young boy and wheelbarrow
| |

How to Find Time to Homeschool on the Homestead

Homeschooling on the Homestead

I have found that one of the biggest struggles since I started taking this whole homestead schtick seriously is finding the time to get homeschooling done. I know I’m not the only one that feels that way either. Many of you have told me time and again that you share with me in this struggle.

I’ve wrestled with it for years in fact and in the end have come to the conclusion that something’s got to give. The question is what?

Years ago, during a crisis mode, I stripped my priorities down to the bare bones by going to the word of God and determining to be content with only taking care of food and clothing if that’s all I could get to. Can I tell you how wonderfully that has worked for me in the more pressing times of life?! It has gone a long way in learning to let some things go!

Homeschooling on the Homestead

The problem I’ve encountered is that as my family grows alongside my conviction that the standard American diet, in particularly the rampant consumption and experimentation on our bodies though the use of GMO’s is going to have generational effects and that what we put in our children’s mouths today will impact the future health of our posterity. Say what you’d like about the study du jour, it is impossible that there have been long term, generational studies and observations on what eating these foods will do to people. We have to take responsibility, even if that means rolling up our sleeves, getting our hands dirty and our nails chipped, and growing and raising our own food if we’re too poor to pay the farmer to do it for us.

But I digress. If you’re already homesteading then you’re most likely on the same page with me there.

The point is, we’ve become quite serious about growing food and it takes a lot of time and work. A lot. But educating our children is still incredibly important and if we’ve decided that it’s the right choice for our families, then we must figure out how to manage both things.

 How to Find Time to Homeschool on the Homestead

Here are some things to think about If you’re struggling to fit homeschooling into the your homestead days…

Meat on the Farmstead{Rediscover Your Convictions}

At some point, you decided that homeschooling was the right choice for your children. Whether that’s because of the often detrimental effects of peer influence, the increasingly lax, liberal, and social education,  or in my case that it’s my Christian obligation to provide my children with a Christian education, it is always a good idea to reassess your priorities and resolve to see this undertaking through to the end. The point is, you have a conviction.

Homeschooling on the Homestead

For the first several years as a homeschooling mom, there were many, many weak moments where I would threaten to send my kids to school or try to convince myself of why it would solve all my problems to do so. When I considered why I began in the first place (protection/sheltering my baby) and compared it to why I ought to continue (Deuteronomy 6), I realized there was no longer any choice for me in the matter.

Easy or not, I would finish what I started. Little did I know at the time that would include committing to homeschool 5 more children yet to be born! But I’m glad I made the decision then, otherwise I might have thrown in the towel! Instead I haven’t thought of sending them to school as option since!

Now that I’m living in the sticks, providing a Christian education through the means of a private school isn’t an option. Even if it were available, funds wouldn’t be. And so far as I’m concerned bussing to a public school isn’t a choice- everything bad I did as a child I first did on the school bus.  Driving them in myself would take me longer in a day than it would to just knock out some lessons anyway.

Homeschooling on the Homestead{Redefining “Homeschool”}

Now that we’re fully persuaded to persevere, that conviction has set our minds to figure out how to fit home educating our children into the daily equation. And let us call it home education from here on out because that is a whole different ball game than homeschooling.

The very name, “homeschooling” drives slavish guilt and fear that we’re not doing enough “school at home”.

When you think of elementary school at home there are several different mental pictures one can form.

Children sweetly lined up at desks or around the table working over their workbooks and worksheets…

Plastic totes piled neatly with glitter and felt scraps and little pom poms, crayons, safety scissors, washable markers, stickers, construction paper and the like all ready for managed sessions of creativity…

Stacks of record keeping, grade recording, lesson preparing, curriculum catalogues to flip through for the promise of easier or better, purchases to make, field trips to plan…

Field trips! And classes, and clubs, and co-ops, and conferences, library visits…

I feel a knot of stress balling up inside my chest just imagining it! Where’s the manure?! Where are the pigs getting out? Where are the broken eggs in jacket pockets?

