I’ll start out with telling you that I actually said the words “I’d never ever homeschool. Why would someone do that?” I am a graduate of the public-school system as well as a public University. My parents are public school teachers. I had a fantastic school experience. I played sports, was in band and several clubs. I have great memories of school and since we currently live at my parent house, my childhood home, it’s been wonderful revisiting my school year memories as I bring my boys to the places I used to frequent. Mr. 1 attended a private preschool and had a wonderful year when he was 4 making friends and enjoying a classroom atmosphere. When it came time to enroll him in Kindergarten we were challenged as we wanted to continue with a faith-based education but knew that the private Christian school wasn’t in our budget. We then enrolled him in the highly regarded public school that was near our home and began the emotional process of sending my boy to all day kindergarten. When June came around it was starting to get real and I was getting information about his bus schedule. I found out he’d be getting on the bus at 7:30am and not getting home until 3:00pm. At the same time friends of ours were going on a missions trip and decided to homeschool since they would be gone into the start of the school year. It started to dawn on me that maybe I could homeschool. I hated the idea of him being gone so long, he was only 5 years old. I prayed about it, talked with Mister and prayed about it again. I spoke to friends about their methods and curriculums and learned a bit. (More on what we specifically use for curriculums in another post) Mister and I continued to learn and discuss it and pray together and decided we would try it out for the Kindergarten year. We enrolled him in a local campus of Classical Conversations (I’ll discuss how we use CC more in a future post)
Though I felt confident that this is what God wanted for our family I was worried. Would Mr1 and I fight all the time? How will I manage to actually teach him anything with Mr2 running around? What about math (I am not strong in skill or passion for math)Would I still be able to be active at the wonderful gym we were members at? What if we have another baby?
The first year was eye opening. I wanted to save money so I tried to create everything from flash cards to a calendar. I finally realized it was less expensive and stressful to purchase some of those things. I also found myself handling our interactions differently as we lead up to the first of the school year. I would take a breath sooner than I previously would have. That was my first realization that God would be my biggest support system through this venture.
Well here we are 6 years later. Mr1 is in 5th grade and Mr2 is in 2nd grade. Do we have good days? Yes. Do we have rough days? Yes. Do I pray often for our homeschool? Yes. Is it a little crazy with two more boys in the mix? Yes. Would I trade these days with my boys for anything? Nope. I am so grateful for this time to learn with my children. When we are working on handwriting and Mr2 writes a perfect letter G, I love that I am the one who gets to enjoy his smile when I applaud him. I savor the moments when Mr 1 is working on his math and he nails a tough problem. When we all sit down with a bowl of popcorn to read “On the Shores of Silver Lake” and Laura and her family have a surprise treat of popcorn and we all chuckle as we munch our corn and feel a little closer to the Ingalls family.
Homeschooling is not for everyone and I fully acknowledge that. I am so grateful for the support I had from my friends at church and in our CC communities. Also, some family members, though they don’t understand our decision, fully supported us. The flexibility it awards is just one of the many bonuses. In the above pic we took a break and went for a walk to enjoy the beautiful weather. Those are the memories and experiences I enjoy and have high hopes to continue with my children.
I look foward to sharing more of our homeschool experience with you, what has worked and not worked for us. Thank you so much for reading about our experience!
