CM 4 Episode #8 Homeschool a Large Family with Guest Brooke Woody
Links and Resources:
Show Notes:
Julie talks with Brooke Woody, mother of 10 children, about how homeschooling a large family and how to face the challenges and enjoy the journey. They discuss schedules, time management, organization, and other tips about how to school multiple ages.
Homeschooling mother of ten children ranging from K5-12th grade. Oil painter and art instructor (BFA Clemson University summa cum laude), aspiring flower farmer, lover of nature, books, yoga, and God.
A Gentle Feast
Teaching Textbooks
Mother Culture article
Imagination article
Frequent Games: Yahtzee, Bananagrams, Boggle, Scrabble, any card games such as Rummy, Phase 10, Uno.
Yoga: doyogawithme.com (member for many years, but many free practices), alomoves.com
Microsoft Excel
A Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola
Managers of Their Homes/Chores by Maxwell
High Performance Habits by Brendan Bruchard
Show Transcript:
CM EP 8 Winter Season
Julie -
Welcome to the Charlotte Mason Show, a podcast dedicated to discussing Miss Mason's philosophy, principles, and methods. It is our hope that each episode will leave you inspired and offer practical wisdom on how to provide this rich, living education in your modern home school. So, pull up a chair, we're glad you're here.
Today's episode of the Charlotte Mason Show was brought to you by Medi-Share. Find out more about this affordable Christian alternative to traditional health insurance at medishare.com.
Today I'm going to be talking about homeschooling a large family. Brooke Woody was the first person that came to my mind when we were asked to do a podcast about this topic. Brooke is a dear friend of mine and I've known her for a very long time and I greatly admire her. She is an oil painter, an art instructor by trade. She's also an aspiring flower farmer and lover of nature and books and yoga. But most of all, she loves God, and she is a homeschooling mom to ten children ranging in ages from kindergarten through twelfth grade. So she is an expert on the subject. She's very, just organized and on top of things and I've greatly just admired how she was just thrown her life into her kids.
So, I think you're really going to benefit from this episode. It went a little long, so I've divided it into two parts. So today you will get part one and then next week part two will release.
So, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Brooke.
Hello everyone, welcome to the Charlotte Mason Show. I'm your host Julie Ross and I'm here today with my friend Brooke Woody. Hi, Brooke.
Brooke -
Hi Julie.
Julie -
Thank you so much for coming on. I knew you were the person that I needed to talk to you about homeschooling a large family because you have a rather large family. So, can you tell us just a little bit about your family?
B -
Sure, I have a...this is our banner year this year. That's what I call it because my oldest is in twelfth grade and, yep, my baby is in K5. And so, I had one about every fourteen months, and I actually wrote this down cause I don't know their ages, but for your benefit, they are seventeen, sixteen, fifteen, fourteen, twelve, eleven, ten, eight, seven, and five. So, we have a big party. And yes, I gave birth to all of them, not that that matters, but it's true. Everybody asks that next, did you give birth to all?
J -
Yes, yes. Are they all yours? Yeah, at the store? Yeah, I get that too yeah. And can you tell us just a little bit about, like, your homeschooling journey, what you all are doing for school?
B -
Sure. I started homeschooling my first, K4, because you know when you have your first, you count K4 as something.
J -
Oh yeah, yeah.
B -
Yes, it's like something. And I, I'm pretty sure I was trying to think back, I think I read the Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola pretty early on in homeschooling. I don't know when I started reading other books about Charlotte Mason's methods, but I just love Charlotte Mason's methods the most. But then we joined a co-op pretty early on that I began teaching middle school and high school art in, and it was a large co-op that was not run in a Charlotte Mason style. So, I basically adapted to what they did for about ten years while also, introducing a lot of the elements that Charlotte Mason suggested. And then I also had, I have had a couple of kids in and out of public school. I have an autistic child who, once he was able to go to school, benefited greatly from that for about two years, and then he was ready to come back home.
So most everybody is at home now. We are able to mostly employ the methods of Charlotte Mason since I'm not in that co-op anymore. I have one, my twelfth grader, she only has two classes this semester.
