Homeschooling

My journey of educating my kids has been circuitous to say the least! We've tried and seriously considered nearly every option, and yet we keep coming back to homeschooling because of the flexibility and freedom it affords our family.

We started homeschooling for a variety of reasons when our oldest was a fourth grader. For one, we were tired of demanding teachers telling us what was best for our child. For example, one teacher insisted I should be buying my child milk to go with his sack lunch every day. This same teacher admonished me for buying him shoes with laces instead of Velcro.

Finding time for yourself is difficult when homeschooling. The children are always home and underfoot. This is marvelous except for those times you could use a moment or two for yourself.

There are ways a busy homeschool mom can enjoy some solo, me-time if she is very conscious about carving out the opportunities.

Recently I inherited a stack of treasures my husband’s mother had saved from his childhood school years. Artifacts included handwriting samples, artwork, and test scores. Although it was fun to see, my home was already bursting at the seams with collections of my own children’s past work. It piles up very quickly.

That is why we decided to go digital with our homeschool portfolios.

There is nothing I enjoy more than taking my children on field trips. These educational excursions get us out in the world and put whatever we are learning about into a real-life context. We get to see first hand how things are interrelated and broaden our horizons in ways that complement the books we are reading in our homeschool curriculum.

Unfortunately, our budget does not always allow for us to travel; particularly when there are so many places from around the world that we’d love to see. One way we get around this limitation is to take virtual field trips through the power of the Internet.

Choosing to homeschool will change the way you think about a lot of things. The longer I homeschool, the more the lines between school and life blur, and that makes it hard for me to answer the question of whether or not we are year-round homeschoolers. Maybe you have this problem, too?

I don’t assign math in the summer months. June through August, I don’t ask my sons to save their work or projects in a three ring binder in our homeschool closet.

Has a home ever really been lived in if no one has homeschooled within its walls?

Homeschoolers know how to live in a house. Every single square inch is commandeered for a purpose, or four or five. The kitchen is, at different times or all at once, the cafeteria, science lab, art room, nurse’s office, dinner theatre, and debate stage. We have even staged an epic fire drill in ours. (It was actually less of a drill and more of the real thing than I care to admit, but you get where I am going with this multi-purposing of rooms.)

Every space is prime real estate for sibling rivalry, and at times, the walls may feel as if they are heaving, cartoon-like as nooks and crannies become reading corners and LEGO stop animation studios.

When I attended public school as a child,  I never thought about how much money my parents had to spend to make that possible. Naturally, my biggest concern was getting the right pair of sneakers for my first day of class.

Now that I’m a parent, budgeting is one of my biggest concerns. Having tried both homeschooling and public schooling for my own children, I’ve learned firsthand the different costs associated with both methods.

My boys hate to write, so I am always on the lookout for creative ways to capture their attention and entice their cooperation. Through the years we have tried many different types of writing: journal writing, copywork, free writing, and writing poetry or lyrics. Unfortunately none of those activities were met with more than the barest glimmer of tolerance.

In searching for fun ideas to supplement our language arts program, I came up with a few activities that they actually enjoyed so much they begged me to do them again!