Earlier this fall, Mondays were my crazy-making day. They were the days I felt least productive, the most stretched, and the hardest pressed to home educate my brood effectively.
Why? Because the logistics of the day have me leaving the house at 7 a.m. to sprint Mary Hannah to class, spending the next hour at the Y working out, rushing back home to shower and get dressed, spending two hours blitzing through a school check list, choking down lunch before packing six kids into the van and heading out yet again. This run has me dropping Jack at the library for solo research time and accompanying three kids through music lessons. Then it’s back to the library with the youngest five, where we collect our holds and browse the shelves for roughly an hour. At the end of that jaunt, we head back home so that I can finish preparations for an early dinner to ensure that Christopher and Birdie get out the door for Youth Symphony rehearsal. When they’re gone, I got into the habit of collapsing into my reading chair and knitting mindlessly for the half hour or so available before it’s time to bathe the kids, read to them, and tuck them in.
And that, my friends, has been my Mondays for the past three months.
All business, no rest, and utterly dissatisfying. Worse than that, actually; more often than not I found myself ruminating on Mondays as proof of the fact that I am a big fat homeschool failure. Two hours of rushed instruction over the course of one whole day? How on earth will this younger set of kids ever learn anything?
Thankfully, as I’ve mentioned last week, I’ve finally come to a place where my perspective has shifted and my eyes have been opened yet again to the bigger picture of the life I’m living. Is Monday a day of going and doing? Yes. But is it a day of abbreviated education for my kids? Only if I insist it is. Consider today:
While I was gone at the Y, my kids helped their father with breakfast and chores in the house as well as on the farm. Home Economics, meet Life Skills.
While I showered, three of them practiced instruments while the other two built with Legos. We’ll call this Fine Arts.
We spent two hours together reading a chapter from both Winterfrost and Mary Slessor: Forward Into Calabar (affiliate links) before learning the background of “Oh, Come All Ye Faithful,” from Then Sings My Soul: 150 of the World’s Greatest Hymn Stories, then singing both the Latin and English translations. We discussed the Byzantine Empire, found key locations on a map, and watched a BrainPop segment on the Ottoman Turks. We also discussed Baroque Pastorales, and the kids listened to the Hallelujah Chorus while I put lunch on the table. That’s Literature, History, Geography, Vocabulary and more Fine Arts.
After lunch, we had an hour of music instruction. Clearly, this is Fine Arts day.
At the library, I read several picture books covering topics ranging from leaves and trees to desert animals to rhyming nonsense. Simon mastered a Thanksgiving reader, and we focused on the sight words “and,” “the,” “was,” “is,” and “are.” Phin and I counted how many books he was allowed to check out, and discussed greater than and less than. John Mark, Birdie, and Simon selected fiction for the week ahead as well as nonfiction with which to research their upcoming co-op presentations. That’s Language Arts, Science, Social Studies, Geography, and Math.
Back home, they spilled library books on the table while I finished dinner. John Mark and Birdie each did a math lesson, then they joined Simon in reading their presentation books. Simon picked peacocks, Birdie picked Theodore Roosevelt, and John Mark picked B-52 Stratofortresses. Phineas drew a picture of the Lego creation he had copied from his library book, then wrote his name on it and copied some of the text from instruction page. Math, Reading, Drawing, Writing.
After dinner, Birdie headed to Youth Symphony, and the remaining children chose their own pursuits. Phin and I worked on sounding out the words in a primer. There were chores, more reading, and then, finally, bed.
Told that way, it’s not a bad day of learning, is it? Lived that way, with the perspective that the happenings are not a distraction from my purpose, but rather a fulfillment of it, it’s a rich, fully satisfying day spent doing the things I love with the people I love.
It’s the same day. The same exact day. (Can you hear me marveling over this?) No miles shaved off the driving, no less coming and going. All that’s changed is how I’m seeing it and the place my heart is in as I go through my hours. This day’s work has been redeemed, without any actual modification at all. It’s gone from being my most dreaded day to being one of my favorites, from being one where I felt like the biggest failure to one where I feel like I’m serving my family well.
I used to know this, used to feel it all the time. Finally, I’m feeling it again, remembering how the rhythm of our life can be a nourishing feast for our children’s hearts, souls, and minds. A day’s work, reimagined for the beautiful thing it really is.