J -
Yeah, that's nice, isn't it? It's like ???
B -
Yeah, I told her this morning...yeah, she was headed to work, and I was like, okay, Emma, you're going to have to carve out ten hours a week to finish this up. We can do this.
J -
Yeah, senioritis is a real thing, man.
B -
Yes. We're gonna have to do it. Then, my tenth grader is at a public charter school, but everybody else is home.
J -
Okay. Okay, yeah and I love that about you too because I feel like there is not a one-size-fits-all for all of your children for all eternity.
B -
Right? Totally not no. No. I said a lot of people really, and even I, you see this beautiful little box and you have this perfect little day in it. And you wish for that beautiful little box to be real. And it's not. And so, it's the day by day, day by day, Lord, what would you have me do?
J -
Yes. Yes.
B -
You know, we have an overall scheme, an overall plan, but there's not going to be the perfect little box that works every day.
J -
Yeah, I thought when I first started homeschooling that we would be like Little Women and I would be like, ah, and we would just sit around the fire and read and cross-stitch and, uh-huh yeah. And then I have kids with, a lot of kids with ADHD and there was no sitting around needle working ever.
B -
There's not. There's a lot of trampoline jumping.
J -
Yes. That's more what it's like, right?
B -
My handicraft is trampoline jumping.
J -
Hey, that's great, gross motor skills too, you know? You gotta get those gross motor skills in there somehow. And I think you had a really good point, especially with lots of children, right? You have to be flexible every day. Your little plan is most likely not going to happen. It doesn't mean you shouldn't plan right?
B
Right, right? Absolutely.
J -
You have to be willing to let some things go. So, can you talk a little bit kind of about how you organize? Because I feel like you are the, just so good at this because...and you have to be because if you're not the whole thing is gonna fall apart real fast.
B -
There's a lot of gears going, and I do have to say I am not good at a lot of things, but I am great at organizing like time.
J -
You are. You're incredible.
B -
Really good at organizing time. And...
J -
You'd almost have to be, yeah.
B -
Yeah well, you know it actually started when I was at Clemson University. I began scheduling every fifteen minutes of my day from about six in the morning till about two in the morning.
J -
Wow.
B -
So even before kids, I'm a very driven person in the area of organization of time. And so basically, in a nutshell, I use an Excel spreadsheet. That's what I've always used since my babies were tiny and I spend many, many, many hours at once over maybe weeks, praying and scheduling out whatever I'm trying to schedule, whether it be chores or whether it be school. If there's something I'm trying to schedule, I may do it once or twice a year where I'm just really focusing hard on that Excel spreadsheet trying to fit everybody in. And so, I have this wonderful product that we then take as a servant, not as our master.
J -
Mmm, I love that.
B -
So, the spreadsheet is the servant, not the master. I know a lot of people don't love to work that way, and they work better with things like lists and other methods of organizing time, but there is a book that I used early on called Managers of The Homes and Managers of Their Chores.
J -
Yeah, I used that book too.
B -
Yeah, it was...a point that they made there was you wouldn't go to a job and tell your boss, oh I'm sorry, I don't do schedules. I don't do... so you are your own boss and your husband's part of that, and you do, actually, you do have some overall structure. And then so from there I go and I tweak, tweak, tweak, tweak, tweak as we go along using it. This is working. This isn't working. And then we usually settle into a routine that's pretty good. Having brought everybody back home recently from school about a year ago, we're still working out a lot of things. It could take years. And like you said. Flexibility is the name of the game. I think the point though, is that you really need to be consistent.
J -
Oh yeah, for sure.
B -
Be the tortoise, not the Hare. Just slowly do something every day, every day, every day. Because this is not a sprint. For many people who have children more spread out than me, they can be schooling for thirty years, and you just have to recognize that it is not a race. It's not urgent. But the urgency really is, for me, do my children know God and love Him? That's the urgency. And when you're doing that you start to fit in, okay, math is part of knowing God and loving Him. Writing and literature are part of knowing God and loving Him. And I think one of the issues with schedules is we can be very, very aggressive and put a lot of things in, and its...cause we want to do everything. It's so fun.