Homeschooling on the Homestead

I’m not saying any of these things are bad. Or that you shouldn’t be doing them, I’m just saying that I’d need another 12 hours in the day were I to do school at home!

If you’re managing a homestead and trying to make your home education look like our city & suburban dwelling sisters, good luck with that. If you can make it happen, you’re a better woman than I am, for sure!

But if you’re like me and haven’t been able to pull it off, you know what? That’s ok! No one said that home education had to look like that and since the beginning of time up until recently, it hasn’t looked like that. (And I think one could make the argument that on the whole, we’re less intelligent than ever!) Think of how much you’ve taught your toddler already without all of that structure!

Homeschooling on the Homestead{Redefine the School Year}

I’ve talked for years about our Agrarian Calendar. Seriously, can you think of any stupider time for a homesteader to try to add in hours of daily lessons than September??!

Me neither.

I feel like I barely have time to brush my teeth in September let alone do lessons. Between harvesting, canning, weeding, and watering, putting the beds to sleep for the winter and all the sundry other tasks that need wrapped up before the first frost, there is NO time for lessons!

Besides, what kid wants to be cooped up inside all day when winter is breathing down their necks when they could be spending all those crisp, golden, glorious moment outdoors? (And might I quickly add, there is no finer time to study the insect world than in the fall?)

Homeschooling on the Homestead

So we use an Agrarian Calendar. After our first year on our larger homestead, this is what I plan for it to look like this year:

November: (New school year begins) One week after first frost- Begin “Full” schooling for 20 weeks

The harvesting and canning is done, the gardens are covered, and we’re ready for winter to begin. I take a week after the first frost to do some fall cleaning and set make a brief plan for the school year and, if necessary, order some books and make some reserves at the library. This will be daily, morning time, working through lessons with the children in science, math, reading, writing, history, etc… (For more about our Home Education Program see here.)

April: First week- Begin “Lite” schooling for 10 weeks

It’s time to get the garden in! Spring is in the air and we all want to be outdoors breathing deeply instead of inside doing addition! During times of “Lite” schooling we continue with daily reading lessons, quick, DIY math worksheets, and reading literature aloud in the afternoons. Nature studying and handicrafts are  also done when they’re not of playing together and using their imaginations.

Homeschooling on the Homestead

June: Mid month: Begin “Full” schooling for 6 weeks

August: First week- Annual Standardized Testing as required by state law Second week- Begin “Very Lite” schooling for 12 weeks

During times of “Very Lite” schooling I make sure that the children are reading the Bible aloud on rotation in the mornings as part of our family worship, we do only impromptu nature studying, and I continue to read literature aloud after lunch. The children are supposed to write to pen pals hopefully once every week or two.

This is just what it might look like for us this year.

Already I can tell you that after 4 weeks into this “school year”, we took a couple week break to work on butchering projects- chickens and a pig. We plan to get on a solid schedule adding beef into the December calendar each year, so I might need to further adjust this in the future.

I encourage you to make your own Agrarian Calendar. Look back over the last year and fill in a calendar with times that you can or can not get schooling done, what you think you can cover during various seasons, what’s important, and what isn’t. This is your own personalize school year! What freedom!

Homeschooling on the Homestead{Redefine Your Goals}

Knowing now why we’re home educating our children, and when to fit that into our schedule, let’s set some goals!

Having a clear and basic set of accomplishments that we’d like to make during our career as home educators will give us a line to walk and will prove a comfort when guilt starts to trickle in.

I have 4 goals. Yours may be completely different. Only your family can set those goals, but I’ll share mine with you.

When I’m all said and done educating my kids, I hope to have accomplished these 4 things:

1.) They will have had a distinctly Christian education. That our faith won’t be compartmentalized to Sunday’s or meal time prayers or family worship time, that it won’t just be part of our day, but it will be all of our life. If I get nothing else done in a day, I consider it a good one if we’ve gone over our catechism lessons, hymn study, memory verses, and history lesson. (The Bible is our primary history textbook and I build everything else out from there.)

