Relaxed Schooling

I had a question from a reader about exactly how we do relaxed school in our home.

I started to read your posts about relaxed homeschooling and love them!  I like what you quoted about “we can fit home education into our life rather than our life around home education” too…. was wondering if you could share what a typical day looks like for you?  How much book work do your oldest two do? 


Thanks for the question Ann-Marie and thanks for reading!

We stick pretty close to the 4 R’s, which for us include Religion, Math, Reading, and Writing.

Religion ~ we say a decade of the rosary, talk about the mysteries of the day, and read a chapter from Faith and Life.  We find different ways to mark feast days too.  I am looking into starting The Great Adventure Bible Study in the fall.

Math ~ the older kids, 4th, 2nd and 1st, do one math lesson each day.  They do their lessons mostly independent of me, especially my 4th grader.  My 4th grader is using Horizons and the other two use Math U See

Reading ~ Jacob reads for 30 minutes per day, right now we are using the booklist from Robinson Curriculum.  Jonah reads to me from some of the various easy readers that we have and Sarah does the same, although I am currently trying to transition her to short chapter books.  She reads independently for 15 minutes per day.  Each has a phonics lesson too.

Writing ~ Jacob is just getting into the writing program from the Institute for Excellence in Writing, Jonah and Sarah are doing short copy work lessons in their handwriting books.

Everyday we all sit together to read whatever family read aloud we are doing, usually one chapter is all.  Then we read the Five in a Row book we are on for the week.  We will often read a few go along books throughout the week as well.

We do history once per week and geography once per week, which mainly consists of more reading.

This schedule leaves us lots of time to be outside, work on projects, chores, and free play.  Particularly in the younger years, I believe children are always learning and I don’t feel the need to create lessons for everything.

Here are some more items that have been helpful to me:

For us Five in a Row has been a great way to dig into a book, but in a relaxed manner.  We can do as much or as little as we want depending on our interest in the book.  I could go on all day about how much we love the books we have read from FIAR.  We have gone through almost all of volumes 1 & 2, and I just ordered volume 3.

Living Montessori Now ~ a great post on their definition of relaxed education.  The part I love the most is that her children are grown.  I appreciate the perspective of a homeschooling mom who has truly been there and done that!  Very helpful and encouraging.

Unit Studies are a great way to delve into any kind of subject your children may be interested in.  Here is a post on how to create unit studies.  I think unit studies can be a very relaxed way to investigate a topic. Check out books, a movie or two, throw in a craft or cooking project and you will be amazed at how much your children retain and have fun in the process.

A word on arts and crafts, if you have been reading my blog for any length of time you know I’m not big on elaborate crafts.  Not that I think there is anything wrong with them at all, I just don’t usually have the time or the patience for them!  I tend to favor Charlotte Mason’s view on crafts.  She thought many of the cut and paste things were sort of a waste of time and very much encouraged handicrafts.  I will admit the handicrafts can seem a bit harder to incorporate, but that is what I prefer.  In short, I don’t feel that my kids are ruined forever because I don’t have some sort of craft lined up each day.  I relieved myself of that guilt a long time ago!

These are just a few ways we have really made homeschooling an enjoyable journey for our family!

I am linking up with Works for Me Wednesday