Category: Homeschool Days

Where to even begin….

Fifteen plus years ago when Brian and I got married? That’s probably a good place to start. {wink}

The truth is, I remember having conversations with Brian when I was pregnant with Elliott about what “school” should look like for him. But soon, those discussions revolved around questions like, “What should EDUCATION look like?” “Who should be responsible for educating one’s own child?” “How has education changed over the centuries and what is good about that change and what is problematic?”

The education journey for our children has been an incredible one over the years, and it is so clear that Christ has been gently and strategically guiding us through it. He surrounded us with like-minded believers who have spurred us on and encouraged us and helped cast vision for us. All in the same year, as we were really searching for how to educate our children best, God led us to the best Christian classical community as well as our church, which is filled with homeschooling families who generally adhere to the classical model of education. We believe that education without Christ is not true education; we believe that the education of our children falls solely on our shoulders as their parents; and we believe that education within community can help us see our blind spots and can balance out our areas of weakness.

One evening, in February of 2023, I was in the kitchen of my dear friend’s home along with Brian and our pastor and his wife. We (the ladies) were in the kitchen putting the final touches on dinner and we were discussing what the next steps would be after our children graduated from the one-day-a-week Christian classical school that we had been a part of. And I said, “Why don’t we start our own school?” We threw around ideas and brainstormed some things, but truth-be-told, I’m not sure anything would have come out of that conversation had our pastor not approached Brian and me the following day at church and said, “Hey, I think starting a school is a great idea. Will you both put some thought into what that would look like?”

After months of discussion and prayer, and hours upon hours of reading laws, Brian and I had a plan to move forward in August of 2023. We gave our proposal to our pastor and, after many more months of discussion and tweaking and brainstorming, Brian and I launched a school for our church in September 2024!

Brian and I FIRMLY and PASSIONATELY believe that education begins as a baby. Education does not begin at age 6 when a child is required to attend school. We have long encouraged parents to think about training and educating their children as babies. (Education is so much more than simply reading, writing, and arithmetic; the foundation of character, academics, and love for the Lord all begins in those earliest years.) Thus, our school is open to enrollment for babies. We love the concept of a one-room school house, and that is generally how we have set it up, with a few “break-out” groups throughout the day to best meet the needs of the toddlers and middle school/high school students. All of the moms stay throughout the day and help–the babies generally stay with their mamas or get passed around to eager arms. We are working on stretching the self-control of those darling 2 and 3 year olds by sitting for short spurts with the big group, but they have tons of time to play.

And since I don’t think we will ever have a website open to the public, I can share its name here: it is called Via Bona Academy, or The Good Way Academy (Via is pronounced vee-yuh). We named it straight from the Latin vulgate in Jeremiah 6:16a.

Thus says the Lord: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.”

The Good Way–This is what we are always seeking as we educate our children, and now we get to “formally” do that in community with our church family.

The response from our church families was enthusiastic, and there are 9 families involved in our school this first year. We have just over twenty children, ranging from toddlers to our oldest student at age 16, plus the three babies that get to join us for the day. We have a very small church, so actually almost every family with elementary-aged children has joined. Though we have been so incredibly blessed by our former school community, there truly is nothing like the community of our church body and we are so grateful!

We meet together one day a week. During that time we work together on a hefty load of memory, we review and discuss the sermon from the previous week, and we study history, nature, and music. In the afternoon, the toddlers through elementary students have a watercolor class, while the middle and high schoolers have a Greek class and a Logic class. Brian and I are both teaching in addition to overseeing and our kids also have leadership roles as all the “big” kids are there to love, support, and encourage the younger ones. It’s truly beautiful.

All that to say, the four of us had a “First Day of School” together for the first time ever!!

To say it has been an enormous undertaking to get this going would be an enormous understatement. But, at the risk of sounding cliche, the joy of seeing so much fruit in such a short amount of time far outweighs the months of time we have spent on this endeavor. The joy of homeschooling with so many members of our church body has truly been a taste of heaven on earth. The joy of getting to encourage parents to disciple, love, train, and educate their children unto Christ has been so sweet. It has felt, in every way, that Christ’s wind is at our backs as so many pieces of this have come together seamlessly. Brian and I had no idea when we married that encouraging parents in these endeavors would be such an integral part of what we were made for, but I’m pretty sure God knew.