2.) I want my children to grow to be autodidacts, people who love to learn. Though I have a 16 1/2 year old, I don’t even think of his”graduation” next year and don’t want him to either. I don’t ever want them to think they have arrived and can be done learning. Because this has been such a focus, I haven’t really done lessons with him for years now. He was outpacing me anyway. He learned to love reading and learning young and I was actually holding him back! This year, on his own, he has studied algebra, biology, herbalism, wood carving, has read more literature and history than I can even record, started to learn French, started driving and I’ve had nothing to do with any of it besides making sure he had access to materials!

Homeschooling on the Homestead

3.) Whether they ultimately use the skills and tools that we give them while having grown up on the homestead, I want my children to have some sort of -for the lack of a better word- “self-sufficiency.” There may be a point in their lives when knowing how to provide food and necessities for themselves may be the difference between whether they sink or swim. I want them to have a decreased dependence on an exorbitant income to provide for themselves & their family by soapmaking, canning & food preservation, gardening, sewing, raising & butchering meat, herbal medicine preparation, basic carpentry, auto maintenance, etc… Maybe they won’t want or need this type of “education,” but there might come a day when they’re real thankful for it!

4.) Functioning, serving adults. I want children who can function as adults in the real world (whatever that is). When I was in elementary school, all I heard was how I was being prepared for middle school. In middle school, for high school. And in high school it was college prep. I don’t know. Maybe if I’d have made it to college they would have covered real life living, but somehow I doubt it. Functioning as adults starts by being mature, functioning children. And that starts by doing things that the adults around them are doing.

Homeschooling on the Homestead{Redefine What an Education Looks Like}

Considering your goals, you must think of what you’d like the children’s education to look like. Especially if you know that the norm is not for you.

Nature Study in the woods during wood cutting. Zoology, plant life, biology studied during gardening.  Anatomy studied during butchering. Practical math while managing the homestead- tallying egg totals; calculating heat cycles and gestation lengths;  cooking, baking, and canning all involve math and  fractions. Life skills are definitely covered!  Reading & writing must be done, spelling/grammar etc…

Homeschooling on the Homestead

Try to do much of it conversationally, without textbooks and I think you’ll find that it goes more quickly because the “work” is a pleasure for the children.

Homeschooling Kids on the Farmstead

We read literature aloud to about 12 when their appetite for reading is so much larger than I can provide during the 30 minutes in the afternoon. We listen to the music of the great composers for music appreciation. Art is necessary for expression. I teach them to do black and white sketches, nature journaling and sundry handicrafts, so many of which are also life and homestead skills (think cooking, baking, canning, sewing, soap making, etc…) talents which might lead to future entrepreneurial endeavors. If you’re deliberate and put your mind to it, you’d be surprised at how far conversational unplanned education can go!
Though we’re not unschoolers (we might feel or look like ones at times however) this article on unschooling really resonated with me…

The moment we quit trying to teach our son anything was the moment he started really learning.

But not infrequently I field questions from parents who seem skeptical that my sons will be exposed to particular fields of study or potential career paths. The assumption seems to be that by educating our children at home and letting them pursue their own interests, we are limiting their choices and perhaps even depriving them. The only honest answer is, Of course we are. But then, that’s true of every choice a parent makes: no matter what we choose for our children, we are by default not choosing something else.

Homeschooling on the Homestead

I have fallen in love with the Charlotte Mason approach towards children and their education. It’s beautiful, relaxed, and treats each one as the unique person created in the image of God that they are. You can step back and evaluate what works for each child individually instead of putting them into a mold of averages. Quick lessons don’t tax them, they are happy, and are taught to love to learn.

Homeschooling on the Homestead

I’d love to hear what you think and glean from you, learning how you’ve managed to fit homesteading and home education into your days!

