So school has started here in South Florida, but my daughters will start next week. Why, you ask? This year we will be (ack!) homeschooling.
Ever since we had kids, homeschooling was in the back of our minds, but it never seemed possible. Both Samanther and I worked full time, and our schedules were very uncertain. But before long the planets began to align (God’s kinda funny that way) and we realized we needed to figure out how take the kids’ education into our own hands.
It all started when something weird happened. One of our friends from a church we used to attend found me on Facebook. I know, not too weird, except that this friend has four daughters, all of which are homeschooled, and I hadn’t spoken with him in years. We exchanged a few e-mails and finally set a date for our families to meet up at the park. While the six girls were on the monkey bars and climbing all over the place, Samanther and I grilled our friends to try and figure out if we really should start homeschooling. After three hours of inquisition (including some by them asking us WHY we wanted to homeschool – more on that later) and more pencil to paper, and a number of calls upstairs, we made the decision to homeschool.
It’s amazing the amount of support there is for homeschooling families. The internet has changed everything. We were able to preview all of the curriculum online before purchasing. Samanther joined a couple homeschooling Yahoo! Groups as well as a church-based homeschooling group that meets in person once a month.
So these past few weeks we have been putting together lesson plans, getting our supplies in order and converting the home office into a classroom. It has been exciting seeing the transformation and the kids are actually looking forward to school.
And now the $50,000 question, “What about the socialization?”
I was asking the same thing, and then I saw homeschooling in action. We attended a Christmas party hosted by a homeschool group last year. Shockingly, the kids weren’t pale from being shut-ins and hiding behind their mothers. They were normal kids. All the kids, ages 3-13, played with each other and there wasn’t any drama over sharing toys and the like. The kids even had conversations with adults at the party. So I’m pretty convinced the belief that homeschooled kids being social rejects is just a myth.
And to calm any fears about kids not understanding the classroom environment, our homeschool group meets every other week to do a co-op science class, complete with experiments. The group will even do field trips together and have holiday parties, just like regular school.
Our girls will continue swimming on the local swim team as well as joining the Girl Scouts, so they will have plenty of time to socialize. Also, we are going to be doing a lot of field trips and part of the field trip experience is going to be interviewing the adults working at the museums, science centers, and other locations we visit. I want our girls to not only be able to socialize with other children, but also be confident enough to speak to adults.
Monday is the first day we start our new schedule. I am excited. My responsibilities include teaching the kids P.E. every morning, and I am in charge of all experiments (my lesson plans include blowing a lot of stuff up.) Actually, I am lucky that my mom, former teacher, now works at a bookstore and has given us a lot of experiment books including my favorite, Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do) by Gever Tulley. I believe we made the correct decision, and I think the first few months will be relatively easy because of the years the girls spent at their previous schools. I am grateful for that. I will keep you all updated on our progress and will be posting our lessons now and then as well as the other happenings of first-year homeschoolers.
Tags: homeschooling
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