Since making the decision to home school my children, currently ages one and three, I have been researching various methods of home schooling. Over the next few weeks, I’d like to share with you some of the benefits I’ve seen in each of those methods. If you are considering home schooling, this may help you decide where to start. If you are already home schooling, this may provide you with some ideas to enhance what’s working well for you or re-work something that’s been a struggle. To see all posts in this series, please click the tag “home schooling methods.”
Human beings live by ritual.
You may think that you aren’t that rigid, but look at your morning routine. I, for example, hit the snooze once every weekday at 5:00. At 5:09 I begrudgingly crawl out of bed and hit the shower. By 5:30 I am getting dressed, and at 5:40 I am making oatmeal, putting the kettle on for a cup of Earl Grey, and taking last night’s clean dishes out of the drying rack. At 5:50 I’m slicing a banana for the baby and debriefing my three-year-old on the day’s schedule while he eats his oatmeal. At 6:20, we are in the car.
I really don’t have to follow this schedule. I could get breakfast started first or wake up a little earlier and go for a run. I could put the dishes away before bed and use those extra minutes to make something different for breakfast. But I don’t because I follow my habits.
Charlotte Mason emphasizes as much when she tells us that “What you would have the man become, that you must train the child to be” (Vol. 2, p. 15). Our habits form the undercurrent of our lives. Following a Charlotte Mason curriculum means establishing habits that tend toward what is healthy for mind, body, and soul, a mindset that I find very appealing both for myself and for my family.