My Favorite Homeschooling Resources

Last update on 2024-03-28 at 05:37 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

Similar Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

44 Comments

  1. Such a lovely post! I share your passion for faith, family, and education. I raised my girls in public school until my youngest got a serious illness in 6th grade. By this time my oldest was a senior in high school. After my daughter fell ill, I quit my full time job and took up a homesteading life and began homeschooling. I must say, not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. If I may, one thing I have learned, you learn more from living life than watching it! My oldest was so ill prepared for the real world. I in my blind ways believed that brick and mortar school was preparing my child for the basics in life, so Wrong!!! My youngest is a junior this year and is far more ready for the real world than my 22 year old is! Wish I had known that I was capable of teaching my kids sooner! Moms and dads, if I can do this, so can you! We have been so brainwashed in to believing traditional school is best, not so! My experience has been eye opening! It is tough finding a balance at first but once I realized that my daughter was learning so much by just living, I was sold!

    1. This is awesome! And even though you might have done it differently now that you know what you learned, your story is going to help you share encouragement to other moms wondering if home schooling is right for them. We’ve been homeschooling all along so I don’t have a similar experience with my kids, but this much I do know- I was public school educated and I learned real life in the trenches of living it and not from anything in a textbook.

  2. This post was so encouraging for me! I’ve been home educating for 2 years now and it has been so hard fitting it in to my daily routine of helping and taking care of our animal and land on our 15 acres.

  3. My daughter is 3 years old and son is 6 months and I'm am really praying to quit my full time job to homeschool them both- this article SO encouraged me that it's worth it and it's possible! Thank you for posting!

  4. Thank you for this post! I've been struggling with this since we added our sixth child to the family three months ago. Now we have children that are 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, and 3 months. We have a thirty acre homestead and my husband works away from home. I'm feeling overwhelmed trying to keep up with everything and our home is showing it. Your words were so encouraging that this is truly possible. Thank you!

  5. I love this article. I have homeschooled for 13 years now and I am one that does textbooks. I am afraid I will miss something. I would love the freedom you talk about. We started homesteading 4 years ago and my children have learned so much about animals to gardening to just about anything. I am just not sure how to bring that into schooling. I will pray that I can do this

  6. You're one busy lady 😀 Glad you were able to relate to this post- helps to assuage some guilt when you have a plan and it doens't feel like you might be neglecting your duties, doesn't it? We just stopped our summer schooling a couple weeks ago… just in time to watch the buses start running. Makes the kids gloat a bit to be having a break while everyone else is starting up again.

  7. Oh my word, I love this! We don't even have a full blown homestead, but we do have a few acres, chickens & a garden. And a one year old (in addition to two school aged kids). I'm also blogging and running an essential oils team from my home and serving in ministry at our church. We took a summer break for the first time this year, and I'm still trying to figure out how to find time to start back to our lessons (while several large colanders of tomatoes stare me down from the kitchen counter, waiting to be canned). Love your idea of the "agragarian calendar"–it sounds so official! 😉 Thanks for sharing what works for your homesteading family, and by the way–we practice the CM method too. LOVE it. Keep up the good work!

  8. I could have wrote this! We don’t start “school” until the canning is done, and school ends when gardening begins. We ‘double up’ during the boring cold winter days and finish our box curriculum every year. I love this post.

  9. Have I told you lately how much I love your blog? HAHA! I just re-read this post and it helped me so much. We are in the midst of our first year of home education 😉 and I was re-evaluating our time so far and really felt lacking– that I wasn’t doing enough. I am still trying to deprogram my public schooled brain of what education is and what it looks like. Even though I absolutely agree (with gusto, I might add) that education is more than what most of us have been told to believe it is, I constantly have to remind myself of the goal–3 John 1:4: I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. Thank you for sharing your heart.

  10. I DID see that you're moving! Hannah is beyond thrilled, to say the least. She's spent the last several years, any time we've discussed leaving the state for whatever reason, asking where said location was in relation to CA. KY feels very close TO her and she's got a glimmer of hope to meet her friend one day. Interstate moves are no walk in the park-Praying it goes very smoothly for you guys and you settle in easily! Blessings dear friend!

