don’t find it to be of much value at all in the homeschool space. I have a lot of ‘unschooling’ to do, to truly enjoy the homeschool I’ve envisioned for my family. I am thoroughly enjoying the CM CORE course I’m currently doing and all the delightful feasting of intentional mother culture.
My advice to a mom getting started would be to establish your WHY for homeschooling. Be honest, don’t make up a ‘why’ that sounds pretty but doesn’t mean much to you in reality. Having a strong ‘why’ will help you resonate with a methodology or curriculum. I’d advise climbing into the Wild + Free podcast, there are great conversations about various methodologies. Then grab one that you’re passionate about and run with it. Your children will feed off your passion and excitement. Even though the idea of sticking to one idea or curriculum until school leaving age sounds blissful, I’d highly encourage you to re-evaluate at the end of each year, including your children in this process. Decide what you’re keeping, what you’re leaving and what you’d like to add to the next school year.
A final thought and one I wish I fully grasped when I started out, is that many rich homeschools involve SO MUCH MORE than just a curriculum or a ‘grab and go’ program. There are beautiful homeschool philosophies to look into. Learn about them and which one resonates with your family’s beliefs, core values and goals for this life.