This little lady is turning into a lovely young woman. She was asked to join our church’s adult choir even though she was still 11 (13 is usually the minimum age) and she is having the time of her life. She is definitely a “little mama” at church, where you will almost never catch her without a baby in her arms.

And this young man is growing into just that–a man–little by little each day before our eyes. This past summer, he sent out 150 letters to the houses in our neighborhood offering to work for them mowing lawns, weeding, picking up dog poop, or any other job they had a need for. He developed a fairly decent cliental base and a good reputation, and he had steady work all summer. He was using Brian’s equipment, but was using a portion of his earnings from each job to pay for the equipment. By September, he owned the equipment outright, had bolstered up his savings account, contributed a significant amount of money to church, and had quite the cash flow as well. We think he is off to a good start learning how to make money and ultimately, Lord-willing, provide for a family one day!

Thank you for catching up with us by reading about our latest journey as a family, and for journeying with us from afar! Love to all of you!

You guys. We start school in two days and I haven’t even posted about their last day from last year. You are probably wondering if my kids actually passed their last grades. The kids had their last day at their “out school,” we did two days of exams and then had their End of Year Performance and then we went out of town for a month. We got home and still had about two weeks of minor things to finish up. Then our days were so full that I have not had time to officially “close out” our year. We had a super full year, an even fuller summer, and yes, it is true–this blog post is BETTER LATE THAN NEVER! 🙂

To sum up our 2022-2023 school year: The kids were introduced to the study of ancient history and the world of mythology and ancient writings–all from a biblical worldview. We enjoyed many wonderful books together and had another very sweet year with our little learning community. Since our school only goes through 6th grade, this was Elliott’s last year attending. It is bittersweet, as most “ends” are. He will miss the school and his friends but is also very much looking forward to what’s next.

Our studies included: ancient history; physical science; Vermeer, Turner and Homer; Kipling, Hughes, and Stevenson; Schumann, Tchaikovsky, and Brahms. For nature studies we focused on pond life, birds and wildflowers. They memorized Genesis 1:26-27, Colossians 1:15-20, Luke 1:46-55, Habakkuk 3:17-19, and Proverbs 2:1-10 (and tons more Scripture for church, but these were their school verses). They studied some “Ancient Civilization” countries–several from Europe, Africa and Asia. For the first time in many years I just could not keep track of all of the books that they read. I tried, lost the list multiple times, and just couldn’t keep up with the hundreds of books. I’m a little sad because I really do love noting which books we thoroughly enjoyed but this year was SO FULL and busy that it just didn’t happen. However, I can list a few of our favorites: We did enjoy children’s versions of both the Iliad and the Odyssey, The Cat of Bubastes, The Golden Goblet, The Bronze Bow, Boy of the Pyramids, A Single Shard, Where Mountain Meets the Moon, A Triumph for Flavius, and Detectives in Togas. We finished the fifth book in a series we have thoroughly enjoyed the last couple of years called “Among the (Pond, Forest, Night, Meadow, and Farmyard) People.” They are sweet little stories about animals that have great morals. The kids both performed in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. They LOVED this play! Elliott was Don Pedro–one of the leads. He had 87 lines and did a wonderful job despite being sick for the performance! He got to wear a mustache and I think that experience will leave him clean shaven for the rest of his life ;). Though Selah only had a few lines as Ursula, she hit the ball out of the park and her character truly shone through her. At the end of the year, as is tradition, the kids each studied a person from ancient history, dressed up as that person and gave a speech from his point of view. Selah was Julius Caesar and Elliott was Hannibal. The kids continued with their Latin study this year and, of course, progressed with their math curricula. At the beginning of the year we hosted a “pond day” with our church homeschool group. The kids prepared little presentations and talked about the flora and fauna that we have seen in and around our pond. They taught our church friends a song about vertebrates and invertebrates, facilitated a time where friends could place an animal or plant life where it belongs on a huge mural we had drawn of the pond and surrounding area, read picture books and then I led a watercolor lesson for the group. Then, everyone jumped into the pond to play! Pond Day was definitely a highlight of our year! Winter Market was, of course, another huge highlight. Oh! And during the End of the Year Performance, Selah was one of five kids selected to sing a solo. It was her first solo! She did very well. A couple other things that stand out from this school year–we all wrote limericks and that was a hoot. I should post those below. The kids also really enjoyed doing research papers this year. It’s Elliott’s third research paper and one of his favorite parts of school. He wrote about fish and Selah wrote about hedgehogs. It was such a special and fun year of learning!