  11. I stumbled upon your blog via pinterest. We are also a homesteading family who home educates. I often find myself thinking we are not doing enough. I sometimes have to sit down & journal what we did do for the day & then I see we did quite a bit! This post helps to re- affirm why we educate the way we do. Your idea of using an agrarian calendar is interesting. I forget that the real life things we have going on like haying, building fence, gardening, canning, it’s all educating our kids! Thanks for sharing your thoughts & ideas. 🙂

    1. I still forget it too. Just last week I “skipped school” and spent the day in the barn monitoring a ewe during lambing and was kicking myself at night when I realized that my children were able to witness lambs be born! Find that in a textbook! 😉 Glad to have been an encouragement!

  12. I feel like it's been a Gazzillion years since I have been here. Life has been so very busy and sometimes I when I think we are going one direction the Lord sends us in another. I am sure you saw in Hannah's letter that we are possibly moving to KY. Clete got a job in TN. and we are now just trying to nail down a house. This has been an adventure and a process all in itself. He has flown out 4 separate times already and possibly again in the next coming week. I am looking forward to the possibility of finally settling in and down 🙂

  13. I have no children yet and educational laws are very different here, but I’d like to chime in a little with my personal experience:

    My mum spent most summers “home schooling” me – she was the one who taught me how to spell and how basic grammar worked.

    My dad was the one who taught me punctuation, I never learned that in school and it wasn’t until the gymnasium (in my Latin class) that I finally grasped the concept behind the practise. (My dad had by then taught me how to use punctuation, but was not equipped to explain why it was the way it was, he always told me he didn’t know why, but he knew how and he was right about that…)

    I was late to learning fractions as well, I just didn’t get it, then one day my best friend sat down, looked at me and said “This is not okay, you need to know how to do this, let me show you…” and voila it all clicked.

    I’ve learned a lot in school, but with the exception of 2-3 brilliant teachers, most of the truly useful learning I’ve done has been through parents and peers. Today I’m a university student with very good grades, why? Because my parents taught me how to learn and to have a passion for it.

    1. This has been my experience too. Even all the way back to my little sister who was getting hit by her 1st grade teacher because she wasn’t reading well enough. My mom taught her and even then it wasn’t until she found “living” books when she was much, much older that she found a true love for reading. My oldest was an even later reader, though she’s by no means unintelligent, she took to math more quickly than her brother who was reading at 4. My 6yo is ahead of his 8 & 9 yo siblings in reading. I’m so thankful that I’m in a position to respect their God-given uniqueness in their education and nurture it in a way that is best for them instead of the collective. It is my prayer that they’ll turn out like you- with a passion for learning 😀

      1. What a kind prayer Quinn, I pray they do too. I can’t believe why “the system” thinks everyone should be able to do x at y time. When I finally cracked the math code I got straight As after that, it just took a while. I know it will always be difficult to take everyones pace and gifts into consideration in a ‘normal’ school setting, but I so hope they will go more towards it in the future.

  14. I think you must have jumped inside my brain when you wrote this! Yep. For sure! (grin) I would have to say that under “Rediscovering Your Convictions”, home education (we call it “learning” and not “school” either) is both a heart conviction AND part of God’s law (Deuteronomy 6). It’s true too, that our children are in fact spoon-fed through a system. It’s a SYSTEM. One-size-fits-all is never a good thing. At least I can’t think of any examples currently. Vaccines, education, sooo many things. I found my hardest thing to do was to DETOX from a traditional education. Trained as a school teacher and in the classroom, I watched as students were bored with textbooks and insisted on multiple bathroom breaks just to escape the walls of the classroom and glimpse outside. (That’s when I started holding class outdoors as often as possible.) Oh how I wish I would’ve “known” Charlotte Mason then. Tear. I think what helped our family personally was a Family Mission Statement and putting up our Goals. I can come back to those pieces of paper and remind myself why I’m doing this. Our children desperately need a Biblical Worldview. Desperately! I know I CLING to my Large Family Logistics book and keep lists my apron in good shape to stay organized. Notebooking has also been helpful for us, teaching everyone together. One of my favorite books is Heart and Mind by Ruth Beechick. She redefines the child and the child’s heart, reminding parents just how different, God-created and God-inspired our children are. I know that when I have bad days or just don’t feel like I “measure up”, I read prophesy from Scripture remembering the BIG picture that God has and that He will come back someday. Come Lord Jesus!

