BookShark

I never imagined I’d homeschool. Ever. In fact, I was vocally anti-homeschooling. I loved my public school experiences and had very little experience with families who chose to homeschool, so I had based my (very strong) feelings on (very incorrect) stereotypes and assumptions. Since you're reading this post on a homeschool curriculum blog, you can guess how those false beliefs turned out for me!

My oldest child was what I call a trick baby—a dream come true—a kid so easy to parent that I figured I must be a pro and should have a hundred more babies. My assumptions obviously fail me pretty often because my second born, my middle child, was not easy. He did not make me feel like a pro. He was adorable and fun and never ever boring, but he was, to put it gently, a handful.

For our family, paying attention to time is a huge piece of why we homeschool: having enough time for things we love, spending time together, and learning at the times when we feel our best. I homeschool because I want my children to have time to learn and follow their passions. For us, this means we don’t follow a traditional school schedule.

Depending on the day, season, year and the outside classes my children take, our learning might happen in the early morning or late afternoon.

I’ll be honest. Sometimes I love our rhythm, and other times it’s challenging. I’m a morning person and prefer to get going right away. My nine-year-old is a night owl and has been since birth. Her creative juices get going about bedtime.

I get mixed feedback when I tell people that my children and I are year-round homeschoolers. And I can understand why! Before I used year-round homeschooling myself, I had the mental picture of spending long days hovered over textbooks all year long with no breaks.

The reality is quite the opposite!

Year-round school for doesn't mean that we keep the same pace day in and day out. It means we flex our studies based on seasons, weather, and opportunity—stretching out a 36 week program to fill 52 weeks of the year.

Once you make the plunge to homeschooling, you may start to question everything that you assumed to be true about education. You break more and more of the molds from traditional schooling and blaze your own unique path. You wonder... Is it possible to homeschool in fewer hours than the traditional school day? Can I meet my children’s academic needs in less than five days a week? Can a shorter week and shorter school day provide enough academics?

These are questions every homeschooler weighs. The resounding answer is yes! You can give your kids all they need academically with a highly efficient model at home, using a 4-day school week, often with as little as a 4-hour day!

I’m about to come clean. Deep breaths. I don’t homeschool all of my children. In fact, I don’t homeschool most of my children. Pause for pearl-clutching.

Of my three kids, one is homeschooled and two attend public schools. My husband and I do what works best for each child, and right now this is what works. This arrangement is likely to change in the future as each kid's needs change. But for right now, this is the set-up that allows each child to thrive.

“What grade are you in?”

I cannot tell you how many times my daughter has been asked this question in the last couple of years.

I think what I love most though is her response, “I don’t do school.” She says it with an ease I admire. After the confused or alarmed looks, I explain that we homeschool.

If you’ve ever doubted yourself as a homeschooler, you’re not alone. No matter how many years we homeschool, doubt can get loud. Seeds of doubt plant germinate and sprout when our kids struggle, when we’re tired, when our kids say they are bored, or when learning stagnates. When worry rears its head, our inclination might be to turn to a quick fix or busy work to quiet our fears.

What is busy work? Busy work is anything we tell ourselves is good for our child knowing full well deep inside it’s a way to keep kids occupied or put a bandaid on whatever is going on.

Once upon a time, you sat slumped in history class as the film strip droned on. You were implored to memorize the dates and events of World War II. You took notes, strained over their details, crammed for the test and then, if you’re anything like me, forgot almost all of it. Now, picture this. Your kids sprawl across the carpet and sofa as you begin reading Snow Treasure, "'Beat you to the turn!' Peter Lundstrom shot his sled down the long steep slope." Immediately, you are all transported to Norway in 1940. As you near the end of chapter one, your children beg you to continue reading. You are happy to indulge.Read More

Early in our homeschooling days, we lived in a tiny apartment over a parking lot with almost no natural light and no room to spare. I distinctly recall our first season in that apartment, hugging up to the one decent window and longing for all of the homeschool spaces I’d been saving for months on Pinterest. We made do for awhile, conducting the majority of our homeschooling time on the living room floor. But when the first spring rolled around, we needed a change of scenery. One particularly beautiful morning, I packed all of our books, notebooks, and crayons into a hiking backpack, along with a picnic lunch and a blanket. We headed out to a quiet pond nearby and set up our classroom for the day on a lush, flower-dotted hillside in the shade of a cottonwood tree.Read More

While interacting in the gifted homeschooling community, I see one major concern come up pretty frequently. Daily, even. No, it’s not wondering about socialization, or even how a homeschooled child will ever learn how to stand in line (insert sarcasm font).

It’s wondering how to adapt a curriculum for a child who devours knowledge, programs, and books at lightning speed. Parents find products and programs that they really like, full of information and easy to use, but their kids just want more.

And more.