All My Jumbled Up Thoughts On A New School Year

If you are my friend or you have a friend who homeschools her children, this post is my gift to you. I’m going to pull back the curtain and let you in on all kinds of mysterious things you might have never known regarding your mysterious homeschooling friend.

I Love It Except For When I Hate It

Some days I love homeschooling! If I know that our local pool is going to close for the season in two days and the weather is perfect, we can put aside our books and go to the pool and do our school work later in the day. It’s fabulous. I can look at our calendar and plan out our 180 days of school to happen on whatever days I want. I just have to do 180 days sometime in this 365 day time period. We can watch “How The States Got Their Shapes” for geography and American history.

Some days I hate homeschooling. Did you know that homeschooling means that you actually have your children with you almost all of the time? What kind of craziness is this? Susannah Wesley, the mother of Charles and John Wesley and 17 other children, apparently found herself in need of alone time herself from time to time. The story goes that she would pull her apron up and cover her head when she needed time to pray. I can get behind this prayer method. I’m not here to question if she was actually praying, but this homeschool mom needs to get herself a long apron.

It’s More Expensive To Homeschool Than I Thought

When I think about what my first year budget for homeschooling was, I want to laugh and cry. I’m pretty sure it was about $400 for the year. To be fair, I did only have one child that I was homeschooling at the time. Now I’m up to 3 kids. Some families can do it really inexpensively by putting together their own curriculum and using books from the library. Hooray for them! I have learned something about myself in the last 5 years– I’m not ever going to be able to put together my own curriculum and piece together things from the library. If my “system” requires that, it’s not going to happen. This is a sad commentary on my need for my kids to have school work to do that doesn’t require my 100% involvement. I would rather use my precious left over brain space for something else.

By The End Of This School Year, I Will Have Taught Three Children How To Read

I’ve taught my oldest two kids to read. I did that! It’s easy to take what I’m doing for granted, but reading is a big deal. The first child was easy. It wasn’t my amazing teaching ability, it turns out. It was just easy for him. It was harder for the second child, but she got it and she is reading very well. Now, I’m focusing all my teaching reading efforts on the last child. He’s crying when I need to correct him and that is the hardest thing about teaching my own kids– the emotions are more tangled up than they might be with a non-family teacher. He is making progress though. And I’m super proud of both of us. I’m starting my 6th straight year of teaching reading. At some point, I’ll graduate from this stage.

Using A Tutorial Rocks

Art and Science. Those are the two best reasons to use a tutorial. All the messes are happening some place that is not my house. This is brilliant. Also, my kids are learning how to read a syllabus and communicate with a teacher that doesn’t tuck them in at night.

I Can’t Wait Until Teacher Appreciation Day!

Please remind me to tell my husband about Teacher Appreciation Day. This is a holiday that our public school friends recognize and I think, in the interest of solidarity, this is a holiday we will also honor. If you are on the fence regarding homeschooling, this might seal the deal for you. Just think of the teacher appreciation present in your future 🙂