J -
Yes. Right. All the things, yes.
B -
But if you find yourself being stressed out with the schedule, keep that first one. That first Excel schedule that has all of your dreams in it. And then take things out, but don't delete that schedule.
Take things out that you're like, okay, I just can't do these four things right now.
J -
Yes.
B -
And then you can reintroduce. It's the ebb and the flow. It's the back in the forth.
J -
Yes, right. And I, oh, that's such a great point because I think people feel like, okay, well, if I can't do all of it, I'll do none of it.
B -
Right.
J -
And they toss the whole thing out. Like this is black and white thinking and it's like, yeah, don't give up your ideas and your dreams because that's motivating. That is for me, you know, to go, okay, I do eventually want to get to the point where we can add yeah XYZ and we can't do it right now because it's making me stress and thus changing the atmosphere of my home and that isn't leaving my kids to God like you're saying. But the most important priority isn't being met because I'm being really not a very nice person.
Today's episode is brought to you by A Gentle Feast. A Gentle Feast is a complete curriculum for grades one through twelve, that is family-centered, inspired by Miss Mason's programs and philosophy, and rooted in books, beauty, and Biblical truth. You can find out how smooth and easy days are closer than you think at agentlefeast.com.
B -
Well and you know, I recently, this past year, my baby brother, which you know, who was 27. He died suddenly. And he had been just working himself to death the last three years in his psychology degree, summa cum laude. Just stressed to the max, and I thought, what for? He's gone. What for? You know. And while we want to work hard and we want to do our best, I really urge people not to do more than you can. If you can let something go, let it go.
J -
Yes, and with those relationships are, yeah, it's the most important thing for sure. That perspective, right? That we're not always guaranteed...
B -
Exactly.
J -
...next year, right? Or even tomorrow. Right. Yeah. To enjoy those moments. And I feel like if I'm stressed and I'm thinking about all the things we didn't get done, I'm honestly not enjoying the moment when we're on the trampoline and taking a break. Because that's all that we needed, but all I could think about is all the stuff that we're supposed to be doing.
B -
Right. Exactly. So, I think there is a measure where you're looking at your state guidelines. You're looking at, what does my state hope for me to do? Okay? And these, what are these bare minimums? Because we are accountable to our various states and that's an important thing to realize. And from that making your structure on what you would like to introduce, and you would like to do. Always being ready to be flexible and take something out if you need to.
J -
Yeah.
B -
Forever, you know?
J -
Right, and I think some people are like, okay, well I'm, I want to be, like, super flexible and they don't have any plan at all.
B -
Right.
J -
And that's just complete chaos. I feel like you have to have those skeletons and like you're saying it'll eventually turn into a natural flow and a routine. But, if you don't start with the structure at all, then it's just kind of chaos that you're trying to always reign in, and that's all.
B -
Yes, we don't want to do that.
J -
Yeah, no. And one of the things I really love about your Excel spreadsheets, and your time, you know when you look at people who are extremely productive at their jobs, like, I'm thinking of the book High-Performance Habits, by Brendan Reshard, which I just finished and he schedules out his entire day, hour by hour. You know they're able to accomplish so much more. It's like you're filling this jar right, of rocks and you're trying to put the water in, but I don't know if you ever seen that the youth group, but if you put the water in first and then you try to put the rocks in, like, all of the water splashes out, right? But you have to kind of...you can fit so much more in when you're really intentional with your time. And Charlotte Mason talks about that, right? She has the short lessons. She has it picked out. She was extremely regimented with her time, the way she lived, personally, I think that's why she was able to write so much. And do so much in her life was because she had her whole blocks of time for her whole entire day was extremely regimented.
B -
Exactly, and she also said, and I can't remember the exact quote, but, when a mother is basically starts to get stressed out and cranky, maybe she needs to take a walk for a, like, we're just going outside today. Or maybe she needs ???
