Loving and Learning in the Nest
Idea Nest- In 2020, you can get this preschool resource for free through the subscriber library. Learn more here.
Defending the Early Years- This is an organization that researches early years education. Most of their findings align with Charlotte Mason's perspective.
Do Schools Kill Creativity? Sir Ken Robinson's Ted Talk
Chaos is often the leading lady in our home, as many mothers with very young children can most definitely relate to. But with chaos comes rattled nerves, tears (mostly mine), and a home atmosphere that is better prepared for battle than for learning. For the last year or so, I've been recognizing the importance of routine. This simple little thing, that children tend to crave, might be the key to habit training in our homes.
When I sit down to tell you about the past year, my eyes can't hold back the tears. There was nothing tragic, and many could share their stories of far worse experiences. But almost everything that it contained was a struggle. There was the extremely explosive toddler, whom we realized had a Sensory Processing Disorder. The resulting therapy and work that we did with him drained us (me) to empty. There was the selling of our house, the buying of a new house, and the renovation that kicked us out of our home for five weeks (and is still going, ahem). And what I didn't prepare for was all the tears from little ones who were sad to have left their home, and didn't understand what was happening to their new one.
Through all of these circumstances, a common theme kept arising: we needed a routine.
My sensory guy desperately needed a routine so his little body could relax a bit and not feel the need to fight an overwhelming world.
With the chaos of moving and renovating and moving again, I craved a routine of happy mornings with my children.
Through blurry tears shed after losing the only home they'd ever known, my children needed a routine to show them that not so much had changed.
And yet, I couldn't give it to them. Our days were unpredictable and chaotic and far from easy. But, in all that time, God was changing my heart. I was learning and preparing for the day when the gift of the mundane would walk back into our lives. I was planning out our routines.
Related: The Complete Charlotte Mason Preschool Guide
Our habits require some kind of cue to set them in motion. The habit cue is why we accidentally turn off the lights when someone is firmly planted in the room- it's a habit to flip that switch when we walk out of that door! When our cues are completely shaken, then our habits crumble. I imagine that this is part of the reason why the last year was so challenging: we were without our routines, so all of those habits that we had worked so hard on had disintegrated into that thin Colorado air.
Related: Toddler Schedule for a Charlotte Mason Home
Habits need routines.
If you have been struggling to help your children, and yourself, develop good habits, but there isn't consistency in your day, then you probably feel like you're shoveling during a snowstorm. Habits are entirely repetitive, and if we don't repeat those habit cues for good habits, then they will probably quickly morph into bad habits.
When we follow routines in our day, the cues happen naturally. If everyone goes upstairs to clean their rooms after breakfast every day, there won't be so much of a fight. If the kids are used to playing independently outside for an hour while I work or rest, there won't be so much bickering. Establishing routines into our days when our kids are in their early years yields a high return of investment.
Related: Family Habits Meeting
All the while that I wanted to establish routines, but couldn't, I spent time planning them out. The first thing that I knew we needed in order to have healthy routines and habits was more time at home together. We needed fewer activities because good habits are seldom formed in the rush to get shoes on and get into the car.
After clearing our schedule a bit (and learning how to say "no" to some things, I thought about what our mornings should look like. What if everyone was really at peace, and if our home was filled with the sweet aroma of Jesus? I wrote a paragraph to describe it. This didn't factor in sensory meltdowns or teething toddlers, but I wanted to have a baseline of what I thought would be ideal.
With my paragraph in hand, I thought about all of the habits that might need to happen in order to have a morning like this. If we were to all sit together at the table for breakfast and morning time, we would need to work on our table manners. If the little boys were expected to play quietly during lessons, then we would need to work on the habit of being kind to each other.
Finally, I wrote out a routine that would help support the habits I knew we needed help with. Instead of letting the kids graze throughout the morning and eat when they woke, we'd wait and eat breakfast together so I could get everyone to the table simultaneously for our morning time. Before beginning lessons, I'd play with my little boys and model how to be kind to each other.
If you are struggling with habits in this season, try reevaluating your routines. Sit down and take the time to decide what might not be working. This simple little change could make a big difference in your habit training efforts.
Make sure to subscribe to My Little Robin's email list to get access to the subscriber library, It is full of great resources, including habit and routine planning worksheets.
If you are figuring out what habit training looks like during the early years, be sure to check out Habits for the Early Years: A Mother's Journal.
I don't have a Kindergartener this year, which you may or may not know depending on how long you've been reading this blog. I decided to wait to tell you about our Charlotte Mason Kindergarten year until after it was over to see how it went first.
