Tips for Mixing and Matching In Your Homeschool
When I chose to begin homeschooling, my son was 4 years old. My mother was an elementary school teacher and I had grown up watching her plan, prep and teach all of my life.
Naturally, when I began to home educate, I thought turning my home into a miniature version of my mother's dreamy classrooms was the way to go. But this school-at-home approach turned out to be way too rigid for both my child and myself and we left it behind within the first year.
10 years, 4 more children, and many different kinds of homeschool philosophies, approaches, and cooperatives later, I can say with confidence that taking an Eclectic approach to homeschooling has served our family the best.
Eclectic Homeschooling is not an educational philosophy in itself. It's an approach to home education where parents mix and match curriculum, resources, and materials from different philosophies in a way that suits their needs.
If this kind of flexibility sounds likeyou, here are 5 ways you can started with Eclectic homeschooling today:
Tip #1: Educate Yourself on Different Educational Philosophies
There are many educational philosophies on the homeschool market. Each one began out of some particular need or gap that educators saw and aims to address a child's learning and growth in specific ways.
For example, Montessori is all about encouraging independence and enaging all of a child's senses while learning.
The Charlotte Mason philosophy emphasizes a literature-rich education with lots of living books and ample time spent in nature.
Waldorf puts a lot of attention on beauty in learning and is filled with focused activities for hand work, practical life skills, and artistic abilities.
By taking time to learn about each philosophy, and it's main components, you can get a better sense of the options that are out there and determine which ones might work best for your family's needs.
Tip #2: Identify How Your Child Learns Best
Just like our children's personalities can differ from one another, so can the ways that they learn. This is why one-size fits all curriculums can backfire big time -- they usually don't account for diverse learning styles.
Understanding how your child learns best is key to mixing and matching the right resources and materials for them. While children are unique and can process information in a variety of ways, you can start by thinking which of the following four main learning styles they tend towards the most:
Kinesthetic learners benefit from lots of physical activity and movement while learning.
Visual learners absorb information best through images, videos, charts, graphs and maps.
Auditory learners soak up information by listening and tend to do very well with audiobooks, lectures, storytelling, and oral directions.
Tactile learners need to use thier hands to help them understand concepts so they often want to use physical manipulatives, create hands-on projects, and/or build models to solidfy conceptual understandings.
Tip #3: Curate Materials That Match Your Family's Needs
This is probably one of my favorite homeschooly things to do.
By curating resources and curricula, you can tailor your family's education to fit their learning style, interests, depth of learning, and needs for flexibility or rigor.
What might this look like? In my house it meant:
Using a Montessori inspired math curriculum because my tactile child needed to "play" with the concepts before he could do equations on paper.
Diving into a Classical science curriculum because other curriculums just didn't give my children the hands-on projects or depth of learning that they enjoyed.
Filling our house with lots of living books (a la Charlotte Mason) because it helped my auditory learner connect better with our History studies.
Spending years exploring Charlotte Mason unit studies because they allowed my kinesthetic learners the wide open spaces to run, jump, climb, play, and physically engage with the natural world that they were learning about.
Adopting a Waldorf Block Schedule at home because trying to do #allthethings every single day was way too stressful for all of us.
Tip #4: Be Open to Trial and Error
Mixing and matching resources will always involve some level of trial and error.
There will be times the materials you research, heard great reviews about, and pay top dollar for, won't actually suit your children's needs. Or maybe it works well for one child but not another.
Don't be afraid to let go of curriculums or resources that aren't working. There are plenty of groups online where items can be resold or passed along to families who want them so you can focus on finding the things that work for you.
Tip #5: Take Advantage of Community Resources and Outside Providers
Alhamdulilah, being a homeschooler doesn't mean that you always have to be the one teaching your child.
Instead of trying to do everything by yourself, you can:
Join community learning opportunities and co-ops (like Wildflower)
Sign up for classes at museums, nature centers, science centers, farms, or online
Trade off specific subjects with homeschool friends who have areas of strength that you don't have
Take advantage of city sponsored educational programs, team sports, and workshops
Outsource subject specific teaching to private tutors for targeted help
Don't be afraid to ask details about an outside provider's experience, teaching style, or curriculums they are using so that you understand exactly what your child will be getting and determine if it's a good fit before you commit.
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