Homeschooling with Our Rule of Six

It is never too late, or too early in your homeschooling journey to set a vision for your family. Perhaps adjust the vision is a better word. Recently I participated in a Master Class at Read Aloud Revival with Sarah Mackenzie. The class was called Focus & Align and it very much resonated with me and where we are in our schooling adventures.

I’m glad I made the time to spend two evenings creating a clearer vision for our family. We weren’t really off course as much I rededicated myself to knowing what is important for us to focus on.

I like simple. Simple works well for all of us and I believe our Rule of Six reflects that simplicity.

Rule of Six

Pursue Holiness – Pretty simple and straightforward, although this area has changed over the years for us as the kids have gotten older. These are the prayers that we have tried to ensure our children know. We do a variety of things in the morning before we get rolling.  We used to be very consistent about doing a decade of the rosary each morning, but as the kids have grown and schedules change that doesn’t always happen. Now we are most likely to say it in the car when we are all together. Other than that we does things like read the gospel, talk about the saint of the day, celebrate a feast day.

Do Meaningful Work – This is where the bulk of our school day fits in. Our day is already fairly streamlined since I discovered Homeschool Made Simple, but I realized that this too is going to change with our different seasons. I still have several early/struggling readers. That portion alone takes up a significant portion of our school morning. Meeting the needs of special needs takes time too.

Read Good Books – This not only applies to my children, but applies to me too! I’m committed to making reading a priority for myself this year. The kids and I read many, many good books together. Not only do I want to them to see me practice what I preach, reading well helps me to do my job as teacher/mentor in a richer capacity.

Serve Others – As the kids have gotten older this is easier to do outside of our home. Serving others is important for our family. I think it goes a long way in raising more grateful people – givers rather than takers. While I want it to be important for our family to serve others outside of our home, I want my children to know it’s very important to serve each other in our home. We can’t be kind to our friends and neighbors and then be nasty to our brother or sister.

Encounter Beauty – I believe this piece can tie into living the liturgy in our domestic church. I’m loving how the new book by Sally Clarkson is feeding this part of my journey as a wife and mother. I have work to do in this area as I can be a bit of a minimalist with some things.

Experience Adventure – Most days I feel like homeschooling a pack of kids is enough of an adventure in itself! Getting outside and going on field trips have always been important components of our homeschooling journey. I love that we have kids that are pretty much up for anything.

When I go to bed at night knowing that we have completed a majority of our Rule of Six for the day, I can rest easy knowing we have done “enough”.