How to Easily Bring Scholé into Your Homeschool

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How do you bring scholé into your homeschool when you’re tired of wrangling the kids to the table to educate them.

You’re exhausted from trying to keep up with everything you need to do. Surely there is a better way than this to give your kids a quality education!

You need scholé in your homeschool!

Scholé is the concept of restful learning.

You shouldn’t be exhausted trying to give your kids an enriching education or burned out teaching them to read. Instead, your homeschool should be one of leading the kids to the river to drink.

Set an example for them and make education a lifestyle for your family, not a series of tasks to check off.

Morning Time

The best place to start when you’re bringing scholé into your home is with morning time. Morning time is the time you gather to enjoy poetry, to recite, and to memorize.

A chance to study group subjects such as art, music, history, and nature study together.

Morning time is also a time to gather and sing hymns.

It’s a beautiful start to the day and can be as long or short as you’d like to make it.

{Related post: Morning Time & the Well-Run Homeschool}

Slow Down

The second way to bring scholé into your home is to slow down.

Education is not a race! And there’s no prize for getting first place in the race to adulthood.

Keep in mind that the goal is to give the world well-rounded adults of good character. For starters, I want my adult children to find their way into a happy marriage with careers they love. To appreciate the world God has given us.

And that can’t happen if you’re so tied up in the rat-race that you can’t see the forest for the trees.

So slow down. Take your time to study the trees, to see the forest, and give your family time to breathe. Your kids will be educated. They will become adults, And they will do just fine.

It’s not a race.

{Related post: Festina Lente: Make Haste Slowly}

Consistency

Of everything you can do to give your kids a quality education, I believe consistency is the most important.

My grandma, who made beautiful hand-pieced quilts, once told me that she spent at least one hour a day, every day, for a year to make each quilt. And she made certain she spent that hour.

The daily commitment to quilting allowed her to create many, many beautiful quilts.

And it’s the same with homeschooling.

You need a daily commitment to homeschooling. After all, it takes consistency to teach a child to read. One three-hour-long session simply will not cut it.

However, a daily routine of 15 minutes every single day will teach your child to read.

Consistency is hard. It’s hard to take the time to sit down with your kids and homeschool when the sun is shining and the birds are singing.

It’s hard to find the time when friends are calling and activities are beckoning.

But you still need to focus on consistency.

This isn’t to say that you can’t plan breaks into your week, month, or year. I take a long summer break each year to plan the next school year and deep clean the house.

And it’s important for your kids to see what happens when you focus on consistency. After all some days you feel successful. Other days are a colossal flop. But eventually, kids do learn. They do grow. And they do mature.

And kids who know the value of consistency will thrive.

{Related post: Diligence is Key to the Well-Run Homeschool}

Relax

Homeschooling may be off the beaten path, but it’s still easy to get caught up by the call of trying to keep up with the Joneses.

There will always be someone doing a better job of homeschooling than you. Someone who spends more hours homeschooling. Someone whose kids have it all put together.

And you fret about if you’re doing enough. Are you failing your kids?

But you’re not raising their family. You’re not raising their kids. Your job is to do right by your children and your family.

So calm down and relax.

I like to say, put on blinders. Stop looking at what everyone else is doing and focus on your own children.

You will hear other homeschool moms singing from the mountaintops about their successes. But keep in mind, no one likes to talk about their failures.

So keep your eyes on your family look at what your family is doing. Focus on what you need to do for your family. And don’t worry about anyone else.

{Related post: Stop Worrying and Teach the Child You Have}

Read Alouds

Reading books aloud is a wonderful way to introduce great literature to your children, especially literature at a higher level of reading than your children can currently read. And then you have the perfect opportunity to discuss the literature. After all, everyone just listened to the story!

So make read alouds part of your lifestyle.

Read great children’s books in the evening such as Black Ships Before Troy, A Cricket in Times Square, or Caddie Woodlawn.

And as your children grow, slowly adapt your evening read alouds to your children and begin reading and discussing the great books together.

Read the Iliad, the Odyssey, and Frankenstein.

Reading through the Great Books of the Western Canon doesn’t have to be a task that happens hunched over a desk by yourself.

It can be a joy shared by the entire family.

Create a Lifestyle

The goal of scholé is to create a homeschool lifestyle for your family. One that you enjoy. One that educates the children. And one that allows you to relax.

Don’t stress about your homeschool. Instead, enjoy it.

Focus on creating a homeschool lifestyle. One with diligent and challenging studies in the morning. Art projects, nature walks, and trips to the museum in the afternoon. Along with reading books aloud and discussions in the evening.

Chat about what you learned in history and science over the dinner table. Debate the merits of the ancient Egyptian government. Muse about what contributions the Sumerians gave to the world.

Ultimately scholé is about relaxed learning – not unschooling and letting the kids do whatever they want – but relaxed learning. Letting go of the worry about tomorrow and concentrating on today.

And enjoying your lifestyle.

Recommended Reading

Books:

• The Read-Aloud Family
• Better Together
• Teaching From Rest

Links:

• Tired? Focus on Scholé for a Delightful Homeschool
• The Secret to Scholé in High School
• Create a Pleasant Atmosphere