Here is a collage of photos from events with the kids’ classmates:

And here is a collage of photos from the Pond Day we hosted for our church homeschool friends:

One of the things we absolutely love about our church is the multi-general aspect of it. It really is like one big family–we aren’t segregated into age groups for events like these. The youth in our church are youth that I want my children to model after. They are strong in their faith and kind, and always take the littles under their wings. Pond Day was no exception as the big kids took the little ones on boat rides and everyone enjoyed a lovely day together!

Here are our limericks for your enjoyment:

(If you haven’t heard, Selah actually has a hedgehog named Jill!)

Alright, and now it’s time for their end of the year photos and papers! This will possibly be Elliott’s last year of drawing first and last day self-portraits. I think he went out with a bang! Neither of the kids particularly enjoy drawing themselves but they also LOVE flipping back through their old ones. So I told Elliott he could be done now that he’s officially in Junior High :). The kids also complain every year that there isn’t enough space to write down all the books they love. I suppose if they’re going to complain about something, that’s a good thing to complain about.

And now for my favorites…the compare and contrast from the first to the last day!

Way to go, kiddos! We did it! We had another rich, fun, challenging and filled-with-memories school year! Thanks be to God!

2020, a year that won’t be forgotten any time soon. And, like the Energizer Bunny, it just keeps going and going and going and…..

And so, it has gone on into another school year here with us. To tell you the truth, this is actually the best school year we have had yet. For that, I am exceedingly thankful and grateful to our gracious God!! I haven’t found myself saying that about very many things this year!!

This is our second year with our classical Christian community and so we are settling into a great routine. We also pulled back and have 4 home days this year instead of just 3 which has been GLOR-I-OUS. We finally have some breathing room and I’m very thankful for that. Our learning already has been so rich and fun and we are having a blast. We are very thankful that our very small one-day-a-week school has some liberty in making Covid decisions. Most of their day is usually held outside and they are obviously taking extra hand-washing precautions and things of the sort.

First order of business on the first day of school was their grade level bacon breakfast. Because, bacon. Apparently this is becoming a tradition.

I finally got smart and had the kids fill out all their own stats along with their self-portrait on the SAME PAGE…took me 5 years but I finally thought of it!!

And, the goofy pic. This picture on the right just cracks me up. Selah wanted to pretend like the stick was a piece of chalk and then she wanted to point to the chalkboard like a teacher would. Elliott, however, looks terrified. Perhaps he thought it was more like a hostage situation?!!???

Well happy 2020 school year to all and to all a good year!!

We had a fabulous school year. Really, it was just fabulous. And part of why I’m forcing myself to sit down and REMEMBER and reflect upon all of the goodness and loveliness and truth that transpired in the 2019-2020 school year is because I feel like we stumbled across the finish line a bit bloodied, a little bruised and completely exhausted. Although that may have been true, it is not a true reflection of the entirety of the year. So here I am, reflecting on the good :).

What a RICH year of learning we had!! Academically, spiritually, and emotionally we were ALL stretched and have come out stronger. Truly, this is the result of the richness and abundance of the grace of God in each of our lives. He is so merciful and good!! A friend of mine said to me this past year, “I don’t know if I have the patience to homeschool.” And I was VERY quick to respond with, “Well, neither do I!!!!” Homeschool, like any other facet of life, requires a full leaning and dependence upon God to make me like Christ. I am not patient in and of myself. I do not have the character to respond with kindness and truth in ALL of the MANY moments they are needed throughout the day. I do not even have the physical stamina many days to teach all day, keep the house in order and make sure everyone is fed and watered. But thanks be to God, when I am weak, He is strong. Truly. He has sustained us. And so with that disclaimer…here is a snapshot of our school year.

