Ranch School & Five Marys Schoolhouse
by: Becca
Hi, all! My name is Becca.
I’m excited to be writing this guest blog post today to share with you all our journey so far through homeschool and Ranch School! I have a background in summer camps and education, both in the states and abroad. After becoming increasingly interested in education outside of the traditional classroom, I was thrilled to join the M5 team! It is a joy to be surrounded by hardworking, smart, supportive people, where days are filled to the brim with hands-on creative work.
Five Marys Schoolhouse
As we near the last season of 2020 and reflect upon the year, we can all say that the past several months delivered many unforeseen disruptions. The school year began with countless unknowns, so Mary & Brian decided to have Francie, Maisie, J.J., and Tessa learn from home.
“We knew we wanted to take this unusual opportunity of a year and
make the most of it - pushing us to do something different -
so we are all learning at home and the girls have set up
learning spaces upstairs in the Big House.”
-Mary
Tessa’s desk area in the Schoolhouse
This is the first year that the girls (& I!) have experienced the world of homeschooling, so we are definitely learning through trial and error. As I am sure most of you could agree, growing pains go hand in hand with new experiences and are bound to happen as we navigate our way through different curriculums, learning styles, and individual goals and hopes for the year. Homeschooling gives the unique experience of multi-aged kids learning together in one space. Even though the girls have their own rooms upstairs in the ‘Big House,’ by the end of the morning, you’ll usually find them all huddled in one room together with their books and their kittens! In fact, adorning each of their doors is a styled portrait of their cats: Kevin, Sylvie, Hatticus, and Chab… yes, Chab with a ‘b’!
We typically keep our schooling to the morning hours, although it's very important to stay flexible, as life on the ranch brings many circumstances that require immediate attention. Those situations are often important learning opportunities for the girls as well, so we make it a priority to be there. A couple of weeks ago, there was a mama pig giving birth who was struggling. Brian and Mary made the difficult decision to put her down and immediately perform a cesarean section to deliver the piglets. Brian handed the piglets to the girls who then cleared their mouths and rubbed their chests to get them breathing.
Just last week, Mary was filming a virtual segment for Hallmark’s ‘Home & Family,’ where she prepared a recipe from her cookbook, chicken fried steak, through Zoom. The girls were able to sneak downstairs for a while and see firsthand what it takes to put together a television segment. These may be experiences that they don’t fully grasp until a bit later in life, but these moments will create strong memories where they are able to gain insight and learn unconventional lessons!
The whole crew watching Mary as she films for Hallmark’s ‘Home & Family’ cooking segment
With that said, there are so many benefits of public school as well, and our community has a great public school system. It is likely that the girls will return to public school next year, which is one reason why it is important that they continue learning grade level core subjects the way they are typically presented in public schools. These are the curriculums we currently use during homeschooling, which may or may not change throughout the year!
Math: Beast Academy & Go Math
Language Arts: The Good & The Beautiful
Social Studies: Melissa Shutler & Who Was? Series
Science: The Good & The Beautiful
We also utilize all the awesome women we have working in the shop to help teach the girls “electives.” Some of the learning experiences we have done or plan to do this year include guitar lessons, nature notebooks, photography, running a 5k, chemistry experiments, creative writing, hand-lettering, painting, string bracelets, needlepoint, sign language, and more!
Ranch School
A big goal for the year is that the girls have rich educational experiences outside of the traditional classroom. There are many interesting, knowledgeable, creative people in our community that are generous with both their time and knowledge, and whom we rely on as we create workshops every week for Ranch School. Ranch School is a subscription based learning community where weekly workshops are released about age-old skills, modern day lessons, animal husbandry, ranch life, outdoor living, vocational skills, art & travel, and so much more!
“The M5 Ranch School concept came together to teach these girls more
about ranching and farming and real life skills. Since we were going
to have more time with them working on the ranch - to do it right,
we decided to make a program out of it we could share
with others anywhere in the world.”
-Mary
Each weekly Ranch School workshop that is released includes an educational text lesson and an engaging video lesson, among several other resources. To research these topics, we seek out experts in our community. No matter the topic, it’s fascinating to hear someone share something that they are so passionate about.
Mary & the girls making trail mix for Ranch School’s “All About Camping” workshop.
Because the girls have a flexible school schedule, they are able to come along on the “field trips” we take to write our lessons and film our videos. Some of these Ranch School field trips have included a trip to Golden Pacific Farms & Sun Valley Orchards to learn about prune tree harvesting, Hale Dairy for the All About Dairy Cattle workshop, and the Scott Valley Airport to tour the helicopters used to fight California wildfires. We are so appreciative of these experts sharing their knowledge and experiences with us, and all of you!
Field trip to Golden Pacific Farms & Sun Valley Orchards for Ranch School’s “All About Tree Harvesting” workshop. Thank you, Brendon!
Bruno gives us a tour of his organic dairy farm, Hale Dairy, for Ranch School’s “All About Dairy Cattle” workshop.
Touring the helicopters that are used to help fight California wildfires. Thank you to the whole crew at Scott Valley Helitack Base!
If you’re new to homeschooling or have been doing it for years, we’d love to hear what your experiences have been like! Let us know what you think of Ranch School so far, and what you would like to learn more about in future workshops.
