Blogging From A to Z: Back Burner

For this week's Blogging From A to Z challenge, my word is back burner. I don't know why this word came to me, but immediately I thought of all of the homeschooling subjects and activities that take a back burner in our homeschool. I started to wonder why they didn't get done and if it was important that they do. So here are some of my rambling thoughts!

Nature Study

I have always leaned towards a Charlotte Mason style homeschool, but nature study is one of those things that doesn't get done regularly. I've bought nature study curriculum, printed out tons of nature study journaling pages, and made entire binders full of beautiful nature printouts and posters. I've written it into our plans. I've had good intentions, but it just doesn't get done. 

click the photo to read about our nature bracelets

I think the main reason we don't do formal nature study is because we live in the country, on a farm, with tons of animals. My kids are outside in nature all day long. They have to feed and care for cows, horses, dogs, cats, chickens, and a rabbit. They work with their dad and he teaches them all sorts of things about plants - which are poisonous, which are edible, which the animals like and don't like to eat. They farm with him and see how crops grow. We have a garden that they work in and they know how hard it is to keep the weeds down and the plants producing. They learn so much from everyday life that formal nature study is unnecessary. I don't feel badly about not having nature study regularly anymore! 

I feel like if we lived in a city or in an area where we didn't have access to plants and animals, I would need to make nature study an important part of our homeschool. Trips to a park or local farm would be high on my list of outings each month.

Art and Music Study

Another Charlotte Mason staple, these enrichment studies have moved to the back burner! We used to do artist study, especially when I homeschooled all of the kids together family-style. It was part of our morning time, and we would read biographies of artists, look at famous artwork, and recreate masterpieces. It was a lot of fun! We also did a bit of music and composer study, but not as much as artists.

click the photo to read about Mercie's Artist Study from Homeschool in the Woods

The past several years, we have not done much (if any) artist study and zero music study. Thinking about why we skip this, I came to the conclusion that it's just not important for me to teach my kids. Right now, we are doing our best to get math facts and concepts down, learn the parts of speech, and read about history and science. Getting my boys to read on their own is a challenge sometimes, so I'm trying to incentivize that as well. 

click the photo to see our composer study from Zeezok

They love to do art - draw, paint, sculpt, and plain old arts and crafts. We also love to listen to and sing music. We have guitars they try to learn to play and Titus writes his own songs. To me, this is all the art and music study they need right now. I'm not going to stress because we haven't learned about the lives of some of the masters. We have several art books and biographies on our shelves that they are more than welcome to pick up on their own. And if they do, great! If not, it's totally fine.

click to read our 100 Days of Art series (that I need to start up again)

Foreign Language

I waffle back and forth on foreign languages and whether it's important to teach my kids or not. My parents are missionaries to Nicaragua and they know Spanish. I would love for my kids to be able to speak Spanish, especially if they ever want to go on a mission trip with my parents. It would be extremely useful for them to know Spanish. We've reviewed and used several different Spanish programs, but we haven't stuck with any of them.

click the photo to read about a Spanish program we tried from Whitzlefritz

I think the reason we don't prioritize foreign language in our homeschool is because I don't know Spanish. Sure, I took Spanish in high school in order to graduate, but I don't remember anything. Eli took Spanish I and II at high school the past few years, and he can't speak Spanish! Another reason is that I'm trying to get them to be proficient in English - spelling, writing, and speaking correctly.

I still don't know if I should be teaching foreign language to my kids right now, but I have decided we will worry about that when we get to high school. I have too many other things that I want them to master before we worry about Spanish. 

Typing

My older kids used a typing program called Typing Instructor. It was great! I have failed to make my younger kids learn to type. For one, they don't use the computer for typing much. They only type in a few words in the search engine to find a show or video they want to watch or do a bit of research. They don't type assignments on the computer, either. Titus was typing up songs he wrote, and it was taking him forever. But he did it!

Typing is a subject that I think is important to teach, and I do want to include it in their homeschool day next year. It will make it much easier when they get to the age where they do type assignments or reports! It will also make it quicker for them to type something they want to, be it a song or a story or a letter. I need to encourage them to type more! I'll probably use Typing Instructor again because it's cheap and effective. My older kids thought it was fun, too!

Closing Thoughts

I think the number one reason that these subjects have been a bit neglected in our homeschool is time. We only have so much time in the day, and I do have a lot of kids! Sometimes we want to get the basics done and then I'm too tired to make the extras happen. I do want to make sure we don't push anything to the back burner that is important to our family. 

When we had morning time as a family, we made time for hymn study, scripture memorization, chapter book read alouds, and these extras. Maybe I should implement morning time again next year? It took us less than half an hour and it did ensure that we got to the enrichment subjects. Do you have a morning time? What subjects get pushed to the back burner in your homeschool?

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