  15. Oh! YES! What a struggle. We’ve finally changed our weeks to take Mondays completely off. Daddy is home and we all work on some kind of project. Whether fixing a fence, butchering meat, building something or barn and tack clean out.

    In the past we’ve always saved the new lessons and phonics for new readers during the littles naptime. What I struggle with now is do I take that time and continue to “school at home” or tackle something that is better done without a toddler and 3 1/2 yr old running around. Because typically, someone ends up playing in the compost pile.

    1. Hey, if you’ve got a rocking compost pile, that’s nature study!! 😉 It is rough to figure out where to fit the pieces of the puzzle into the day. I feel like if it were me though, I’d try to do indoor work in the middle (heat) of the day. LOL!

  16. Quinn,
    I stumbled across your blog via Pinterest by God’s design. I needed to read this. My year has been upside down with having a baby and pursuing homeschool for my middle two children (I have four children: 8 mo, 4 years, 6 years and 12 years). My twelve year old doesn’t want to be homeschooled (yet!) and because I missed so much in trying to make homeschool like public school and set that bar so high, I allowed everything else to fall by the wayside (aside from getting some chickens)! I usually have a garden for the summer, and wanted to expand to a winter or fall garden for the sake of our growing family. This year in particular, I had no spring garden as well bc I had a baby and was preparing for homeschooling. It was just not what I had planned on any front, but I DO believe that God intended for us to live a “simple” life. I feel its my duty to teach my children about God and raise them up in the way they should go (not the school system), and also about how to be self-sufficient, and yet I have been so frustrated on how to manage that! This post brought me back to reality. My expectations of how I should be “scheduling the days” for us is ridiculous! I’m going to take this year to get back into the swing of things and quit all expectations. I, like you, think that as long as I get to teach my children about the Lord, we pray over everything, we learn something about the Father, our day is not without loss. I must remember that, and get on with the other parts of life: what homesteading we can do now and possible future homesteading. Thank you so much for this post! It greatly encouraged me!

    1. Though we’d like to think so sometimes, and though we might go crazy trying, we simply can’t “do it all.” Thank you so much Kristen for sharing how this has helped you! Hearing that I’m not the only one who has this struggle is an encouragement to ME! Blessings on all that you put your hand to! Quinn

  17. This is an amazing post. My son just turned 2, and while I hear about people doing book work with there 2 year olds I can’t imagine. My son just wants to run, and play, and explore nature. It is encouraging to be shown others who believe in each child in a way that they will enjoy and flourish. I will keep this in mind as he approaches the age he would approach traditional schooling age.

    1. Yeah, I can’t imagine it either. Though I used to do some stuff with Jared when he was a toddler, I’ve observed with my younger children who I don’t have large chunks of time to sit and drill them on their alphabet, numbers, colors, shapes etc… not only have they eventually learned it without my help, but I find that in many ways they are more independent thinkers, much more competent younger, and hit all the informational milestones anyway. So go with your gut and raise /educate your boy the way YOU think is best for HIM. No one knows him like you do! Blessings!!

  18. Such an eye opener! I’m not to that place yet (as my child just turned two and at this time I am still having to work outside the home) but this is an amazing article for a wanna be homesteader and home educator! 🙂 We are just starting out and diving in with goats, chickens and a garden this year on our almost 2 acres. I had never thought outside of the Aug – June box so thank you for this article! I am so glad I found your blog!

    1. Well if I can save one future home educating mama from guilt & craziness I’ll consider it a post well worth the writing! May God bless your endeavors!!

