How We Homeschool

Each family is unique.
Each child is unique.
Each teacher is unique.

Not one method works for every school, teacher, or student. 

Why, then, would anyone adhere to one particular way, with only one particular approach?
For us: Sanity.  At our house, we need order of some sort.  A schedule, regimen, or routine to follow and adhere to, however loosely or strictly we like.

With this in mind, homeschooling methods and materials of all sorts have been explored in our home.
We carefully considered option after option.  Some approaches were easily dismissed.  Others intrigued, but didn't seem practical or cost effective were too expensive. 

While we used many resources to learn about methods and materials, my favorite resource is Cathy Duffy's 100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum.  Inside this one volume resource are explanations of methods and reviews of well known and some lesser known materials.  It is an ideal resource to begin the process of narrowing down options.

Finally, using this resource and many others, we chose three:

classical,

          

Charlotte Mason,

                  

and Heart of Wisdom. 

           


With the classical approach, we gravitate toward the chronological study of history, emphasis on learning to communicate with others, and critical thinking.  From Charlotte Mason, we learned about gentle learning, forming habits, and living books.  Heart of Wisdom is an amazing Biblical based learning style that combines the best of classical and Charlotte Mason, with a few other educational elements.

Though our homeschool leans toward a classical approach, we happily mix all these methods together in a way that works for us.  Which means we get put into the 'eclectic approach' box.  This is really no box at all, as it is the category where those who don't strictly adhere to any other method are grouped.  Which is fine by me, I have claustrophobic tendencies after all.

Tomorrow, our curriculum...

~ Dorie