Reflecting on Our First Year of Homeschooling

I'll start by saying that we are about to be preparing for our THIRD year of homeschooling our children (my about-to-be 7 year old son, 4 1/2 year old daughter and soon to be two year old son). Just typing that makes me realize how far we are into our journey! I haven't been around here much to document all this in real time, but hopefully if you are just starting out or considering homeschooling your little ones, you will find this helpful!

If you've been around a while (you know, since before I fell out of the blogosphere), you may remember that I was debating on what direction we would take with our son's education. I wanted to homeschool, but I was concerned about having a new baby in the mix. We considered doing an online public school, and actually had almost completed the enrollment process. Thank God for Holy Spirit, I just didn't have total peace about that choice, and at the last minute, we decided to homeschool independently.

Why did we decide against online public school?

I'm so glad you asked!

I had concerns. I'm a reader of the fine print (usually) and it seemed to me that their requirements might be a little much for us. One thing was, I didn't like that we had to log two hours of online work each day, and if we missed a day (due to illness or vacation or anything) it had to be made up. (I know some devote longer than two hours a day to homeschooling, but for us, for just starting out, for kindergarten, it seemed a bit much.) One of my personal reasons for wanting to homeschool is the freedom it affords. All states are different, I learned. Some have strict laws about how much time is spent on education, some don't. Ours doesn't. Initially, I thought that not having to plan lessons and such would be a blessing with a new babe in the house. But then, I figured it might be even more demanding of me to make sure those hours get completed. I would have to facilitate whatever he was doing for school work, and keep him on task. With a new baby, it's hard to find two hours to devote to anything (except for the new baby, of course!) And if I understood correctly, it was two hours of computer work, plus the other non-computer learning he had to do.

As it would happen, I also ended up seeing a couple of threads on Facebook and elsewhere about this very thing, and some of the experienced parents confirmed my suspicion that this was a lot to deal with. There was stuff I hadn't thought of, like the fact that teachers interact with students via webcam (not sure if this would be at the kindergarten level, but I'm thinking it is)- but, hello! Kinda out of my comfort zone (not that it would be unsupervised, but still). Then, of course is the fact that it is a state-sanctioned, secular program along with whatever ideas and ideals they might present. I just didn't want to deal with that. (Again, these were our concerns, someone else might be perfectly fine with this set-up).

What we did do:

The first year, we kinda winged it! I explored a lot of options, and with our fairly limited budget, I used many free resources online. I loved exploring Pinterest and getting ideas. I frequently found other resources through homeschool blogs and homeschool pages on Facebook. I utilized our local library (and also interlibrary loans) for books. 

By the time we began "officially" homeschooling, we had accumulated several inexpensive workbooks and packs of flash cards from places like Target and Dollar Tree. These I would grab up any time I saw them during the back to school sales. 

I heard about Five in a Row, and I immediately fell in love with the concept of literature-based learning. A big bonus being that Five in a Row is a Christian organization, so the book selections are in line with our values and world-view. I bought the first volume from Amazon, and started to explore. We rowed a few books, but I did have trouble tracking down some of the titles at the library, and didn't want to pay a lot to order them online.

We also had purchased a membership to the local natural history museum. My son was obsessed with dinosaurs, so that choice only seemed...er...natural to do. We went at least every couple of months during that year, and guess what? He was hardly into learning about the dinosaurs. Apparently, I signed up for our membership on the tail-end of his obsession! There was one room with a marble run-type contraption with PVC pipes that had magnets on them that you could arrange and re-arrange on this metal section of wall. You're supposed to line them up and drop a ping pong ball and watch it roll down the track you make. Both my two older children were occupied with that for the longest time. At the natural history museum! :-)

What I realized:

• Children's brains do not care about grade levels! Learning happens all the time, with or without a curriculum! Last year, my son was five years old, and technically in kindergarten. He was learning "kindergarten level" things well before we ever seriously considered homeschooling. He had already learned to read by age 3 ½ (I was an early reader as well, and we read a ton around here).
• I like focusing on really good quality literature, and that year, we discovered many favorite authors and stories.
• I'm not so good at the planning (yet). There, I said it. I think I would try and try to plan out a week or two or more in advance, and part way through it, kinda feel like poking my own eyes out. Not really, but it could be agonizing. Naturally, I'm the type that I feel like I must make the absolute right choice in any given circumstance (I'm quite notorious for taking forever to order in a restaurant- so now, I usually check the menu online to alleviate some of that!) I think it's all about learning what works for everyone. One needs to assess the amount of direction the children need to continue on their path of learning and how much planning and preparation is required of the parent before it becomes a huge, monumental task that becomes disheartening and discouraging for everyone.
• There is a lot of support online! Lots of groups, helpful Facebook pages and blogs. I am not alone!
• Our homeschool is NOT going to look like pretty much anyone else's homeschool. We have a different approach to learning, different values, different space, different resources and different needs.

Moving Onward:

Have we found our groove? I'm gonna go with "no" (or maybe, "not quite") at this point. We are (as I'm sure we will continue to be) an evolving unit, and I will continue learning more about my children's educational needs. One idea that has intrigued me this year is unschooling. Currently, if I had to label our approach, I would say we are "eclectic", pulling our learning from various areas, fields of thought, and experiences, while still trying to stay in line with suggested grade level material (for the most part). Unschooling sort of throws all the convention out the window and allows children to forge their own path. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the philosophy of unschooling to see if it is a good fit for our family and our individual learners. I remain open to God's leading- I know He will show me (as always) what path to take!