  19. I love this. We too homeschooled our kids, now both married with children of their own. We used Raymond and Dorothy Moore as our guides and it seems somewhat similar to Charlotte Mason. The first book we read of theirs was Better Late Than Early. It set the tone for us. God bless as you raise these little people for His kingdom.

  20. Thank you for sharing this. I’m due with my sixth in September. Yes. Right in the middle of harvesting and canning and right before everything fall brings.

    Last year was our first on almost an acre and we dove right into trees and garden and chickens. We school year around already and I’ve found myself wondering recently how to do this next season better than the last. Is all too much!

    I love your model and I think I will try something similar. Definately not starting the new year in September… or even August for that matter! I love the idea of after frost!

    Thanks again!

    1. Congratulations!! I hope you’re feeling well and staying rested! Sounds like you have one busy fall ahead of you this year. I hope you’ve got a great team of helpers! 😉 How wonderful that you were able to do so much on your land last year- How exciting!! May your work be abundantly blessed! Take Care, Quinn

  21. Your schedule and methods are wonderful! We homeschooled in the suburbs but kept pretty much to our own schedule; our coursework included things like Domestic Science (housekeeping), Horticulture (gardening), Consumer Science (shopping and errands), Creativity and Innovation (playtime), and Humanities (art, music and lit). Religion was a natural part of everything we did. Once a child can read well he/she can learn anything they are interested in. Allowing (while guiding) a child to learn at their own pace and in their own way usually makes for a contented life long learner. You’re doing a great job! The fruits of your labors are not far away. Seeing our adult children progressing in life, competent, happy, and contributing to society is our best parental paycheck.

    1. Exactly Rozy! It’s wonderful that you were able to find such freedom in your home. What an encouragement for us as we move forward. Thank you!

  22. God bless you! This is a wonderful writing and I see here a wonderfully intuitive mom, teacher and provider for her family. Nothing of value and grounded truth ever comes easy and this says you see that. I wish you all the Lord’s blessings and bounty in your venture to raise and nourish a proper and sound family…. Lord, what a wonderful world this would be… if only more people thought this way!!!

  23. Having a set plan for the whole year would stress me out because each year is so different! I do not schedule any set time off throughout any year. This way, when I’m sick from pregnancy or need to take off after giving birth, I don’t feel like I’m behind because I took time off ‘for fun’. Sometimes, I take off completely (morning sickness). Sometimes, I try to keep up with at least reading and math (my kids hate taking off for too long) and add more in as life allows. I love doing school in the mornings but during the hot summers, I work in the garden until I can’t stand it and then we’ll tackle school. The schedule is ALWAYS changing and for someone as scheduled as I am, you would think that would kill me (and sometimes it does) but it is a challenge – keeps me on my toes 🙂

    1. See I don’t look at is as a schedule (August 30-June 2nd is more binding to me), I look at is permission to take the time off when I noticed I needed it last year. I would think that everyone’s yearly pattern for working school in would be different from mine.

      I can most likely keep to what I laid out because I’m fast running out of time to have a 2015 baby so postpartum wouldn’t interfere. And when it comes to morning sickness, I try to stay busier than ever so I don’t skip lessons. (For me throwing up only happens if I spend too much time thinking about it. Distraction and busyness when I’m not sleeping has been key.) That’s pretty much the biggest upheaval we have in our lives in a given year, and if I were pregnant, the schedule would look different. Were something else to come up, I skip that chunk and like knowing right where to jump back in.

  24. This is a wonderful post. Very encouraging. I really like your calendar and goals. I especially like that you say home education instead of homeschooling, you are right when you say that homeschooling brings preconceived notions and guilt. Thank you for being such an inspiration!

    1. So glad you found this encouraging Amy! I’ve dealt with so much guilt over they years because of it and hope I can spare others from going through the same.

  25. I LOVE your homeschool calendar!! We have homeschooled for 9 years but just beginning to grow more of our own food and raising animals. The calendar system you laid out is great! Thanks!!