One question we always get when people find out we homeschool is “How do you pick your curriculum?”

The process has evolved for us.  When we first started homeschooling, we got a boxed curriculum that came with instructions and lesson plans.  I literally just opened the box and got started.  As you may have read in our Edwards Homeschooling Life post, we eventually figured out that workbooks, textbooks, and boxed curricula don’t work well for the learners in our family.  We slowly started moving toward more hands on activities while still keeping a few workbooks around.  Then, eventually, we arrived at our current method that involves zero workbooks.

If we don’t use workbooks or worksheets, then what DO we use??  Well, we use a lot of technology, field trips, hands on activities, and reading books.  We have found a lot of success in doing one unit study per semester.  Most of our school subjects will revolve around the unit study topic.  So, for example, this past semester, we did a unit study on birds.  Birds were involved in all 8 of our required subjects.  (Maryland has some of the more stringent homeschooling laws.  We are required to meet with a county school official twice a year to provide proof of sufficient instruction in the following areas: Science, Language Arts, Social Studies, Math, PE, Health, Music, and Art.)

Before each semester, I take a few hours to sit down and plan out our unit study.  I usually break down that unit into 12-14 weeks and we cover one part of the topic per week.  So for birds, our weekly lessons covered: Intro to birds, what birds eat, anatomy of birds, types of beaks, species we see in our backyard, our state bird, our national bird, birds of prey, nests, feathers, migration, birds’ contribution to nature, and birds’ contribution to human society.  We watch youtube videos, read books, go on field trips, do hands on activities, and search google for information on each topic, weekly.  This semester, we were also fortunate enough to do zoom activities with friends who were studying birds along with us.

I know what you’re thinking….“That all sounds like fun, but how do you incorporate all the subjects in your unit study? What do birds have to do with math?!”  Well, I’ll give you a brief rundown of how we fulfilled each subject with birds:

Science: This one is pretty self explanatory.  We studied nature, anatomy, science of flight, etc.  We built birds’ nests, studied feathers, observed birds in our backyard, went on bird watching expeditions, dissected owl pellets, and the list goes on.  

Language Arts: This is fulfilled slightly differently for each child depending on their grade level.  The gist of it is that they read books about birds, used google to read websites, kept journals about field trips, and we had a living google doc for each child in which they would summarize each weekly topic.  The requirements for what was required in the writing assignments varied based on grade and skill level.  Obviously, the 7th grader was expected to write more and use better grammar than the 3rd grader.  Likewise, the 3rd grader had to do more than the 1st grader.  We love utilizing google docs because it gives live feedback of grammar, spelling, etc while the child is typing.  Plus, there’s the added bonus of me being able to be in the document while they are typing and I can provide immediate feedback on the doc, even if we are in different rooms of the house. 

Social Studies:  This is where we start to get a little more creative, but it’s not a stretch at all. Birds have contributed to the history of human society in so many different ways, it’s easily explored. (specifically when you look at the World Wars)  However, we also visited the history of the birds themselves.  Things like why the Bald Eagle became the National Bird and why it is a protected species.  We also worked on geography while learning about different birds and the regions of the world they live in.  We practiced even more geography skills by mapping out migration paths of different species of birds. We also got some “incidental” history of our surrounding area while visiting different parks to bird watch.  Many of the best bird watching locations are also in a historic location in Maryland. 

Math: Math is definitely where I needed to get my creative juices flowing.  We learned about the theory of lift and Newton’s laws of motion.  We tracked, tallied, and graphed the types of birds we saw in our backyard.  We compared and contrasted a couple different state birds. We measured wing spans and compared those lengths to our arm spans and things in our environment.  We also measured and built a “replica” of an eagle’s nest out of blankets and pillows in our house.  However, knowing that there are some basics of math that can’t always be applied to birds, we supplemented with the online math game, Prodigy, which the boys LOVE, so they don’t feel like it’s “school.” We also did a lot of cooking which is a great way to apply and reinforce multiplication/division and fractions. 

