Brittany Carter

Self-Discipline

From the bathroom one morning, my son proclaimed, “I am self-disci-planned!”

Oh, I said, delighted by this new word and my son’s enthusiasm. What is self-disci-plan?

“It’s when you make a plan, and then you do it!”

At school, they are walking learners of all ages through “The Seven habits of High Effective Kids” and this month’s habit is to begin with the end in mind. It’s set us up for a lot of conversations about things he wants to do in the future – studying engineering to work with cars, saving up every month to buy a red GMC Sierra pick-up truck, the process of learning how to drive, delaying gratification so treats and sweets are fully enjoyed, and financing a family adventure van for epic road trips.

I love this book, and it’s aligning really nicely with our homeschool values of resilience, connection, problem-solving, and developing a sense of self.

Math-ing

Mathematics! In teaching math to my little guy, I’ve never been more conscious of my own bias toward the subject. While always a diligent student, I never grasped it quite as deeply as I did language arts or even science.

Here at the ripe age of 38, I am finally beginning to understand the foundational patterns around numbers, or perhaps, more specifically, the multitude of ways a student can arrive at even the simplest addition problems.

How can someone with so little knowledge (or frankly, prior interest) in teaching math actually make math engaging and worth exploring? Sure, we can measure flour and sugar or play hopscotch outside, but doesn’t that all seem so cursory? How am I supposed to plumb the depths of my child’s curiosity around math without infecting him with my negative attitudes?

That’s a question I am trying to answer. Fortunately, I have a fellow homeschool mom friend who is ALSO a math teacher. She recommended I start by reading Carol Dweck’s Growth Mindset. Looks like I’ve got my cozy winter read.

In the interim, I’ve enrolled our kiddo in a once-a-week supplemental math class at our local secular homeschool group. The course focuses on the fun (games! things to touch!) and practical aspects of elementary school math in a small, mixed-age group of kids. I’m hoping he will gain some new insights and perspectives on math beyond the solid but basic curriculum I teach at home.

Failure to Optimize

After leaving behind over a decade of work as a public health professional, I told myself, “Be weary of optimizing your life.” And now, “Be weary of optimizing your kids’ lives.”

I spent so much time finding the right diet, perfecting my morning routine, overthinking emails, rushing from one sensory overwhelming experience to another, blowing money on online shopping, searching for a balance that would never come without time, space, rest, or reflection. Slowing Down. Doing Less.

I am constantly grateful for the fact that my kids can wake up naturally, eat meals with family, play outside for 2-3 hours a day, and have so much unstructured time that they sometimes get BORED.

As we approach Thanksgiving, we have put up our traditional gratitude tree where the kids write what they’re grateful for on a leaf and add it to the branches. This year I am most thankful for homeschool which has allowed us to have this relaxed, dis-optimized rhythm.

Do I worry we’re not getting enough done? Heck, yeah I do. But I worry equally that my kids will grow up being told what to do their whole lives only to be thrust into the world without their own internal meters, their own compass guiding them through life.

My goal these next couple months is to put on the brakes and let our homeschool routine ebb naturally, peeling away extracurriculars and more games than worksheets. I trust we’ll be ready to ramp back up in January well-rested and with plenty of ideas.

Our Science and Culture Week

I don’t have much time to reflect this morning, but I did want to share a snapshot of our science and culture week (happens once a month.) We’ll be learning about Ecuador and the Galápagos Islands as well as Severe Weather. Lots of discussions on Charles Darwin, the theory of evolution, meteorology, emergency preparedness, and time outside.

I love these weeks!

Diary of a Homeschooled Kid

Before we started homeschooling, day to day was a bit of a mystery. Just like every family that chooses this educational path, we’ve had to feel things out, do a little research, and seek advice from trusted sources. Our first year there were growing pains, and many times I wondered if homeschooling was for us.

In year two, I feel like we’ve done a couple things right. One was creating a mission and vision for our homeschool that centers around the values we (me and my partner) want to instill in our kids: resilience, good problem solving, a strong sense of self, and strong relationships with others. We used the planning process laid out in The Joy of Slow by Leslie Martino who I heard on the Brave Writer podcast.

Once we knew our mission, it was easy enough to make sure all our activities for this year align with and serve in teaching these values. This helps us manage the second thing we’ve done right – leaving plenty of space in our routines for spontaneous learning and rest.

Our routine:

6:30ish – 9ish Our kid wakes up naturally (unless Mom’s alarm wakes him up accidentally – he’s right next to me sketching a very tall vehicle.) We eat breakfast as a family, get dressed, play, draw, maybe do an activity if I set one out the night before.

9ish – 11ish Most weeks of the month we’re doing a minimum 20 minutes of evidence-based reading and math instruction respectively (all designed by educators for homeschooling) plus whatever handwriting copywork I come up with. Sometimes it’s from a workbook, sometimes I find or write a passage for him to copy. Sometimes this takes 45 minutes, sometimes it takes 2 hours.

Every four weeks, during this time, we play catch-up with any reading or math lessons leftover from previous weeks. We do some sort of cultural study using library books, videos, and local experiences based on a curriculum called Torchlight K. We complete a unit of Mystery Science with various science videos and hands on experiments.

My son also goes to an outdoor homeschool pod two days a week for about 4 hours. There he’ll do nature study, social studies, ethics, and then whatever else the instructors want – often a lot of play and exploration of the students’ interests. On these days, I don’t do any homeschool myself and usually try to focus on being present with my youngest.

12ish-5ish Whatever we want or need to do! Rather than squeeze extracurriculars into the margins of our day, we get to do them well before dinner time. We may go explore a new park, swim, ride bikes, go to a museum, meet friends, make a fancy tea with read-alouds, attend a lego club at the library, attend a running club practice, watch videos on how to draw vehicles, pretend play, do laundry, or even just run errands.

On weekends, we also have Scouting America meetings or campouts plus all the other stuff public schooling families do. It’s a pretty sweet life!

Winter is coming

The days are growing longer. When I wake up it is deeply dark – maybe 4:30 am. I extricate my numb limbs from the bodies of my sleeping children, and I listen to their breathing as I slowly make my way to the kitchen. I turn on the little light by the French press pot. I breathe in the cold still air.

After almost two years of chronic sleep deprivation thanks to a long pregnancy and a willful baby, I finally feel rested enough to wake early. The early morning feels intimate, secret, slow. It’s the perfect time to reflect on my life, what’s working, what’s not…where I can find gratitude.

When you’re in it, thick in it, with little kids, it’s so hard to see the progress you’re making both as a mother and as an educational guide. I want to document the learning process beyond just shuffling cards around on Trello. I want to remember and (high five myself for) the wide-eyed moments when my homeschooling kid is on fire with new knowledge.

The day brings noise and slamming doors and little toy tripping hazards and coloring pages and markers everywhere. There is reading, math, and an endless stream of queries which I find delightful, exhausting, and occasionally the trigger of my existential dread. But here, in this journal, I will break it down, reassemble it, reflect, polish it, make it shine.