J -
That's my favorite part. I was like, oh, she said we could lie in bed, everybody.
B -
Lie in bed and read a book. But seriously, to remove yourself, even, you know, throughout the day even removing yourself, I know it's very hard with babies and they're probably following you and standing on you. But even to remove yourself for five minutes, twice a day, to just deeply breathe. And something I've been trying lately is to visualize the next half of the day. So, imagining what would I like this to look like if I were able to make this look a certain way? So just stopping and closing your eyes and seeing, okay, what could this afternoon look like by God's grace? And just seeing that. Knowing that when you go back into the hall, one of your children might attack another child. It might not have looked like that in your vision. You can still continue to steer things towards that, that vision that you have.
J -
That's great, yeah, but it's funny, cause Brendan Reshard actually talks about that too, in the mornings, visualizing. And so, I like doing it at lunch too. It's a really great idea about visualizing your day and then visualizing, okay, what might happen today that's really going to stress me out?
B -
Right.
J -
And how do I want to show up for that? And that actually helped...yeah, like you're talking about, like as soon as I leave this bathroom someone's probably gonna hit somebody else. So how do I want to show up for that moment? And kind of realize yourself ahead of time, it's so powerful. That's a great suggestion. I love that.
B -
Well, and not being negative or pessimistic, but I remember when I used to try to take naps, which I rarely do anymore, but when I do, I assume that I will not be able to take a nap or sleep. So, I begin the laying down. There's no way this is gonna happen. So, if it actually does happen, I'm like, wow!
J -
Yeah. No, I think that makes sense, yeah, yeah, naps are far and few between for sure. But I think you raised a really good point. And Charlotte Mason did talk about that in the article, and I'll put that in the show notes, I know which one you're referencing about the, what was in the Parent's Review about mother culture. And she does have some really great examples of what to do with a little preschooler and what to do with the baby so that you can actually have a few minutes to actually have a thought? So, can you talk just a little bit, I know you have been so great about that how you take care of yourself.
B -
Okay, so I do practice yoga. Probably an average of five days a week. Some days it's, some weeks it's six, but I use various websites cause I really don't have time to go anywhere. I used to do crazy workouts, but now that I'm an old 41-year-old, I'm trying to tone it down a little bit. But now I've been practicing yoga for about twenty years, and for me I find that a really good way to take whatever I have meditated on in Scripture that morning. So, whatever I've read while I drank my coffee, I choose something from that. So, it might be, yesterday it was the grass withers, the flowers fade, but the Word of the Lord stands forever. And so actually when I breathe in, I breathe in part of that phrase, and when I breathe out, I breathe out the other part of the phrase. So, it's a good time for me to be calm and meditate and also to get all the, just, it works well for me. So, it used to be mountain biking a few years ago.
J -
Oh yeah, I remember that, yeah.
B -
Yeah, and I used to go out cause I lived near state park that I could just ride to, so about four or five days a week I mountain biked in the middle of the day. And there was this hill that I would go down and at the very beginning and I called it the portal of peace in my mind.
J -
That's kind of like...
B -
Nobody can ask me for anything right now. So, I think it's important every day if you can find a way to have a little bit of space. I remember having little ones and lots of little ones. I really, I used to do high intensity interval training and that's twelve minutes. So, I really literally had twelve minutes. And it was like if nobody attacked me during those twelve minutes.
J -
Well, then you can lift them up. It's good resistance, right? Yeah.
B -
I, we did that. Yes, and one time, my youngest child, he, I lifted him up on my legs like I'm on my back, pushing him up, doing leg presses, and then he dove down into my nose and broke my nose.
J -
Oh, my goodness! Ouch!
B -
I never did that again.
J -
I don't blame you. That would really hurt. Well, I guess you have a good story to tell at his wedding, right? But I love to, I remember when I took art classes from you and you had, in your schedule, time for you to paint. Remember that?
B -
Yes. Yes.
J -
I was so amazed that you were able to, I think it was two hours...
B -
Yeah.
J -
...with all those little people. I was just like wait, what?