PE, Health, Music, and Art: In Maryland, we are required to show 30 minutes of physical activity per week. Our boys are involved in organized sports, so this is already fulfilled for them.  However, we also do nature hikes and bike rides while bird watching. Health was fulfilled by looking at what birds eat and how it compares to what we eat. It also included looking at the anatomy of a bird and how it was similar or different to human anatomy.  Music was a fun one…we studied different bird songs and tried to mimic them. And last but not least, art included building nests out of materials from the backyard, drawing birds, coloring pictures of birds, and other similar activities. 

So, now you know how I plan out our school curriculum, what does our school day look like? We have a more relaxed learning environment. We spend 2-3 hours per day working on actual school work as a group.  The rest of our day is structured in an intentional way so that the kids get more “school” without knowing they are “doing school.” The kids help out in the kitchen, a lot. Not only do they get life skills, but they follow recipes, so they get practice with reading and following instructions.  Plus, there’s an added element of chemical reactions when cooking.  The kids are allowed to watch certain channels on YouTube that have educational content.  They play a game called “Adventure Academy.” Plus they are constantly asking our Google Hub questions and learning how to research information on their own.  Our entire day revolves around learning, but in a fun way.  We fully believe that the world is a classroom, you just have to be open to learning in non traditional ways.

So, another big thing you should know about the Edwards family, one thing that defines us, is that we are a homeschooling family.  We have homeschooled for approximately 10 years.  We felt the calling to homeschool when JJ (our 12 year old) was a young two year old.  It’s not something I ever thought I’d do.  I thrived in public school and found no issue with the school system. Homeschooling was not ever a thought that crossed my mind.

I grew up with a gymnastics teammate who homeschooled, but outside of that one person, I didn’t know anyone else who did not attend a school building…until we lived in Miami, Florida.   We attended a church that had a large homeschooling community. It was my first real introduction to schooling outside of the brick and mortar schools.  Meeting these families definitely changed my perception of homeschooling, but it still wasn’t something I thought would be for us.  Then, something started to change in my heart.  I can’t explain it, but I can only describe it as a calling from God.  Suddenly, I knew I was meant to homeschool our children. The confirmation came when Jason mentioned that he had been thinking about homeschooling, as well. There’s no way to describe how it feels when you just KNOW.  But when it happens to you, you realize you can’t question it, you only have to follow it. 

It didn’t matter that I wasn’t an educator.  It didn’t matter that I didn’t go to school for early childhood development.  It didn’t matter that I had ZERO experience with curricula development.  It didn’t matter that my area of expertise in any kind of teaching was very specific to sports, gymnastics in particular. It didn’t matter that Jason had a very demanding job that had him traveling 200+ days per year, so I’d be on this journey, mostly, alone. What DID matter was that I knew this was God-ordained.  Even though I didn’t understand it, I knew He would make a way for this journey, despite my shortcomings and anxieties.   

We were already friends with many of the families who were successfully homeschooling their kiddos.  So, I started paying closer attention to how they managed. I asked questions. I researched (remember how I told you that I love an abundance of information?  Yeah, I probably spent way too many hours researching how to homeschool a preschooler).  A friend of ours used to be a Montessori teacher and gave us lots of valuable resources and information. Then we embarked on our voyage of “homeschooling” for preschool.  Over the next ten years, we were blessed with three more babies, the military moved us across the ocean…twice…and then twice more within the US. All the while, we continued and thrived on this homeschool adventure. However, this has been an evolution of learning and growing and being flexible.  Some of the things we did at the beginning, we no longer do.  And teaching methods I never thought would work for us are now the very things that DO work. 

Let me explain how we got to where we are in our homeschool lifestyle.  

Somewhere around year 4 or 5 of homeschooling, we realized that JJ was having some struggles. When we lived in Germany, he did attend German Kindergarten and Vorschule (PreK and Kindergarten equivalent) in addition to us homeschooling with an American curriculum at home.  His German teacher was the first to voice her concerns. We chalked it up to the language and culture difference, but, erring on the side of caution, we had JJ evaluated by the military child development professionals and his local German pediatrician.  Both said he was performing on the lower end of average, but since he was a late summer birthday, his younger age could contribute to why he was just a little behind his peers and classmates. 