Do you homeschool? Are you considering it? Share your thoughts in a comment!

Contains affiliate links

Linking up here:

What I'm Into this Month- January 2014

Don't you love how I proclaim my inability to be quiet and then go silent for almost two months? Yeah, me too.

January has been a pretty busy month for me. I feel kind of behind, because I didn't really sit down to think about my goals for the year as I usually do, but I did choose a word (or maybe it chose me?) and I hope to be able to share about that sometime soon! (I guess maybe choosing a word kind of eliminates the need to make a huge list of goals. It is the filter through which every decision can be made as it comes. Kind of a nice change!) It's actually working out nicely for me, and I keep seeing God reveal this chosen theme in different areas. He is so good!

Here's a hint at what my word might be: I've joined this 2,014 in 2014 challenge where you get rid of 2,014 items in (you guessed it) 2014. I've just grown so tired of being disorganized and cluttered and weighed down by all the unnecessary items in our (tiny) home. I've been so drawn to the idea of minimalism- especially since my brain tends to get overwhelmed with too many choices. I mean, why do we really need so much stuff? I think it gives the illusion of prosperity, but it's a lie. You can't be prosperous when your stuff is sucking the life out of your home. When you don't have space to create or relax or whatever it is you do with your space...when your stuff is not contributing to your well being...in the instance of hanging on to items that don't work, or that don't work for you (I'm looking at YOU, pre-motherhood clothes!)

A box of items that no longer live here. Yay!

Anyway, that decluttering journey has begun. I've started to donate items to a local women's center, as well as hauling stuff to Goodwill. And some stuff (you know, like trash) is just going in the trash. That counts too.

Books- Well, I have turned into quite the slow reader. (It may have something to do with a busy toddler I know...hmm.) I am still reading Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids. Matter of fact, I renewed it from the library twice, and then checked it out again. That's how quickly I'm getting through it. It's a great book, and I'm getting a lot of good tips from it and gaining understanding about my own behavior as well as that of my children. I just can't seem to get through it with any speed. I might read more quickly if I could read more than five minutes every three days or so. Ah well. I will finish it. Eventually.

Want to Read- I cracked open Teach Your Own (try as I might to commit to reading one book at a time!), and so far that's pretty interesting. I really love reading books about homeschooling. It's so eye opening- especially being that my husband and I both attended public school- and we literally knew two families who homeschooled before embarking on our own journey with our children!

Television- Ah...well Downton Abbey is BACK! I have church on Sunday night, so I don't get to be home to watch it when it airs, but God bless PBS. They stream it for free online, meaning I am able to watch it the next day. And I can pause it too! I think we all know why that comes in handy. I've never been so sucked into a television show as I have with DA. It's so not my style to be obsessed with a television show, but I love following the lives of these fictional people. And then? Then once I've finished an episode, I have to follow it up with reading someone's commentary on the episode. I can quit when I want to. ;-)

Films- Akeelah and the Bee is streaming on Netflix now. That was such a great movie! I love watching stories about unlikely-seeming people with a gift who triumph over their circumstances. It helps that I LOVE words. I shared this quote from it on my Facebook page a while back: "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” ~Marianne Williamson

So inspiring!

I also watched a documentary called The Cartel- about the school system in New Jersey. Umm...scary! Films like this make me so glad we chose the homeschooling route- not saying schools are necessarily like this everywhere (I know they're not- at least not to that extent), but to think that there could be that kind of corruption lurking in a place where we send our children to learn? No, thanks. We were warned. The love of money is the root of all evil. It's even more terrible when people can't resist the temptation when precious children are involved.

In My Kitchen- Bread! Lovely bread. Baked by yours truly. I've been using this recipe as a guide, and trust me when I say, it's delicious! (I've tweaked it a bit, using bread flour instead of whole wheat- actually the last few batches I've baked, I've used about a cup of whole wheat flour and it's really good. The time I used all whole wheat flour, no one was really impressed.) I'm still soaking it to release the nutrients, and that seems to be a good thing. Everyone seems to be tolerating it well. (If you have read for long, you might remember that I had to eliminate wheat from my diet when I was nursing my daughter- well I did the same with my newest addition- now going on 20 months old- and I introduced soaked bread with no issues. He even eats it just fine.)

Not bad for my very first bread attempt! Was delicious!

 Anyway, this bread reminds me of the fresh bread that is served at some restaurants. Only better. Mmm...bread!

Also? Helpers! Why didn't I get on this bandwagon sooner? I had read an article recently and one of my take-aways from it was the importance of allowing children to learn to do things that benefit their family. Learning to do things for themselves and how it builds their confidence. Genius! Ha. I know I've had the tendency to simply do things because I want it done a certain way (not thinking about how I might be hindering their growth) and it's "easier" to just do it myself. But I've been so blessed by my children's willingness to help out and how it actually frees me up somewhat. (And it helps them, of course!)

My little workin' man!

What I'm Looking Forward to Next Month- My husband is celebrating a birthday! That's exciting. Not sure what we will do to celebrate just yet. I will have to come up with something. Also, my oldest boy will begin taking karate classes. Super exciting!

So tell me, what are YOU into this month?

Linking up here: