Learning to Love Being a DIY Homeschooler

I am not a "DIY" kind of person when it comes to home decorating or repair, but six years of formal homeschooling so far--more if you count the preschool years--has shown me that I am decidedly a DIY kind of homeschool parent.

All these elementary school years, I have cobbled together my own curriculum. Note that I'm on the cusp of launching into the sea of Middle School Waters next year, and often families that design a very fluid curriculum during elementary years, become more formal during middle school and more formal yet during high school in order to meet college entry requirements . . . but maybe not!

My favorite core homeschooling book to this day remains Laura Berquist's "Design Your Own Classical Curriculum: A Guide to Catholic Home Education," which I first read as a mother only of toddlers. Berquist empowers parents to understand the scope and arc of a K-12 education, and how to choose what curriculum works for one's own family to fulfill each subject. (Building one's own education is not limited to Berquist's classical approach; for example, I greatly appreciated this post on designing one's own Charlotte Mason education.)

Most recently in our family, I am reminded that I like to retain the freedom to design and adapt my own curriculum because of the different desires for science education among my fifth and third graders. I have no interest at this time in a boxed curriculum.

You see, I had visions for how I was going to teach science--Charlotte Mason-style--but my way resonated with neither of the children God gave me.

My vision of elementary science education

The Fifth Grader

My fifth grader devours science. This year, he completed his Apologia Chemistry and and Physics textbook in 12 weeks when it should have covered him for the year. I started throwing other science resources at him, such as Eric Sloane's "Weather Book," "Adventures with a Microscope," and a starter microscope. He reads through them avidly, does his own experiments, and tells me at length about what he's learned. We even paused his homeschool curriculum to send him to a week-long science day camp hosted by the Department of the Defense (check out my post on STARBASE).

          

Last year, when he finished formal science before Christmas even arrived, I spent the rest of the year giving my then third-grader books about cars and the internal combustion engine. Those books are well worn and continue to reside by his bedside for evening reading, while I continue to ponder how I might be able to organize the amazing Crankin Engines Lawnmower/Small Engine Course course for homeschoolers locally this coming summer. (Anyone with middle school boys interested? Email me!)



I've come to a place where I think it's perfectly fine that this particular child does not want to read the living science books with animal characters. This child likes a kind of science I never did, but I have the freedom as a homeschooling parent to feed that passion of his. And it's fine that he writes essays competently but he isn't going to hole up in his room and write creative fiction the way I had hoped and dreamed. It's a blessing that he prefers to compose his own music rather than necessarily memorize the music of greats gone before.

The Third Grader

Meanwhile, my third grader quite dislikes science, to the point of avoiding it if at all possible. Frankly, the memorization of scientific principles is unnecessary in elementary school. It is far more important to create wonder and interest in God's creations (creatures, earth, stars) and a love of learning generally, which will serve that student more over the years and decades than memorizing science at this young age. I took this particular child off of science textbooks (having tried several), and gave her living science books and how-to books to read.

I assign her a bare minimum of weekly science reading--by which I mean one short chapter one day per week--and I am now far enough into my homeschooling journey to be okay with that.  This is the same child who is a feverish fiction writer, pores over Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and Tennyson, and blossoms under the rigor of playing two musical instruments competitively. It's going to be okay if not every subject in every child is developed equally.

The First Grader

Goofing off

Lastly, I just assumed due to gender that my first grader girl would feel about science the same as my third grader girl. Yet the other day, I was pleasantly surprised when, upon a toddler digging out of a closet, our several sets of Snap Circuits that my firstborn played with for hours upon hours when he was younger, my six-year-old discovered them for the first time. My third grade girl would probably rather do almost anything than assemble Snap Circuits, but it turns out that my first grade girl is really good at figuring out Snap Circuits intuitively, just like my son did when he was that age. Once he understood the electronic principles, he didn't use the instruction booklet anymore, but built delightful, working creations of radios, lights, and alarms on his own . . . just like I'm now watching my excited first grade daughter do.

I cling tenaciously to my freedom to home educate how my husband and I see fit. I'm very glad school-in-a-box curriculum choices exist for homeschoolers, but I'm also glad I'm not using one right now. I don't even want to be restrained within my homeschool that a particular grade child "should" be at this level in this subject, and must be learning all these eight subjects equally. Don't box us in!

I grew up with the Gadsden flag flying at our home, and that attitude fills me today as I treasure my ability to be a DIY homeschooler.