Whole Subject Learning: The Secret to Sanity and Developing a Love of Learning

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, this means that I will make a small commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you.

Family style learning enables us to streamline our learning experiences without diluting them. It has opened my eyes to other “school habits” that many homeschoolers fall prey to and that inhibit a profound learning experience. Just like school segregates children by age, it also segregates learning by subjects. As much as I understand the practical applications for a school setting, I believe that it is a hindrance for home education. No school subject is an island completely unrelated to the others. So I have developed a “whole subject” habit and form of education that allows us to connect all the dots in one fell swoop.

Segregated subjects

When you’re in school you learn about geography in one class, history in another. Civics is unrelated to economics and math is its own island. Even English is split into multiple subjects such as composition, literature, etc… This is utter nonsense! Yes, it makes sense in the classroom where teachers are specialized in certain areas of expertise, but it makes no sense for the home educating mama. We have to specialize in all the subjects anyway so why not teach about them the way they organically happen? To understand history, you have to know geography, to understand civics you have to know history, etc…

Tagging subjects to each other

Let’s start at the beginning. When I introduce the study of  “history” we start with the very origin of the world. This will include the study of Scripture, literature (Scripture), composition through narration, geography, animal science, botany, history, earth sciences, etc… I will carefully choose a spine for our read-aloud, in this case the book of Genesis in the Bible, and as I read through this spine I will attach “ribs” to it. These ribs will be our different subjects, so to speak.

The spine

Let’s walk through an ideal, meaning that in real life not everything always gets covered, study of Creation. This is an example for one short chunk of our study, not our whole study.
For our main read-aloud, or spine, we will read Genesis, 1:1-8 as well as A Child’s Geography, Volume I: Explore His Earth by Ann Voskamp and Tonia Peckover, chapter 1. I love this book because it is an in-depth study of geography as an earth science. The activities for each chapter are easy but impactful and the narration suggestions are great.

The ribs

Literature:  To this I would probably add a picture book on Creation such as Creation by Gennady Spirin.
Science: 

• Learn the difference between day and night and why it happens (science). We would read What Makes Day and Night (Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2) by Dr. Franklyn M. Branley, illustrated by Arthur Dorros. And I would find a hands-on activity to accompany the book or combine it with the ones found in A Child’s Geography.
• What is the sky and what is the earth ? For this, and it gets pretty in depth, I love using  the book A Child’s Geography, Volume I: Explore His Earth by Ann Voskamp and Tonia Peckover. 
• We could deep dive into what water is: Water is Water by Miranda Paul and Jason Chin. 

Art: always included, if I can find something relevant, such as the Separation of Light and Darkness by Michelangelo. 

Composition: narrations is required following our Littles, Middles, Bigs pattern. Most of the narrations for Creation are recorded in our Books of Century. 

History: In our Book of Century we will reserve one page per day of Creation, at the very beginning, anchoring the history of humanity in our Faith.

How long does doing it this way take?

I spread this feast through a full week. This way each day is focused on a separate part of our study. Sometimes we will linger into one thing or another and take longer. I try to remain flexible since I cannot “get behind” myself. I design our learning endeavors to fit our family in our current season of life. Some years we will do everything, so years we will just read and narrate. We study history cyclically, and return to Creation every 4 to 5 years. This way the toddler who was just sitting there listening in this year will be in my Middles next time we cycle through it again. She will benefit greatly from having heard everything in the past and will acquire concepts more rapidly. The activities and the books might be different (they sometimes are) when we cycle back, but the principles and concepts will be the same.

Does this only work for history?

No! I can cover everything this way. I just need a starting point, my spine. From there the ribs keep growing and growing. A question brought up by a child that I did not think of can take us down a whole new rabbit trail (rib). That is how I added water to our Creation study. Someone asked why God separated “the waters” and what “the waters” were. We started by discussing it, then I researched it further, looking for books and voila! A whole new rib came to life! Every and all topics can be tagged on to a good spine.

How I select a spine

How I select a spine
This is where most of my time and effort is spent: to find a good spine. I am pretty picky about the spines we use, here is a list of qualification:

• It has to be a living book! Most of the points below describe a living book:
• Pleasant to read aloud, that is a must! If I am not enjoying reading it,no one will enjoy listening to me. 
• Well written with beautiful sentence structures and great vocabulary.
• Worldview: it has to align with our worldview and our Faith. It can differentiate a little here and there, enough to trigger great conversations, but not be opposed to it. 
• Beautiful illustrations, pictures and or maps.
• It has to make the subject come alive, it has to make us want more, to want to go down rabbit trails because it has ignited our curiosity. 
• It is written in a narrative style, it is telling a story, not just spewing out facts.

How I select the additional material

Honestly there is no rule, and sometimes little logic, for this part. If while reading the spine a question arises in my mind I jot it down. I go back through my list of questions and ideas and select what will interest most of us. You can never cover everybody’s interests but I try to include something for everyone. For my art minded students I make sure to design narrations that will require being artistic, as well as actual art. For my hands-on students I will select or create a hands-on project. And for the scientifically minded I will look up experiments and detailed videos that explain things down to the atom. While reading the spine, anything of interest is noted, and if we do not get to it this time around, there is always next time since we work in a cyclical way.

Choosing additional material

Once I have the ideas and concepts that I want to cover more in depth, I research living picture books on the subject. I create or find activities and narration topics that will anchor the new concepts into our minds. On occasion, if there is a good movie on the topic, I will include that as well. With a large family we have many different learning styles and interests. So, as the in-house expert I make sure to satisfy all styles and interests. Only I can do that. I am the expert on my children and no curriculum provider can know them the way I do. The only expertise you need is that of knowing your family and their likes and dislikes. And sometimes everyone has to suffer through the dislikes a little bit, but learning is still a lot more exciting this way than reading a textbook.

Whole subject learning enables all of us to make the connection between things much faster, in a wholesome way. It also saves time and preserves my sanity. We are learning together, family style, taking our time and pursuing our interests. There is no greater way to learn than by fostering curiosity, wonder and a thirst for discovery. And remember, we only have them at home for 18 years! We are only the igniters. Our children will have many more years to learn and discover once they are gone from our tutelage. Our job is to ignite their love of learning and to give them the tools necessary to learn on their own. Whole subject learning is a great complement to family style learning and we enjoy both tremendously.

I have created 3 whole subject study examples, just for you. These studies are designed as a one day sample. Each could be expanded greatly into a week, or more, of studies. I wanted to share with you the simplicity of creating whole subject studies for your family.
Love,
Mattie