Homeschooling 101: Where it all began, our why

Between the two of us we experienced a little of everything for our k-12 education.  I started in the public school system and then as I entered my middle school years I was given the option of being homeschooled or attending the local private school.  I choose the private school.  In high school I went between the two private and public schools but officially graduated from the private academy. My Strong Man started at a private academy but ended his highschool career as a homeschooler.  Honestly we see the positives and negatives of all three systems. When it came time for our kids to go to school we felt the public schools were understaffed with the student to teacher ratio not being optimal. I liked the idea of homeschooling some day, but not in the early years. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to teach my kids to read and that I would ruin their education for life. We decided on a 10 student to 1 teacher private school a few miles from our house. It turns out that that is also when our homeschooling journey would begin as well.

It was a warm August day as we walked in the school building for the very first time as parents.  Our curly haired, freckle faced boy was excited to start kindergarten although he was nervous about his lisp hindering him as he introduced himself.  In fact he was so nervous he asked me to introduce him to the teacher so he could be sure she would know his name. It’s a bad combination to have a lisp and a name that starts and ends with S’s. Turns out Mrs. S already knew his name, and she was ready for this first time Momma too.  As I left school that day she handed me a package of tissues with a Hersey kiss for me to use as I got into the car. It was a beautiful start to this new chapter of our lives.  She was the best first teacher any family could hope for.  As the year progressed I volunteered weekly. It was a good first year of school. However, near the end of the year we walked into a normal teacher’s conference.  His amazing teacher suggested that maybe we hold him back a year.  He was smart, nobody questioned his intelligence, but he was struggling to stay focused on his tasks.  A thing common to young boys. 

We contemplated and thought about what we should do for the next year. On the one hand if we moved him forward he might become frustrated as the pace moves a bit faster and more would be required of him.  Also his class size would grow which would also mean he could potentially have more distractions and what was already the difficult task of focusing on his learning might be even more difficult.  On the other hand as much as we adored his teacher we thought if he was doing the same work over again with nothing being new and exciting that he might get bored and not even try to focus. Neither seemed like the best option, so we decided for just ONE year we would homeschool.

That first year of homeschooling I did half the teaching and my hubs did the other half.  We both worked, he was a paralegal and I ran a restaurant. My Hubs would be at work by 8 am while I would teach the kids, feed them lunch and give them a recess while I got ready for work..  I would leave for work at 1:30 and my hubs would finish teaching them.  At this point we had a kindergartener and a first grader.  Oh and in Maine you only are required to do 175 days of school. It isn't mandated that we do five day school weeks so we didn’t.  We actually only did four day school weeks.  We started after Labor Day and ended the last week of May.

For that first year I did a google search to see what a “first grader needs to know by the end of the year in Maine.” Then I looked it up for three other states.  I wanted to make sure my kids didn’t miss anything.  Turns out not too much is required of them at such a young age. They need to know a lot of motor and fine motor skills. No one subject ever lasted more than 20 minutes, unless of course they were having so much fun that they asked for more. In the younger years really you don’t need to do every subject every day.  I’ll write more on schedules and curriculums in another post.

As each year comes to a close as a family, and a couple we reevaluate what next year will look like. Every year looks different for us and every year our reasons are different. That first year we chose to homeschool thinking it would just help our boy learn to focus. Two years later we would learn that it wasn’t completely a focus issue but he was dyslexic and that changed our reason for homeschooling. More on that in another post. Every single year one thing remains: We want our kids to have a love for learning and we feel the traditional school system just wouldn’t allow that for their learning styles.

Here’s the WHY for other families:

~ “It just always felt like the right and natural thing to do for our family. I only found later the many benefits of homeschooling. The one on one tailored approach to learning, the freedom of it all, the closeness of family and the stronger spiritual guidance we are able to provide.”

~ “I didn’t agree with what the current administration was teaching for morals.”

~ “I didn’t like what kids were taught/exposed to and could only afford Christian school for a few years. I worked mostly weekends so I was able to teach during the week.”

~ I always knew that I would at least start out homeschooling my children. I was homeschooled and I loved the flexibility that it gave our family to pursue individual interests and also that it taught us to be extremely self-motivated and to love to learn new things. I wanted the same for my children. I also love to spend time with them, and I believe that learning (especially in the earlier ages) is very relational and that my children would learn best from a person who loved them and knew them best. Learning happens for us in so many ways when we live life together and I didn't want to feel like education was separate from the rest of life. I also wanted to teach my children our values and that doesn't just happen during a scheduled time. It happens best when it is woven into everything we do together and requires that we actually are together for me to be able to do it well.