Except for the fact that all my children are different, they are all alike. That is the weird sort of Chestertonian world my brain lives in.

All my babies looked alike even on their ultrasounds. I used to say to the technician, “Yep, that’s the baby.”
All my newborns were old friends.

I have homeschooled each of my children in a strongly CM way. Once in sheer desperation I went out and bought Lifepacs for everyone but I don’t think we even finished 2 books.

This fall Andrew went to my parents’ house for 2 weeks. My mom and dad had to homeschool him without any of his materials. Andrew really blossomed under all the individual attention. My parents did such a good job with Andrew and Benjamin I felt I should send them a child to homeschool or beg them to come help me.

At our house Andrew doesn’t have any trouble at all with any of his assignments but he has a terrible time staying focused. I catch him wandering all over the house and when I tell him he needs to do his schoolwork he answers, “oh,” like that’s a new thought. There is a reason we call him Winnie the Pooh. Andrew shares almost all of Pooh’s characteristics.

He also enjoys the concrete more than my other children; we are an abstract family. So I decided to switch gears with Andrew. He would still be in Morning Time and Ambleside Time (when I manage to squeeze it in), but his other studies would be less CM and more traditional. I bought him several subjects from Rod and Staff, gave him a daily check-off sheet, and he is doing very well. I even bought him a set of their Artpacs which he just loves. The whole family is enjoying helping him learn to draw with the Artpacs. It is interesting that drawing is something the Mennonites do very well. Years ago we subscribed to Nature Friend Magazine and the drawing lessons were the highlight of the magazine.

I bought Penmanship, Reading, Grammar, Art, and Science. He already had R&S math and we do spelling on the computer with a program sold by The Timberdoodle called Dr Aardsma’s Spelling. I have generally avoided all elementary science texts because of time factors but I thought Andrew would enjoy this book.

Now I will tell you a secret. I don’t care how long it takes him to finish his textbooks, a year or 2. He doesn’t do every subject every day. My philosophy is if we have had a full day learning and growing then it is a good school day no matter what we didn’t cover.

Well, that is my philosophy; in real life we all know that homeschooling moms are far more aware of what they aren’t doing that what they are. I can at least pretend to be a normal, well-adjusted person on my blog. I will let you know in March if we stick with the R&S.

  Leave a Comment »