We studied the entirety of the Middle Ages and the kids learned 31 short songs that tell the story of the Middle Ages from beginning to end. We studied human anatomy. They made a million connections throughout the year between their own bodies and all they were learning. They each learned to write in cursive. They excelled in their math studies. They memorized 6 poems, 3 separate passages of scripture (10 verses each), 3 hymns and several different prayers. They became incredible artists, both with watercolor and pencil. They can identify (and draw and paint) 30 different birds, flowers and trees. We immersed ourselves in several of Shakespeare’s comedies and acted them out. We were neck deep in rich, beautiful, God-honoring literature. PEOPLE, these kiddos read 253 books JUST for school. Two-hundred fifty three. (Thanks be to the library!!!!) I did not dare to keep track of the dozens upon dozens of Boxcar Children, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys and myriad other books the kids read just for fun, but we did work together to write down each one they read that fell strictly in the “school” category…anything in the nature, history, science, math, composer, artist or literature arena. Oh, and Christmas. We had “Christmas School” which was awesome. The books composed of picture books and chapter books and anthologies. They were an essential component to their learning this year and brought such beauty and richness to every person, place, or thing we studied. The kids were introduced to the vikings and King Arthur and King Richard and Robin Hood and Joan of Arc. (Side note: because of Covid, we weren’t able to get our term 3 additional chapter and picture books from the library until May. So we had studied the Black death and the 100 Years War and Joan of Arc back in March, but they didn’t get to read the additional books for a couple months. So one day in May Selah was reading a book about Joan of Arc and she looked up with huge eyes and a gaping mouth and said slowly and carefully with shock, “Wait, Joan of Arc is a….GIRL?!!!” LOL, apparently she missed that minor detail when I was teaching that lesson!!) All that to say, it was such a rich and FUN year of learning. Literature-based learning is such a fantastic fit for our family.

So it was a full and wonderful year, but April and May were very, very, VERY challenging. Not because of Covid. Because of a battle with appendicitis for Elliott and some health issues for me it just made for a TOUGH last two months of school. In fact, because Elliott wasn’t feeling fantastic school dragged on until…the very end of July. But, he did it. We did it. God did it :). Elliott did take several weeks off for the most part but finally picked up his last assignment in July and got her done!

Well how was that for a long-winded start?

Last year we had a snow day on the last day of school, and this year was a Zoom day, like the rest of the world. Maybe one of these years we might actually have a REAL last day with our co-op friends… So now, for the pictures…

I set out to make the kids certificates like I did last year  and the program I use kept shutting down on me. After about 10 tries, I took the hint and gave up. But I did reflect upon the aspect of Elliott’s character that I wanted to acknowledge. He is learning how to overcome and be victorious in the Lord and trust that his way is not better than the Lord’s. (Whew. Talk about character building. I’m still learning that EVERY.SINGLE.DAY.) Elliott is extremely detail-oriented, so much so that one tiny detail (that isn’t as perfect as he wants it) can derail his entire day. This year was all about trying to gently but firmly help him overcome this tendency and it was HARD. The war isn’t over, but he’s won several battles and I’m grateful for God’s mercies to uncover this now in his life. There were several verses that we have up on little reminder cards for him, but the one that most marks his year is, “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 3:13b-14) SOOO thankful for God’s grace every single day to help Elliott press on rather than give up. And to help me press on and not give up :).

The kids took a basic art introduction class this year at their co-op and their very first and last assignment was to draw a self-portrait. Of course, the first one was without any instruction and they had about 30 minutes to look in a mirror and draw what they saw. Then they took several weeks of art classes at their co-op. However, because we were home the last few months, the challenging assignment of helping them learn how to draw and shade various aspects of the face and then draw a final self-portrait fell on yours truly. This would never have been an assignment I would have chosen to walk my 7 and 9 year old through, but alas, we survived. And the kids really did learn a lot about drawing and they are SO proud of their final products. And I have a lot more gray hair. Which is fine, because I heard gray hair is “in,” right?? Right???