I took this as confirmation that everything was totally fine and continued life as usual.  What mother wants to acknowledge that her child was struggling in anything?  Then a year or so later, we moved back to the US and the contrast between JJ and his peers was becoming more and more apparent, especially in academics.  It wasn’t getting easier for him, even though we were back in an English speaking country. Reading was a HUGE struggle for him.  Learning phonetic sounds was easy enough, but learning how to apply those sounds to the rules and blends of language was incredibly tough.  Anytime he would come across a new word, he would sound it out, painstakingly, one phoneme at a time.  Then, if he came across that same word just a few sentences down the page, we would start the process all over again. His reading comprehension was suffering because he was focusing so hard on decoding each and every word that he was missing the content of the material. 

Listening comprehension was tougher too.  Knowing that reading comprehension was a struggle, I started reading his material to him.  After all, if the information is learned, does it matter how it’s learned?  I realized that he was only retaining key points from listening to my reading.  He started to notice that he wasn’t performing the same as his peers.  He started to get frustrated that his younger brother was answering the questions I was asking him, but he didn’t know the answers to.  His confidence was starting to suffer. 

Then on the other hand, some things were incredibly easy for him.  Math, for example, was something that he grasped easily, particularly when applied to life situations he understood.  At 4, he could easily subtract Metro stations while riding on the Metro in Paris and tell us how many more stops until we were getting off the train.  He would tell you he didn’t know 800 divided by 4 when it was on a worksheet, but when he saw an advertisement that said “Only $800 for brand new tires on your vehicle”, he quickly deciphered that each tire was only $200. He was spectacular at recognizing patterns and had an incredible ability to memorize and replicate things he could visually see. We could give him a lego set that was already built, allow him to study it, then take it all apart and he could rebuild it without any photos or direction. It was phenomenal.  

Realizing that he was a strong visual and applied learner, we started tailoring our homeschool lessons to visual and hands-on activities.  The first epiphany I had with this was when we were learning about Ancient Rome. Instead of just listening to the story about the fall of Rome, we acted it out.  Telling him that the borders of Rome’s empire grew too large to adequately defend made no sense to JJ.  However, it clicked for him when I placed a towel on the ground and told him not to allow anyone else to step on the towel.  Then I added another towel, and another, and another.  Eventually he had 10 towels on the ground and he had to keep his brothers and I off of all of the towels.  We easily conquered the towel empire and JJ understood the lesson..and bonus: his younger siblings did too! This was the beginning of our unique approach to group homeschooling without workbooks.

Long story short, we ended up having more evaluations from developmental pediatrics and neuropsychology. We came away with a diagnosis based on IQ testing. It was tough. I felt like I had been slammed into a brick wall. The neuropsychologist wasn’t very gracious and all but shamed me for homeschooling while encouraging us to enroll JJ into public schools. But, God, in all His wisdom, had already set us up for success. We had a fabulous developmental pediatrician who was incredibly supportive of our schooling methods. She was actually very surprised to receive the report from neuropsychology. She couldn’t believe the report matched the child she knew in person. She attributed his success to the flexibility homeschooling had allowed us in JJ’s education. She explained that children she followed in JJ’s situation, almost, always fell through the cracks. He has a stellar and uncanny ability to watch situations and mimic behaviors to make it seem as though he understands what is going on, even if he doesn’t. She said, unequivocally, that he is not a child who fits into the public school box. His diagnosis is one that doesn’t automatically require services, and that, in her experience, if services did end up being given, they were usually too late and it was difficult to catch up. She encouraged and affirmed everything we had already been doing.

Remember those homeschooling families we were friends with in Miami? One of them also happens to be the mom of a child with special needs. She is the most gracious and caring woman and never once hesitated to pray me through the hardest days of discovering JJ’s unique learning style and abilities. She is the proof and confirmation that God had ordained this homeschooling expedition long before we knew it was something we’d do. She is the reason homeschooling caught our attention. Her grace and faith is the rule by which we measured ourselves early on. She probably doesn’t know the impact she has had on our family. But we know God put her in our lives for a reason. He predestined our friendship knowing that one day, we’d have a need for a flexible, hands-on, interactive school environment. It never ceases to amaze me how he orchestrates our lives and fills our needs before we even know they exist. And that is something to be thankful for!