It is on my mind and heart most days. Do I pursue it? Do I take the road less traveled and do what (I think) my heart is telling me to do? Will people scoff at me and our family's choices? Will my kids be labeled 'anti-social' because they don't go to public school? Will my kids thrive in a homeschool environment? All of these questions run through my mind on a daily basis.
About a month ago, I took the plunge and decided to try homeschooling this year with my Luke. He is three and a half and turns four in November. If there is any year when there is no pressure, it's this year. I will probably still send him to part time preschool next year, but I wanted to see how this homeschooling thing would go with him.
After lots of research and asking friends and acquaintances who homeschool what curriculum they use, I settled on Sonlight. It's a Christian based curriculum that isn't too terribly strict and encompasses some concepts I don't feel confident teaching without a curriculum. The curriculum uses lots of books, which I love, and utilizes hands on learning activities with lots of nursery rhymes and Bible stories. I feel like most of our 'school' time is reading and that's exactly what I want it to be.
The Sonlight preschool curriculum does not teach letters and numbers, so I am supplementing with This Reading Momma's resources I found online. There are a million opinions out there about letter of the week, but I am doing that, as well as incorporating ABC books and the entire alphabet on a weekly basis.
We are two weeks into this thing and I can honestly say I am not super overwhelmed. Luke and I spend about an hour a day on it and I really love the time I set aside to really engage with him and his learning. I'm pretty sure I have learned more about him than he has learned from me! We still have time to go to the city for a playdate or run errands. The only days I struggled to get it all in were MOPS days two weeks ago. I think I have decided we won't do school on those days and just catch up later. That is probably one of the biggest perks about homeschooling...the flexibility. Because we live where we live, homeschooling makes even more sense for our family. We aren't in the car bunches to travel to and from school and we have the flexibility to be where we want to be when we want to be there.
Luke asks to do school and it is so sweet to see his little mind soaking up everything. He is one of those kids who doesn't show what he knows often, so I am hoping this will bring him out of his shell a bit.
The biggest challenge at this point is my darling Lily. She always wants to be involved and doing what we are doing, so I include her as much as possible. Sometimes problems arise when she wants to do something else and causes a bit of commotion when Luke and I aren't completely paying attention to her. I know it will get better with time and soon enough she will get bored with us and move on to playing with her babies and books.
This homeschooling journey could be short lived or last for awhile, but either way I am happy to be following my heart and beginning nonetheless. If nothing else, Luke and I will grow closer through it all.
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