I have a confession to make.
I am a home-schooling mama of four. I write about finding joy in motherhood, parenting and – yep, you guessed it – home-schooling.
But since the UK went into lock-down three weeks ago and life as we know it went all topsy turvy, I have not schooled my children. Not in the way I usually would anyhow.
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When friends in Malta (my childhood home) started posting about schools closing and staying home with their kids, I felt for them. Going from mainstream school to home all day is challenge enough without all of the Covid-19 drama. I’ve been there. So I did what most home-schooling mamas did at the time – I jumped on to Instagram stories to share tips I’ve learned from everyday life in the homeschool trenches with young kids. I even wrote a guest post on a friend’s blog called “10 tips for thriving at home with young children.” I felt pretty confident that if we found ourselves in a similar position, I’d be able to keep calm and school on.
And then the UK went into lock-down. My husband’s job security went out the window. I couldn’t food shop the way I normally would because my online supermarket was maxed out and going mental. We stopped going on our beloved weekly nature walks because of social distancing recommendations. All our home ed groups were cancelled. Ballet was cancelled. Playdates were cancelled. Church was cancelled. My five year old’s birthday trip to the zoo was cancelled. Everything was cancelled, changed or closed. And watching the news was like watching a horror movie on steroids. I felt distracted and confused and was adjusting to the new world we suddenly woke up in. And that left little emotional margin in my tank for extending grace or being patient when the girls pushed back on academics.
So after one short week of schooling during lock-down, I called time on school, and shifted gears into an early Easter break. Since then, we’ve gathered for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The kids do their chores (most of the time!) But mostly, they play. In the garden when it’s sunny. In their rooms, all over the sofa and all over the floor and kitchen table when it is not. They play, and I take a breather from our normal. I cook and clean, trip over toys, loose it, apologise and start again. And that is good enough for now.
The only part of our home schooling rhythm that I have not relinquished is reading aloud to the girls. Usually over a morning snack around the kitchen table, or piled onto the picnic blanket in the garden, or at the lunch table if it is a chapter book that needs ears more than eyeballs. The girls enjoy stories too much for me to cut them out completely. Plus there is no better way that I know of to diffuse a tantrum or tricky few hours and reconnect than by gathering them round and reading to them.
So what have we been reading since we pressed pause on school?
- Our current go-to read-alouds are Little House on the Prairie (Laura Ingalls Wilder) and Usborne’s Illustrated Hans Christian Anderson’s Fairy Tales. These books have well and truly captivated my six, five and three year olds – their strong story-lines seem to compensate for sparse pictures – and they ask for them every day.
- We’ve journeyed to the cross, resurrection and ascension with the beautifully written and illustrated Jesus Story Book Bible (Sally Lloyd Jones). Even my one year old coos and gesticulates when this one comes out.
- Finding Winnie: The Story of the Real Bear who Inspired Winnie-the-Poo (Lindsay Mattick) and Extra Yarn (Mac Barnett) have fast become firm family favourites, and have been great conversation starters about kindness and why it is important.
- Ox-Cart Man (Barbara Cooney) has beautiful pictures from the time that Laura Ingalls Wilder was reading, so we’ve dove-tailed the two books to give the girls a better understanding of what life was like at the time.
I’ve also taken to asking the girls to bring their favourite story to the table sometimes, which they have particularly enjoyed as it is something they don’t get to do during school days. Their selections have included the beautifully illustrated The Four Seasons of Brambley Hedge (Jill Barklem), the particularly poignant post war story A New Coat for Anna (Ziefert and Lobel), and the great treasure that is The World Treasury of Children’s Literature (Selected and with Commentary by Clifton Fadiman). My older two particularly love The Chronicles of Narnia (C.S.Lewis) and we often listen to it on Audible when we need some dial down time without resorting to screens.
The good news is this – the girls are still learning even though we are not formally schooling. How can they not? They are natural scientists, avid observers, and fledgling bookworms in their own right. The garden is coming alive with buds and blossoms that we’ve been able to observe. Read-alouds are cracking open good conversations. Conflicts have continued to erupt and require resolving. Habit training has continued because it is just part and parcel of parenting. The very real situation of being home all day is forcing us to navigate some conversations around gratitude, hope, past plagues from history, and all sorts.
The truth is though, I am less concerned by how much they are learning than I used to be. I am more concerned about how much they care about what they are learning, a maxim I picked up from education pioneer Charlotte Mason. And since my daughters’ enthusiasm for life and learning has not dwindled despite the extenuating circumstances and changes we find ourselves facing, I am not worried.
We needed to press pause on schooling in this very unusual time.
I needed it.
So while I do hope to ease back into our regular learning rhythms, I am trying to extend grace to myself and my family as we lean into this season of social distancing and stepping back from our every day normal. In the meantime and as always, I am overwhelmingly grateful for good books, and the luxury of getting lost in someone else’s storyline.
I’ll keep you posted as things evolve. Much love in the meantime,
Lindsay x
Lisa says
I’m just starting on’The Long Winter’ by Laura Ingalls with Martha. I think it mi ght put our quarantine into perspective!
Lots of love
Lisa
Mrs_Hills says
Definitely! We are working our way through the whole Little House series and I am totally hooked. I feel like I have a lot to learn from Ma Ingalls! X