Homeschooling is a hot topic right now and for great reason. We have been a homeschool family for a month now and we are loving it! If you’re wondering how to start homeschooling, continue on down this post for our experience, how you can start and some encouragement.
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So, You’re Considering Homeschool?
I can tell you that homeschool has been one of the best decisions we have made so far and I want to help you along the way on your homeschool journey as well.
As a quick background, we are a family of 8 and are homeschooling 5 of our 6 children. We pulled our older boys from third, second, and preschool the first day in March. We also have 3 year old twins. Currently we are homeschooling about 3 hours a day, our main focus being the older boys with their lessons while the younger three are working on their alphabet, numbers, and art skills.
We took a good three weeks off of school while we adjusted to this new life. No schedules, routines, or that awful morning rush.
As a mama, this new no schedule, no rush kind of mornings has been such a blessing!
What’s funny to me though is we were always against homeschool for our children. I always said I had no interest in trying to be their teacher when it came to education, especially when we have such incredible teachers and staff in our schools.
While this is still true – we absolutely love our teachers in our district – public school was just no longer for us.
God Placed Homeschool on my Heart
Back in the Fall, we were drowning in schedules, school routine, preschool pick up/drop off, my husbands midnight shift routine, and a 7 month long stint of sports schedules. We were exhausted and run down.
We knew something had to change and first considered my husbands work schedule. Unfortunately, we tried that route but it did not come to fruition.
So we just took it day by day and with sports winding down and winter setting in we took a step back and accepted the craziness of life.
Fast forward to Christmas break, I don’t remember exactly when it happened, but the thought of homeschool crossed my mind. It was a like a whisper to the heart that came out of nowhere.
So, I messaged my husband who was already at work and just put the idea out there and to my surprise he responded with “look into it”. So the next day I got onto Instagram and asked for information from experienced homeschool mamas. They did not disappoint when it came to their responses, advice, and encouragement. I am so incredibly grateful for them.
Doubt Set In
To be honest, I thought there was no way we are going to homeschool. I have never had any desire to homeschool our children, if anything I had been counting down the days until all our children were in school and I would have a break a few hours every day. Not to mention we can see the school from our home, why would I homeschool when the school is so close?
But day after day, we were being worn down from that school routine and schedule. Especially as myself, as a mom of a big family, my days were overwhelming and I knew something needed to change.
Another factor, my children, my 7 and 9 year old children were coming home repeating things they were learning from their peers that was completely unacceptable for children their age. Given it’s public school, I understand I can’t control what they were exposed to from other children, but this was also fueling my need to make changes.
But could I really do this? Could I really pull my children from school. What if I fail them? Can I teach them so they understand? Am I disciplined enough to have them do their lessons everyday? How do I even create a homeschool routine with them? What curriculum do I use? Where do I even start!?
Taking the Leap
Even with the doubt, we finally decided we were going to pull our children from school during Spring Break. A fellow homeschool mama did this with her children so they could get a feel for homeschool and if it didn’t work for them they could return to school in the Fall. We thought this was a great idea for us as well.
Fast forward to February, I was standing in the driveway when I felt this nudge keep telling me “pull the kids, you need to pull the kids now”. I thought this was just me being impatient. I am a very impatient person by nature so I brushed this off, but it stuck in the back of my mind.
Then, the last week of February, our school district had 4 different threats made.
Mind you, we have a great school district. I have thanked God so many times for leading us to this district. We have had nothing but great experiences and we absolutely love the teachers.
However, the last and final threat was one where the the high school was surrounded by law enforcement. I saw the entire thing go down and rushed to get my son from the elementary school where they told me I was not allowed to pick him up.
This put a fire in my mama bear heart and although I understood the precautions they were taking to keep our children safe, it did not sit right with me that I didn’t have access to my child. I didn’t know if he was safe, if he knew what was going on, and I didn’t like I had no control over my childs protection.
This was the final straw.
When I was finally able to pick my son up that day, I went straight home to print out the papers I needed to fill out for our homeschool notification.
With shaking hands, I prayed my way into the post office the next morning to mail our notice of intention in a whole month earlier than planned.
A Whole Month In
We are now a whole month and a few days into our homeschooling journey and I can’t tell you how bad I want to scream from the rooftops how everyone should do this!
My childrens attitudes have done a whole 180! We no longer argue about having to get up in the morning, everyone wakes up when their bodies tell them to wake up.
We are no longer have to rush to eat breakfast, brush teeth, get dressed, pack bags, do the whole morning school routine.
Attitudes and behaviors from other kids at school are no longer influencing my childrens behavior.
There are no melt downs before or after school to adjust from the different environments or rough days from sitting in a classroom.
My kids are learning at their own pace and they are telling me what they want to learn and are leading their lessons based on their interests.
Life has been so good when it comes to schooling and our individual one on one time we now get to have daily!
It’s Not All Sunshine and Rainbows
I shared about our journey so far on social media and someone made a comment about how I was only sharing about the pros to homeschooling.
I’ll say that it has been such a blessing I have nothing negative to say. It’s been so great for our family, and I think everyone should give it a try if they are able to.
Even with how great it is, I will share that this was an adjustment.
My oldest boy is a social butterfly and he was very sad that he wouldn’t see his school friends everyday. To combat this, he is able to video chat with them through an app when they can, he sees his friends in the neighborhood almost daily, and he is in sports. He is not lacking in socializing in the slightest.
Another adjustment was going from traditional teacher to mom being the teacher. This was an adjustment and of course, children don’t always want to hear what their parents have to say. However, the time we have to do lessons together has turned into our special one on one time and it has become so fun to watch him flourish in his studies in just the short time frame.
Last but not least, I have five children in this home on a daily basis. Trying to have everyone occupied while doing lessons has been a bit of a challenge. I don’t want the younger kiddos on tablets or mindless tv while I’m doing lessons a couple hours a day.
If they are showing interest in watching tv, I will turn on The Tuttle Twins or documentaries on YouTube. We also do coloring/crafting time, building blocks or magnet shapes to build.
Whatever I do, I know I’m not going to let these small set backs to discourage us from pursuing homeschooling. It’s been such a blessing we didn’t know we needed.
Thanks for letting me share about our homeschool journey so far. I’ll be sure to share more on our journey as time goes on.
In my next post I’ll be sure to share about the curriculum we have been using and deeper look into our routine. Make sure you subscribe so you can follow along on our journey!
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