a homeschool recipe

Thank you to Camilla of Bloom for sharing a homeschool recipe this week. Camilla is knitting, designing, photographing and loving the country life in Montana where she homeschools her four children. 

Camilla's Recipe

Our recipe for homeschooling is organic, it’s our daily life, 100% natural with no artificial ingredients- it’s healthy, and always fresh. It is also organic in the form it takes on a daily basis changing as needed...always for the better and allowing new possibilities. It has to be, with four children ages 13, 11, 9 and a 4 (a high school, middle, elementary and a preschooler)...No small task.

The library is an important resource for us. Besides books we learn so much from the videos like the Napoleon series to “everything” Attenborough. The library is our ticket for travel and exploration. In our house there is a lot of cooking and baking, the kids decide what they what to make, find the ingredients and set forth...or they make an appropriate groceries list accordingly. Lots of knitting and sewing.

We live in Big Sky Country so there is lots of room to roam, plenty of activities to do outdoors.

There are also household chores to be done every day, laundry, and vacuuming, pet care, shoveling snow, gardening, mowing the lawn, cooking and yes, keeping the bathrooms clean.

Nothing like life skills.

Unit studies work very well for us because of the different age groups we love to explore other countries and cultures “we live there” for a couple of weeks. A benefit of having different age groups is the “trickle down” effect- where the older helps the younger- sometimes it “clicks” easier too.

I am a firm believer of constructivism. I think that children learn so beautifully by themselves and can come to the conclusion of their questions without me cramming it down their throat. Researching by themselves allows for their own logical explanation/ answer that they can comprehend on their level. They often come up with topics and areas of study that they are interested in further exploring which is a huge benefit of homeschooling- they can make their own choices...and what is neat about that is it usually leads to something else..And so it goes.

We are flexible; there are days when nothing works, someone is sick, someone is tired. After 4 yrs I have learned not to sweat the small stuff. That day becomes a “sick” day or day for playing games or reading...we all need a personal day sometimes.

We are all swimmers and cross-country skiers in this family. The boys would love to play soccer every waking minute of the day if they could. My daughter has a love affair with books ...thank goodness she has started to grow gills lately and loves to swim. In the fall, my kids join a few of the “afterschool programs” with the school kids so they socialize that way. They are also part of a large theater production for homeschoolers in the valley twice a year. They participate as actors, set designers or stage crew. During the 2 month period they are all with home school kids and are very busy.

There is not much me time. I try to get a run in 3 times a week and go to bed early once in awhile. I work as a freelance photographer and do most of my work on the weekends and evenings.

I do feel drained as a mom at times, it is challenging to home school the 4 of them, and I would be lying if I said it wasn’t. I know going to bed that night that “tomorrow is a fresh new day” and we can start all over. It’s all a work in progress. Everyday gets a little easier and every year I gain confidence in myself.

I love my children...I love being with them and there are no 4 human beings I would rather spend my day with. It’s about family, sharing, communicating, helping others, commitment and follow thru...all things that are driving forces in life.

Homeschooling is really just part of our life and it is a wonderful way of learning and living.

I think to be successful you just have to gather the ingredients that tastes good and make your very own chocolate cake.

Comments

[Sarah]

Camilla,
I am so proud of you!

[Katie]

I love it! So real and so true!!! Beautiful...