Homeschooling with Core Knowledge
Deciding to Homeschool
When I purchased my first Core Knowledge book, What Your First Grader Needs to Know, I had no idea that I would end up using it and so much more from Core Knowledge to homeschool my children. After all, my two oldest children were happily attending a Montessori preschool at the time, while I worked part-time as an attorney. When my oldest reached first grade, however, my husband and I had to reappraise schooling for our children, and homeschooling — with Core Knowledge — is where we finally, happily, settled. But I should probably say something about the the factors that went into that decision.
Like so many children, our oldest seemed gifted in many ways but not socially capable of being promoted to the grade level he was working at. Our second child, on the other hand, was so enamored with the social and artistic life available to a kindergartner that it was left to me — after school — to teach her to read and to learn basic math. Neither child seemed to “fit” the profile of a typical student. We were concerned that our oldest wouldn’t be challenged and that our second child wouldn’t learn anything.
Finding the Right Program
Although we investigated many schools, public, private, and parochial, none seemed a good fit. Then my older sister, a former middle school math and science teacher, came for a visit with her only child, a boy the age of my oldest. The visit extended to three weeks, an extension made possible because my sister was homeschooling her son, something that I hadn’t thought of before. It was a wonderful time, and I envied them their freedom to travel with my brother-in-law on business and to take vacations whenever it was convenient. I remembered foregoing trips with my husband to Colorado during ski season, to Hawaii for a conference, and to famed Mackinac Island because our children would have missed “too much school.” When I wanted to give a short answer as to why I started homeschooling, I used to say it was so that we could travel. Of course, there was more to it than that. We had decided it was the best educational environment for our children. It was only after we had been at it for a while that we realized how much we loved the lifestyle.
At the beginning, I started researching educational models as I would an issue for a legal brief. I compared Montessori, Waldorf, Classical, and other models of education. I found myself most powerfully drawn to the concise and content-driven approach of Core Knowledge. Most other educational models were about HOW to teach — Core Knowledge was about WHAT to teach, and that’s what I really wanted to know. I had taught writing and research in law school so I felt confident that I’d figure out the HOW to teach on the job.
When we took the plunge and started homeschooling, I experimented with various curricula. However, I always used the Core Knowledge Sequence as a checklist or guide to make sure I was “covering the basics.” Gradually, I realized that a unit study approach seemed to work best for my children. Then I began using the Sequence, as many other homeschoolers do, as a convenient list of topics from which to build unit studies.
Finding and Adapting the Resources
Gradually, however, after additional research into Core Knowledge, I realized how much more was available that could be utilized in our homeschooling. When we started incorporating ideas into our homeschooling from Charlotte Mason, an English educator from a century ago, Core Knowledge’s Listen, My Children poetry collections and poetry lists in the Sequence seemed ready-made for the recitation and copy work Mason advocated for the early grades. My children would memorize a poem — “Concord Hymn,” for example — and then copy it into a blank book, which they illustrated. After a year, each had his or her own illustrated book of poetry, and each had learned so much about the beauty of language.
After an intense first year adjusting to homeschooling and studying American history almost exclusively based on state standards, I became persuaded that the Classical approach to education, including its emphasis on chronological history, made sense. We built timelines, studied Ancient cultures and their contributions, such as written language and democracy. We had a splendid time covering Greece and Rome. Realizing that the Pearson Learning Core Knowledge history and geography texts were my children’s favorites, I created a chronological outline of history topics from the third, fourth, and fifth grade levels, so that we could utilize them within a Classical mode. This adaptation was relatively easy, as each year of the Sequence offered half a year of world history and half a year of American history. So we worked our way through the World history of third, fourth, and then fifth grade to end with Explorers, circling back to the third grade text again for US history beginning with the Explorers, then on to fourth and now fifth grade. Core Knowledge sequences in a different way, but the strict chronological approach, which appeals to Classically-minded homeschoolers like me, can still make use of Core Knowledge content.
Committing to Core Knowledge
It wasn’t until we studied the Middle Ages, that I became deeply immersed in Core Knowledge as the “backbone” of our homeschooling — as homeschoolers describe it. Since this is my favorite period, I had acquired many books, and kits, including titles recommended in Books to Build On, but we kept coming back to the Pearson Learning texts. They were truly my children’s favorite read-alouds. The colorful pictures and embedded stories captivated them.
