Welcome to homeschooling! We made the decision to give homeschooling a try when my oldest was four. We are not too far out from wrapping up our seventh year of it. We have a couple of reasons we decided to homeschool at the beginning, but as time goes on we’ve found more and more reasons to continue. It may not always be easy, but it has truly been a blessing. It is something that has us all learning and growing.
I used to be a teacher before becoming a stay at home mom. I had taught for 9 years in many different areas and ages, but had always worked with kids since high school. I’ve seen the school side and the parenting side. So using those experiences and seeing where the schools were at back in 2017 and the direction they were headed, as well as seeing how my son learned the best, his interests, and personality combined, we opted for the path of homeschooling. At the very least, we figured we could give a try and see how it went, adjusting when and where needed.
My oldest has always been curious, creative, loves nature, and asks a lot of questions. When my oldest was 4, I was looking at his personality traits and quirks and quickly realized that in pretty much any school setting public or private so much of that would be squashed or he would loose it. Homeschool quickly became a way that we could foster those traits and quirks, build them up to be strengths, and build our learning in a way that worked. Those things are a part of what makes him him and we didn’t want to loose that.
As we looked into homeschooling, we noticed that it wouldn’t take much to do where we live and we didn’t have to say we were homeschooling until the school year my son was 7 at the start of. So for us, that meant when he was in second grade. This made me begin to wonder, if we didn’t have to say anything til second grade, then what is the point of kindergarten and first grade in a school building. I had also read a book “Boys will be Boys’ that got me thinking, what the schools require for kids, especially at a young age, is not developmental appropriate and is more of hinderance to their learning.
My youngest got to do homeschool by proxy. Because his brother was, so was he because he wanted reading and math like his brother had. At this point, both are well above grade level in core subjects, although keep in mind grade levels are arbitrary.
Like I said, it isn’t always easy, but it is a blessing. We are seven years into homeschooling. We have our smooth days and our rough days. We’ve had to make shifts and changes, sometimes multiple times in a year. But we are figuring it out. The beauty of homeschooling is you can flex and shift, you can make it your own, and make it so your kiddo will thrive and still be able to let who they truly are shine through. And you can make it adjustable to their ability, interests, and how they learn.
When we first began, we built the fundamentals in reading, math, and writing. Then as we moved along we built on those, as well as added in things like science, history, social studies, and art based off interests and topics the kids wanted to dive into deeper. We use curriculum, classes, field trips, activities, videos and books throughout the year to cover topics, to learn, to teach. When we started homeschooling is also when we began to build our spiritual faith as well. When you homeschool, learning happens anywhere at anytime.
Despite having been a teacher, we still chose homeschool. Why? Because after looking at our options for schools in our area, combined with knowing what it was like inside the public education system, and knowing that we it wasn’t until my son would be in second grade that we had to let the district know and do the standardized test we wanted to give the best option for our kids to grow, learn, and thrive.
Our reasons for sticking with it keep growing and seven years in our day, schedules, and rhythms look different than when we started. As our kids grow and change, so does how this all works.
It started out with very basic math and learning to read, a whole lot of play and adventures, art scattered throughout, and the other subjects fell in around based off interests.
I know, when you hear the word homeschool you may think it is all done at home or you are just trying to recreated schools in your house. That is far from the reality of it. Our fist couple of years was more along the lines of roadschooling, then home because we were using all that was around us to teach, to learn, to grow.
There have been some questions asked over and over again when others find out we homeschool, however, most of the time people are excited, in support of, encouraging and more.
Often I hear, “oh, I could never homeschool, I don’t have the patience to”. I can totally understand that, my patience is and has been tested over the years. Some days it is easier and runs more smoothly and other days we struggle. But day by day, little by little we make it through. I believe I have learned as much as my kids have over the years. We continue to grow, be challenged, and learn year after year. In the long run my goal is that my kids have a solid foundation in math, reading, and writing, but they also develop a of love of learning that carries throughout life, life skills, quality character, and continue to build their faith.
if you have any questions post them below or send a message and I will follow up.
I hope and pray that you find what works for your kids to thrive and know that you aren’t alone in the journey.
Until next time,
~ Liz
heartroots.net 