…I will be a homeschooling mama! Well, I guess I already am, but we’ll officially be starting on September 5 (yes, I know that is Labor Day, but we aren’t doing anything for the weekend so why not start?). I can hardly believe that my first baby girl will be learning to read soon...wow!
So, why did we choose to homeschool? Several reasons…I will list a few:
1. Because we can incorporate God and Scripture into everything we do, all day long. I think that is so important…to give our kids a strong spiritual foundation…the most important thing, really.
2. So we can choose our own curriculum and choose NOT to do certain topics if we so choose.
3. To keep our girls under our care a majority of the time. (I don’t know about any of you, but I can hardly stand the thought of someone else taking care of my kids for the majority of the day). To be able to monitor the influences around them in a much better way.
4. The schools here haven’t done very well on their state testing in recent years.
5. Most importantly, we have prayed about this and know God has led us in this direction (I know this isn’t for everyone, but it is for us!).
6. We can work at our own pace.
I am actually pretty excited about getting started. And just today Liberty and Leila were both asking if we could start tomorrow! They are excited, too. (I ordered Leila an awesome preschool workbook because I know she will want to do school work when Liberty does).
We are starting out Liberty with ABC’s with ACE and Christi. The first part of the year we will do that and Word Building Paces to work on reading. I found the instructor manuals on ebay for a steal and then ordered the paces from the Christian Book Distributor website. I love how the program and the paces include a Bible story and verse every day. Everything points back to God and you just cannot get that in public school.
For the second half of the year I plan to get the English, Science and Social Studies paces from ACE. I will also do Math with her, but I haven’t yet decided if I will use Saxon or Math Mammoth.
I have some good friends here who also homeschool, and I have gotten lots of great advice from them. And we will also be a part of a local Christian homeschool group that does field trips, holiday parties, science fairs, and even year books. Our first meeting for that is September 1. There is a lot of support here, and for that I am thankful.
For those who are concerned about the socialization of my kids (and really, that isn’t the most important matter, I don’t think), if you know me, you know we are involved in things here and have made a lot of friends. We do story time at the library every week, along with a group called Mommy Matters. We are involved in a local church. And we have play dates with our friends often. I think my kids get plenty of socialization : ).
Anyway…I am so excited about all of this, but I am also really nervous and would so appreciate your prayers as we embark on this endeavor.
And here are a few recent pics of the kiddos just for fun:
Blessings to you!
6 comments:
That is super exciting for you guys! I love that we all have the options to do what is best for our families. It's nice to see home school families able to incorporate God in their work and for public school families to have kiddos with a strong faith as well, that let's them shine out in their surroundings. And REALLY cool that you have a home school group! I wish we had that when we were homeschooling!
Thanks, Bekah! It's always a great feeling to know you are doing what is right for your family...and every family is different :).
The girls are so gorgeous...as always. But they are getting so big!
Good luck with homeschooling! I want to homeschool the kiddos someday... I will be eagerly reading your posts for updates so I know what to expect!
Way to go, Rebecca! How exciting to be starting school w/ your little people staying under your care.
We prayed and agonized and went back and forth about where to put Joshua in school and we're blessed that he's able to be part of such a great classroom and Christian school community here, but I'll be honest, there's a little (a lot) some days that wishes I too were homeschooling soon. I'm really excited for him to have this opportunity since he didn't do formal preschool, but I'm really going to miss him. :( Though I truly do believe where he's at is the best place for him for this year, I think there's some homeschooling in the future for our family too, so I'll be interested to follow along with you and your journey, especially curriculum wise and juggling kids not in school.
BTW, Saxon is a great math curriculum, it's what we used and I can't say enough good things about it, fwiw.
How exciting! You will just have a blast with your girls I'm sure! I so agree with your reasons for homeschooling, they're great ones. I was homeschooled most of my life. Having a supportive homeschool group is so important, it's wonderful you have one to be a part of. Can't wait to hear how it goes!
I'm so excited for you!!! I can't wait until T is old enough to start homeschooling. I'm gonna echo Liz and say that Saxon is awesome. I used that when I was homeschooled and not being a math oriented kid (or adult) it kept me at pace with my public school peers. Weirdly, I struggled far more in math once I went back to public school--but that might be because it's more complicated in High School. :-) Blessing and prayers as you embark on this most worthy of journeys.
P.S. I've taught in public school. Just because children go there doesn't mean they are socialized. Seriously, most of my kiddos had NO idea how to interact or react appropriately with one another.
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