Special guest edition: How we homeschooled today by Rachael Ringenberg
The nearly invisible evolution of children’s education
I am very excited to share with you a ‘How we homeschooled today’ from Rachael Ringenberg. Rachael and her husband live in Vermont with their four daughters, and she writes about their homeschooling on A Window in the Country.
Here’s a day in the life! Interests cycle in and out for us but reading aloud, handwriting and Latin (for the older two) are a constant. History reading aloud, science experiments and talking through math problems (we don’t use a curriculum) happen regularly but not on this chosen sample.
I sleep in, and wake up at 8:30am. The three girls up already have portioned the remaining cereal so that one bowl remains for their sleeping sister. One is reading, two are teasing each other on the couch.
9am: 9yr old logs into online Latin which is 3x a week for her. 4yr gathers play things to play on the floor. 11yr and 7yr decide to do a puzzle at the kitchen table. It is our 5th consecutive day of rain and chilly grey skies.
I pull out a library book and sit nearby to listen to the 9yr old’s engagement in her one hour class.
Latin is over and we decamp to read a portion of Rainbow Garden and do handwriting in the kitchen. For a little while, everyone is doing a puzzle. Finally I put the handwriting books on the table and everyone grabs them by routine. My 11yr old has graduated from the books and picks a poem from a book of illustrated Emily Dickinson to copy in cursive instead. The 4yr old traces letters with a write n wipe marker in this type of book.
I only ask that they do a page of handwriting, sometimes they choose to do more. Once we finish Rainbow Garden we will likely move onto the next Patricia St. John because I’ve bought the whole collection secondhand and want to read them all. So far the girls think Treasures in the Snow was the best.
We read until 11am when my 11yr old has her Latin. It’s her third year and she has it twice a week. She heads off to log on while the rest of us clear the things off the table. The younger girls head into the living room to play with duplos. I ask them if they want to pick out a graphic novel to read aloud. It’s only at this time of day that I have the patience to read these things aloud—so many word bubbles! They look at them endlessly though, and we have stacks from the library at any given time. I do think they’ve greatly helped my 7yr old’s reading level too. The 7yr old has not wanted to do actual reading lessons for some time, I think in part because her comprehension is far beyond the lesson, but she still needs some of the formal building blocks of phonics so I am reluctant to skip anything. I set the timer—for my own mental peace—for 30 minutes and then we read.
After that it’s time to fix some lunch. The 7yr old enjoys making macaroni and cheese from start to finish by herself: boiling the water, adding the pasta, draining it, mixing in butter and yogurt and the cheese powder. Others choose lunches of their choice. My husband works from home and often comes out of his office around lunch time to check in on us, finish abandoned children’s food and help with whatever has piled up on the counters during the morning. I take a look at the macaron recipe my 7yr old wants to try. I’ve never made them and feel intimidated by the process! Yet challenged by her suggestion. After she eats and rinses her dishes I have her start weighing out the almond flour and powdered sugar.
The 11yr old comes in from her class and wants to talk about the videos she’s been making on WeVideo. This online software makes it super simple to build story plots and she’s been making her own as well as helping her sisters make them. I am a fan as I think it’s an amazing tool for thinking through narrative arcs or what my college-level film class would have called “the hero’s journey.” She’s currently using the free version but I think we should look into paying for it so she can export her videos.
7yr old and I are halfway through the baking process and are on break. She and the 11yr old are going to work on their film, and the 9yr old has dropped the book she is reading to join in. The 4yr old has been playing in the living room and at the table this whole time, carting doll things back and forth.
I do a run through of some dishes while listening to a podcast with one earbud in. What I like to listen to totally depends on the day and my current mental craving: poetry, news, succinct interviews, or something like The Lazy Genius. I take a look at the seedlings I’ve started for the garden in the window. It feels like endless rain this week but sun is coming soon! The rapid concrete progress that seedlings make is always a nice balance to the nearly invisible evolution of children’s education. I make a cup of tea and sit down with my laptop to look at emails for a bit. Sometimes I take a quiet time where I tuck into my room for two hours to read and write but lately I’ve been getting back into running and so my free time is spent outside on a long run.
The 9yr old has homework for Latin that she wants to get done because all year she’s been turning work in late and is frustrated by that. The app that receives the submission gives you confetti if it’s on time and no confetti if it’s late. I think she may be motivated by that alone. Ha. It is a quick worksheet reviewing this week’s vocabulary. We are interrupted 4-6 times while we work together, with questions, declarations, and statements of intent. This feels inevitable but I am really trying to stop the habit. I would like the time I spend with each child to be more focused on just them.
We are back on the macarons and doing well. I have the 7yr old trace circles on the parchment paper so we know where the batter is going. The 4yr old wants to help so we are giving her a parchment sheet to draw on as well. She does a great job of replicating the 7yr old’s work. The older girls would also like to help but I’ve committed this process to the one whose idea it was in the first place. I always include the youngest though, as this is her learning for the day. The macarons are turning out suspiciously well!
I’m heading out on a run with a relaxing distracting audiobook The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo in my ears. The girls are either reading or looking up something online. There is a suggestion of what’s for dinner—beans in the pressure cooker—and the rest of the day will probably just be taken up with that. After dinner we’ve been playing a version of charades that lets the 4yr old play on her own because it has an illustration. We only manage 40 minutes but it’s lots of fun. Bedtime is around 8pm. We don’t actually put the kids to sleep but we shepherd them through the arduous work of cleaning their teeth and checking for ticks (tis the season). They head into their room. The 7yr old will probably go directly to sleep. The 4yr old will probably draw on a clipboard in her bed and heckle the older two until she falls asleep. And the older two will switch to reading lights and read and talk quietly far into the night.
If you’d like to read more of Rachael’s writing don’t forget you can find her at A Window in the Country.
If you’re a homeschooler I would love to share a day in your family’s life. It can be a list of bullet points or long form like Rachael’s, or something in between! All shapes and sizes of homeschooling welcome. Get in touch by leaving a comment, or if you received this post as an e-mail you can just press reply.
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Also a fellow VT homeschooler! Would love to share a day in the life with you if you are still taking guest posts.