As time went on, I relied less on “outside” resources, especially avoiding workbooks. I found free Core Knowledge lesson plans online, which imparted a wealth of information. I also used suggested assignments and black line masters in the Pearson Learning teacher guides. Our favorite resources are often the Colorado lesson plans, as they come with all of their appendices, maps, and attachments. These are regrettably missing in many of the plans from the Core Knowledge conferences and the Baltimore Curriculum Project’s free on-line offerings.*(see editorial note below) Armed with the Art to the Core art history and hands-on projects, as well as with the Core Knowledge music tapes of Gregorian chant, my children were happily immersed in the Middle Ages. My youngest, by this time a kindergartner, even had a medieval birthday party, complete with a castle cake and medieval costumes.
Seeing the Results
When my youngest daughter turned five, my college-aged niece came back from a semester abroad with gifts from Europe and the Middle East. As her cousin helped her unwrap a calendar, apologizing for what she thought was the obscure subject, my five year old gleefully pointed to the cover of the calendar and said, “That’s the Hagia Sophia!” She had remembered the photo from the Core Knowledge text, and her big brother, then eight, proceeded to regale the family with everything he knew about Constantinople and the Hagia Sophia. It was one of those moments when I loved homeschooling, especially with Core Knowledge.
Our Middle Ages study also profited from the Core Classics Robin Hood and Don Quixote. When we studied the Explorers we also read the Core Classics Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, and Gulliver’s Travels. With the introduction of free teacher guides, the Core Classics became a focal point for our literature studies.
We are now happily studying American history, and sharing ideas, book lists, and more with other members of the Core Knowledge homeschooling yahoogroup, ckhomeschoolers. We also share field trips and tutorials with local homeschoolers in our area, and most recently, visited a pioneer cabin for an afternoon while studying Westward Expansion before the Civil War. My older two children currently are working from the Core Knowledge fifth grade Sequence topics, and my youngest, from the second grade. I have just gotten the second grade Day-by-Day Planner, and its book list, lesson plans, and proposed schedule have really been helpful.
Supplementing Core Knowledge
In addition to the Core Knowledge Sequence and its supporting resources, we also use Saxon math, which is one of three programs recommended by many Core Knowledge schools. We also use Latin programs from Memoria Press. Music is very important to our family, and in addition to taking private lessons, the children play in orchestras and ensembles. We practice and play music together at home and have a budding trio with a pianist, cellist, and violinist. For physical fitness and fun my children also participate in sports, including competitive tennis and horseback riding. In summer they are on a swim team and, come winter, they like to ski and ice skate. We are busy, but homeschooling offers us the flexibility to include outside activities, including periodic afternoons at the park with other homeschooling friends.
Core Knowledge offers us the assurance that we are covering all the bases academically. It is not “school in a box,” like some curricula sold to homeschoolers, purporting to script every lesson. It does require some planning time on my part, but I enjoy scheduling, and creating lists, and charts. Of course, I anticipate that the new Day-by-Day Planners will make all that easier.
I accept that the primary mission of Core Knowledge will always be to support and improve the Core Knowledge schools, which educate so many more children than are in the homeschooling community. The Core Knowledge Foundation has, to date, not offered materials specifically tailored for homeschooling. Homeschoolers have had to adjust to lesson plans meant for classrooms full of children and use TASA tests with no answer keys. These minor obstacles, which are not found in curricula created specifically for homeschoolers, are more than counterbalanced by the richness of Core Knowledge and the jewel in its crown, the Sequence. For a growing number of homeschoolers including myself, this rich content is the heart of Core Knowledge and the source of its appeal.
*Editor's note: Some lesson plan appendices are omitted for copyright reasons; however, some of the appendices omitted in the web-published lesson plans are included in the CD-ROM collections.
About the author:
Janice Kielb is a homeschooling mother of three in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Janice is also an attorney, and the current co-moderator of the ckhomeschoolers webgroup at yahoogroups.com. She communicates with the Foundation frequently, offering invaluable advice about what works in homeschooling, suggesting new materials and ways to get the word out about Core Knowledge resources.