Good morning. Ah, man, it's an early one today. Not by time, but my body sure could've stayed asleep for another hour. Such is life. I have my coffee in hand, dishwasher started, and now working on this. My mornings top three today.
Today I thought I'd share why we choose to homeschool our kids. We were living in Nebraska, getting ready to move to Northern Virginia (military assignments) and I really considered it because the schools in Northern VA seemed daunting while we were house hunting because most had low rating scales. I know, you can't judge off a school from the ratings online because most likely the only people that rate are the ones who are upset. But, that was all I could go on at the time. We finally found a home in a very nice neighborhood and the school rating was an 8. I still didn't trust it. Since we moved a month before school would start, we decided to take a tour of the school and see if it'd be a perfect fit for our family. It seemed to, so the next month, Xander started Kindergarten and Sterling started Pre-K (in a different school). He found a group of friends, and adjusted well. Towards the end of the year, things changed and he wasn't excited about going to school.
{2016-2017}
{2017-2018}
Xander headed off to 1st grade, and Sterling started Kindergarten. This was the year that changed it for us. Both kids were anxious all the time, the bullying started, and they just didn't want to go anymore. We ended up finishing the year but it was a long one. I began volunteering in their classrooms to see what was going on, so I was at the school for 3 hours, 3-4 days a week. While I enjoyed being there, I could see there are some kids that are just not nice. We also traveled a lot during this school year and ended up getting in trouble for taking too much time off by February. We love to travel, so it was annoying having a school system tell us we couldn't take anymore time off during the school year. Then started all the school bomb drills. The threats, the noise, and complete lockdown scared my kids. We had had enough.
{2018-2019}
We moved to North Carolina and opened up our own school. This was the hardest decision of my life. I knew it was the right decision, but I had a hard time coming with terms that I'd be teaching my own kids. I can teach others, no problem, but teaching my own son sounded terrifying. We're both so hard headed, I couldn't imagine it.
I made the plunge and registered us and ordered our curriculum. We had our first day at the end of August because it took me forever to decide what I wanted to do. Our first year was rough. We were all learning each others styles, dislikes, and likes. It was one big, year-long learning curve. This first year a lot of money was spent figuring out which curriculum would work. We focused our year on math and language arts, and threw in science and social studies once a week. We took end of year tests and both kids were above grade level, so we decided to continue schooling at home.
{2019-2020}
We enjoyed a long summer break before starting school back up. But we were ready this year. Xander started 3rd grade, and Sterling started 2nd grade. The year went pretty smooth until the last three months. We moved to South Carolina in March (military assignment), Coronavirus hit, and all activities and normalcy was shut down. No chance of making friends in a new location due to social distancing and all parks were closed. I can see where the stress of doing school was during these hard times. But, we mustered through and finished. Maybe not where I thought we would, but that's okay. That's the beauty of homeschool.
One rule I have in our school is that in order to move on to new concepts is that we must understand previous ones without needing to be reminded how to start.
{2020-2021}
We started our third year homeschooling with a third and fourth grader! I can't believe it. We're living in a tiny apartment, don't have our desks and large space from our home, but we're making it work. We also are doing school year-round this year. Our first day was on July 15th and it's going really well this year, so far.
I think making the switch to homeschool for us has been a wonderful decision. We have hard days, but our amazing days outweigh those difficult ones. My favorite part of homeschooling my kids has been watching the "lightbulb a-ha" moments. Those moments are the best!
If you're in a season of life where you are considering it, I say, do it! Look up your states homeschool laws, I started with HSLDA. I didn't join, but it has a lot of great information. From there I then went to NC Department of Administration to find specific homeschool requirements.
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