Thankfully, it was a success.
I chose to put together an informal Kindergarten for my daughter, using resources that I pieced together in order to give her a playful year that had a bit more structure than what we had been doing before. My husband requested that I had some sort of plan, and my little girl begged to go to Kindergarten with her peers.
An informal kindergarten seemed like a good solution. You can read more about my thoughts on Charlotte Mason Kindergarten here.
Since my plan was to have a sweet, playful year together, I was very flexible. Some of the resources we used changed after we moved to a new area. Our math shifted a little after Miss H turned six, and we discovered some new resources that were a wonderful fit. If I hadn't been flexible and willing to change my original plan, then it wouldn't have been informal, I suppose. When a resource stopped feeling playful, we moved on. When H requested more of a challenge, we moved on.
Now that I can see the year in the rear-view mirror, I wanted to share the resources that we loved in case you are planning an informal Kindergarten year, too.
I've used affiliate links to share what worked for us in our Charlotte Mason Kindergarten.
Miss H had been begging to do math for years. Since I didn't want to use a curriculum at first, I planned on using different math manipulatives to play with and learn from. Each week, I put different manipulatives into our basket. Some of these were:
This was fun for a month or two, but soon she started craving even more. Thankfully, a wise mom recommended a book in the public domain for us:
The Arithmetic Primer by Frank Hall
This book was very helpful for developing Miss H's number sense. It is not a workbook, but focuses more on mental math. There were even some paper-folding exercises, that Miss H really enjoyed.
By the time we had fully explored to number 10, I felt that Miss H was read to move on. By this time, she had already turned six, so I chose to buy the math curriculum that I wanted to use our first year-
Wouldn't you know that as much as I've tried to protect my girl from the monotony of workbooks, in order to give her a rich and meaningful education, she ended up LOVING workbooks? She enjoyed completing the math workbook so much! I shared a little about my reasons for choosing Singapore Math here.
I started teaching Miss H to read last August, using the Reading Printable Packs in my shop. She really enjoyed the lessons, and had a good amount of words that she could decode when we were done. I then read simple, enjoyable books with her, like the Treadwell Readers and Frog and Toad, working on phonics patterns as the need arose. By her birthday in March, she was reading fluently. Note that you do NOT have to teach your 5-year-old how to read, but Miss H had been begging to learn for years.
Before our year started, I bought a set of McGuffey readers online, but we didn't enjoy them. I may jump into the second volume with Miss H this year.
For Bible, we continued reading our Egermeier's Bible Storybook that we started the year before. We also used Miss H's Awana's curriculum for scripture memory.
We bought Leading Little Ones to God, but found it pretty dry and repetitive. I think if it had been written with more examples rather than as a lecture, it would have worked better for us.
In March, we added The Homeschool Garden morning time plans. This was a great way to include all of the riches in our homeschool, as well as literature, scripture memory, and tea time. Honestly, if you are required by your state to teach Kindergarten, this would be a great option! It doesn't feel like a formal curriculum, but it covers much of what you would want/need to include in Kindergarten, except for reading instruction and math. We really enjoyed learning the hymns and folk songs. My three-year-old even participated, which of course made my heart sing!
Rooted Childhood is another resource that could probably suffice for your entire Kindergarten year. Each month of Rooted Childhood includes seven handicrafts, three recipes, stories, songs, and finger rhymes. This is the perfect amount of activities to do during the early years, and it's a sweet way to do "school" without really doing school 🙂 You can read more about this resource here.
We used Exploring Nature With Children half time for our informal Kindergarten. Instead of studying a new nature object each week, we began a new one every other week. We checked out books from the library, and read the poems included. Like the other resources mentioned, this one would be enough for an informal Kindergarten on its own. We're excited to start it again this year and study the items that we didn't do last year.
If you choose to do a formal Kindergarten with your child, no judgment here! Maybe your child will turn six after your local enrollment cut-off, you are required to have a formal Kindergarten, or you just WANT to. A resource to consider is the Kindergarten curriculum from Rebecca at A Humble Place. I have not used this curriculum, but have a dear friend who enjoyed it.
You have lots of options available should you choose to hold Kindergarten in your home. However, this time is precious! Loosen your grip on the to-do list, and hold tight to your growing child.
Starting up our homeschool year requires very little back-to-school shopping. Of course, I've been scouring book sales and sites for the past six months (full disclosure- since forever) to put together our curriculum. But buying shiny school materials and clothes is a right of passage that my children mostly miss out on. This year, in order to get everyone excited about what they'll learn or do, I bought each of my children a back to homeschool gift.
I am not a "buy my kids a bunch of things" type of person. They almost NEVER get toys beyond their birthdays or Christmas, unless they received a gift or some money from another family member. Their back to homeschool gifts had two purposes this year.
For my six-year-old, who started her first year of formal lessons last week, I wanted to make the first day of school special for her. Gifts often signify an important event or milestone, and being first grade is both of those things.
For my younger boys, I wanted them to feel included in our homeschool. Their learning is play, so I wanted to get them gifts that reflected the special season, the early years, that they're in.
I've used affiliate links to share back-to-homeschool gift ideas with you. You can read more about my affiliate links here.
Miss H received this beautiful bird bingo set, as we're learning about birds by using resources from Simply Charlotte Mason and The Burgess Bird Book for Children.
She was SO excited to receive this, and she wouldn't put it down for our "back to homeschool" pictures. We've played it several times together, and we've both enjoyed looking up the exotic birds, or celebrating the birds that live in our backyard.
I also bought these bird flash cards, which was not part of her back to homeschool gift, but she will be so excited to use them as we continue to learn about birds.
For my younger children, I wanted to get them open-ended toys that they could spend hours playing with. I posted a great deal on Magformers on Amazon Prime Day. I snagged it up, and then held onto it until our first day of school for E's back to homeschool gift.
E LOVES to build, and he often tells me, "I'm a creator, Mama." I wanted to encourage this creativity, and also give him something fun that he can do while his sister and I are working together.
This final back to homeschool gift is probably the most surprising. My littlest, almost two (already!) would much rather play with remote controls, brooms, or tools than toys. I thought long and hard about what to get him, and when I was in the store, it became blatantly obvious: this broom and mop set from Melissa and Doug!
There have been several occasions already this year where my little guy started to get fussy during lessons, so I handed him his broom and said, "Go sweep for Mama!" He happily obliges.
If this sounds like a back to homeschool tradition that you'd like to adopt, you of course aren't limited to my gift ideas. I've created a new section of my Amazon store filled with Back to Homeschool gift inspiration.
We've been preparing our son, three-and-a-half, for preschool at home for several months now, excitedly telling him how he's going to be preschool age and doing "preschool things." We did this, not because he will be starting something formal and serious in the fall with us at home, but because we wanted him to know that he is included. Homeschool is not just something for his big sister and me, it's a family event.
It's for this reason that I believe our early years homeschool will be much different the second time around.
With my first child, I tried to follow Charlotte Mason's advice for the early years very closely. We went outside for hours a day, gave careful attention to natural objects, practiced a foreign language, and read good books. All of these things were enjoyable and lovely, until my daughter started to crave more.
I added in some reading lessons and math games, at her request. I even pieced together a Charlotte Mason-style kindergarten for her, desperately trying not to be too formal.
For awhile, I missed the point.
The objective should not be to avoid formal lessons at all costs.
The point in delaying formal lessons is not to hold back an eager child, but to protect a reluctant one.
This time, I'm not going to feel guilty for following my little guy's lead. I'm not going to try to hold him back from learning when he's interested and ready. I will let him participate in lessons with his sister if he wants, in order to make him feel wanted and included. In Home Education, Charlotte Mason said that the younger siblings will want to join in-- and to let them.
“There is no distinction between big and little; the latter love to follow in the wake of their elders, and, in lessons or play, to pick up and do according to their little might.” Home Education, page 45
This time around, we're going to spend much more time inside. With big sister doing her first year of lessons, we just won't be able to pack up and get into nature as much. We will, however, spend a lot of time in our backyard, holding lessons on a blanket beneath our apple tree.
This time around, I'm not going to stress so much about the books that I read. The bulk of the books read will be for his sister, and I chose them so that he might listen in and enjoy them, too. I won't have hours a day to sit and read to him, like I did his sister when she was younger. But, the ideas will still fill our home and surround him in truth, beauty, and goodness.
This time around, I will not worry so much about social development. All of those "what about socialization" questions had me worried before. We spent lots of time with homeschooling groups, even before we were homeschooling. This time around, I see that my three-year-old is socially developing quite well, and that spending time with his siblings has been the best social development possible for him.
This time around, I'm going to worry a little less about what other people think, and focus more on what the Holy Spirit has for our family. In the past, I too often made decisions based on what I was "supposed" to do rather than what I was called to do. In our Charlotte Mason preschool this time around, I'm learning to pray and trust rather than discuss and worry. I will give myself a little more grace, knowing that my children are always learning, just through the life we have together.
And for these reasons, I know my little guy will be off to a great start.