Here is his first day self-portrait and his final self-portrait drawing (yes, the very last assignment that he finally finished this summer.)

Pretty awesome, eh? We snapped a photo (thankful for the tip of a closed mouth so we didn’t have to tackle teeth!), printed out the photo and each kid drew a grid with one inch squares on it. Then they drew the same grid on their own paper. Then they were able to just fill in what they saw in each little box. They erased the gridlines and then tackled shading and details bit by bit. 

I see so much “Mauss” in Elliott and his drawing, to me, highlights the Mauss in him even more!!

And now, onto our big girl…she had a wonderful year of learning. She brings so much laughter into our home. I am truly amazed that she hung in there with all of our lessons as a 6-7 year old. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the kids apart because their faces are almost always hidden behind a book, but the way you know it’s Selah is because she’s usually upside-down. And laughing. 🙂 For her, the biggest area of growth is to SLOW DOWN and take her time and pay attention to the details that Elliott so adores. They are quite the pair…for Elliott, I would have to set a time limit of 30 minutes for his assignments and for Selah I would have to encourage her to take the full 30 minutes to finish an assignment!! But she did an excellent job learning and completing her assignments this year. I worked hard to teach her to work on turning in quality work. She has come a long way in learning that the world itself was not coming to an end when I asked her to go back and re-do or add details to an assignment. 🙂

I love her little last day drawing. Look at her shirt! She took her time and drew all of those details!! And below is her first and last self-portrait! Oh my, I know her final portrait is just stunning but it’s her first day drawing that just tickles my heart to no end!!!! Look at all the details she found!

And now for the compare and contrast…drum roll, please!!

So…they sure grew, didn’t they?? Physically, emotionally, academically, spiritually. And the REAL question, and the question that I’ve been challenged with all year long, is…”How do you really measure growth?” Academically, is it REALLY done through standardized tests and weekly spelling tests? Can you really capture and record the full essence of learning through little bubbles that you fill in? This year we changed everything. And although the kids still have to take regular testing for the state, I did not use these types of tests to measure their learning. Instead, we had three sets of “exams” where they got to report and share all they had learned in the previous terms. They committed facts to memory instead of cramming them in for a test. We played giant memory games with all of the birds, flowers and trees we had studied. We played a version of “Catch Phrase” that I made up with all of the people from the Middle Ages we had studied in history. I handed them a picture and some notes of a Colorado flower and let them sketch, paint and jot notes of the flower all by themselves. They presented their songs and memory work to their grandparents. They read one of their favorite books out loud to their grandparents. They illustrated the poems they memorized and shared their copywork,  history and science narrations. I was absolutely tickled when, as a family, we were listening to The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and got to the part where it says, “And on she went for about thirty pages which, if she could have remembered them, would have taught her…how to give a man an ass’s head (as they did to poor Bottom)” and Elliott shouted out, “Mom!! It’s from Shakespeare!! Bottom!!!” It was a treat when one night at the dinner table Grandpa mentioned something about the Magna Carta and I asked the kids if they remembered what it was. Selah recalled the history song she had memorized about it weeks earlier and was able to tell what it was and how and why it came to be. Just recently, Grandpa made a poetry joke about being a “long fellow” and I asked the kids if they understood his joke. Elliott blurted out, “Henry Wadsworth Longfellow!” and then recited the poem they had memorized several months prior written by him. Then there was the time towards the beginning of the year that we were studying a bird who has “maximus” in its scientific name. I could see the gears turning in Elliott’s head as he said thoughtfully, “Maximus…maximus…I know that name. What’s the bird whose scientific name is gluteus maximus again?” So close, yet so far! 🙂 But truly…real learning, real joy in learning, real wonder and delight in learning, real connections to the real world learning took place this year. I am so grateful.

But really, most importantly, we all grew in our faith and our character and our love of God and hopefully the kids grew in their love of each other. Those are increments of growth that can’t be measured traditionally. I see buds appearing in so many ways but it will take years, if not a lifetime, to see the long-term fruit. So very thankful for another year to sow seeds in my children and water them diligently. So thankful for another year to trust the Lord to bear fruit in my children.

And though I am still bursting with so much more I could say, I will simply now say, “THE END!!!”