B -
You know, I have to say that the painting, so I'm an oil painter by training. And I actually have two paintings going right now. They're really beautiful and it's making me a little bit...
J -
I can't wait to see em.
B -
Well, it's making me a little sad because I've decided the next little bit I'm going to back down from them a little while because you can tell, okay, this child needs more attention, or that, so painting comes in and out of my life. I have definitely offered it up to the Lord, as, you know, You gave me this, but this is Yours so I do find that if there's something you actually really, really are motivated to do, you will find time to do it.
J -
Yes, right.
B -
So, but also there is that measure of, okay, I would really like to do this, but I can see this child needs more help on this, so I'm gonna wait.
J -
Yeah. And I think that, I just really liked how you blocked it out. Like the timewise because I know lots of parents, like, you know, like me, like they might have a part-time job. Even so there need to be very structured with their time, you know. And like you said if something is a priority and you block out that time, like, everything else will naturally kind of fill around that. But being really intentional about that. And I love it too, that you hold the thing that very loosely. Like it's such a beautiful part of who you are, and you are amazingly talented and I think, but yeah, holding that, surrendering that, you know? But then, okay, how else can I feed my soul and nourish myself if I'm not doing this one thing that I really love at this particular season of life? So.
B -
Yeah, it is tough. It is tough. I remember when I had, I think I had four kids. I remember in a Sunday school class, I don't know why, but I said, you know, I gave up painting. I'm not going to paint again until, you know, the Lord comes again or he takes me home. But I really, I had given that up completely. And that was when I had four kids. And when I had nine, I started painting again. I thought isn't the Lord funny? ...time for me when I had nine...?
J -
Yes.
B -
So, I also find other ways to do things that are artistic because it is who I am, and I say, Lord, why did You make me this way? If I can't do some of these things I wish I could? I had started flower farming last summer.
J -
Wait, what was it?
B -
Flower farming.
J -
Flower farming? What's flower farming?
B -
It's when you farm flowers. You grow flowers, crazy.
J -
Well, like, isn't it called gardening? I've never heard of it called flower farming before.
B -
Well, it depends on how many you have.
J -
Okay.
B -
So, a garden would be, you know, a reasonable amount of flowers. A farm is an unreasonable amount of flowers.
J -
Oh, okay, I understand. Can you clarify unreasonable?
B -
Yes. Yes. More flowers than anyone could possibly ever use or want. I am here, I actually have ten acres and...
J -
Really? I didn't realize that. That is amazing.
B -
It's a lot. I tried growing vegetables last year and I hated it. I thought it would be so prudent to grow vegetables.
J -
Yeah.
B -
But then I felt like we had to eat them. Or like...
J -
Yes, or can them, right? Yeah.
B -
Yeah. I had to can them or process them. I felt this, like, I had to do it. And that made me stressed out and I was like no, no thank you. Flowers, though, on the other hand, I was like I am happy to use these. So, I'm expanding my farm. My little, tiny farm. I'm expanding it this year. Getting actually planning started yesterday on that. So that's another artistic thing that I can do that it's not like, painting takes a lot of mental energy and focus. And flower farming, no. It's just fun.
J -
Yeah. Now do your kids help you with that or is that just kind of like your sanctuary?
B -
Yes.
J -
Okay.
B -
No, they do. They do help me, and they've helped me, just the menial things like digging up sod so that we can put down mulch and dirt and building beds and planting the seeds. All those things so...
J -
That's great, especially for all your little boys. I can imagine that great use of their energy. Yeah.
B -
Yes, I'm gonna need a lot more help this year, so I'm looking forward to that.
J -
Yeah, well do you…are you gonna sell them? Is that like...
B -
Nope. Completely frivolous.
J -
Absolutely frivolous. Okay, I love it. Well just let me know when you have some flowers cause I love them, so...
B -
I will give you some. I have such a large house I can't possibly fill them, all the rooms with flowers, so. I also will be trading. I'm going to be trading flowers for food too.
J -
Okay.
B -
...gonna grow food and I'll give her some. Yeah.
J -
Oh, okay. Well, I don't have any food to trade you, but I could save you books or something. I grow books at my house. I don't know how it happens. They just keep, I keep getting more and I understand.
B -
Yes, I love books.
J -
I have a book farm. It's called Amazon. Anyway.
B -
Oh boy, oh boy.
J -
Speaking of, speaking of that, let's talk about organization, like nitty gritty stuff here. Okay? How do I organize all the kid's school stuff? Talking about books. I'm sure you have plenty at your house.
B -
As in their actual physical items?
J -
Yeah.
B -
Okay.
J -
All of, cause, I mean, that's a lot of people's stuff.
B -
Yeah. Here's a little fun little tidbit, is earlier this year, we have some seminary guys who live with us and I've been looking for bookshelves cause they have a ton of books too. And so actually when I went to pick up these bookshelves, I was purchasing for them on Craigslist, this guy, who was an Amazon seller, who was closing his shop, gave me ten thousand books. Ten thousand.
J -
What?
B -
Yeah, I know. So...
J -
That's like the lottery. That's like...
B -
Well, it wasn't, though.
J -
Oh, they weren't that good?
B -
It must have been all the ones he couldn't sell. I mean, I really only found about a hundred in there that I wanted. But regardless, we do have a lot of books. We have a little Harry Potter closet underneath, we have double stairs in our foyer. One of them is a library. And so, we have a lot in there, and then I have a studio, which we now call the homeschool room. And that's got books in it. But every, all my little children, so, the youngest five, we sit at a square table when we sit, and I'm at one side, and then I have one child across from me and two on either side. So, there's five of them. And underneath their chair, they each have one of those fabric bins. It's like ten by ten or twelve by twelve. And that's where they keep all of their workbooks and notebooks, and things like that. I keep the books we're reading in a bookshelf in that room. The current ones. So, whatever we're working through at that point, I have them in a bookshelf in that room.
J -
Okay, and then they're responsible for keeping their own little baskets?
B -
Yes, but, and those stay there. They don't move. They just stay. And so, when we finish something I say, okay, put your language arts notebook underneath your chair. Put it in the bin. So, there are, there is really one child. He is a bit of a mess, who somehow his belongings constantly vanish, but I just keep getting more composition books for him. I'm like, okay, here's another one, just get another one. Just get another.
J -
One day you're gonna have like a stack of them that he's been hoarding somewhere. When he leaves for college...there they are!
B -
Yeah. They're gonna show up one day.
J -
Yeah.
B -
The older kids, yeah, they're funny cause I gave them bins to put their stuff in, but they typically keep their stuff in backpacks. Really big backpacks and haul them around wherever they are sitting.
J -
I like that idea. That's great, especially do they go other places? Like mine, once they start driving, they're like, I just want to go to a coffee shop and work where it's quiet and I'm like, okay, sure, like...
B -
Yeah, I mean in this wonderful blessed at covid era, they don't really go much places. But I'm not sure what the backpack thing is, but that's what they do. And sometimes I'm like, I do not want to see your backpack again. It needs to get out of my sight. I don't want to see it.
J -
Well, I think that's a great, I, a great thing too, like you do have to kind of change how you keep stuff organized as they get older.
B -
Right.
J -
That does evolve. You can't keep, you know, the same thing forever and ever.
Thank you for joining us today on the Charlotte Mason Show. I'm your host, Julie Ross, and I would love to meet you in person. All of the Great Homeschool Conventions have been rescheduled to 2021. Go to greathomeschoolconventions.com to find a convention near you. But you don't have to wait until 2021 to experience the amazing speakers and vendors at the Great Homeschool Conventions. They now offer an online convention that you can find on greathomeschoolconventions.com.
Also, if you would like the show notes for today's episode, go to homeschooling.mom. If you take a minute to subscribe to this podcast in iTunes and leave a review, I would greatly appreciate it. It helps get the word out about this podcast to our audience.
Thanks for joining me today. Until next time, may your home be filled with books, beauty, and Biblical Truth.
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