life changes - the reason i stopped homeschooling

No kidding, I stopped homeschooling.  Go ahead and look over there to the right.  See that.  Its a homeschool banner.  Yea, I know.  I don't update the blog religiously but that is one thing that will always stay.  That and the Compassion banner.  I love both.  And if you asked, I would probably still tell you that I homeschool even though the kid goes to school.  Yip, he goes to an honest to goodness school- complete with walls, and lunchrooms and PE, and bells, and a playground and a swimming pool.  And he loves it.  What's worse- I LOVE IT!  I'm half crazy about the kid's brick and mortar school building.  And I still say I homeschool.

I miss homeschool.  We went through a bit of a patch a few years ago.  When we came back to where we called home, we, the whole family, realized we needed a thrive not survive life change.  So we put all the cards on the table and asked God to do something with them.  He brought a new job in a new city with a wildly different house and a school environment that had @ written all over.  When that happens, who am I to argue.  So the kid went to school and grew by leaps and bounds.  He wasn't doing poorly in any way in homeschool, it was just time for him to put his roots in different soil so that he could grow.  He had outgrown the pot he was in.  So I became a room mom.  @'s sweet teacher was kind enough to share her class with me a little.  I read books, subbed, brought the cookies, but really I didn't want to miss a minute of watching @ grow in his new pot.  And he did.  Ah, the kid amazes me. This year is no different.  This year has been a bit harder.  His teacher doesn't ask much of me and I find myself not wanting to insert myself.  It isn't his teacher, just the growing dynamics.  So I find myself looking in the window at how @ is growing.  He's still doing amazingly well but I find myself with my finger less on the pulse.  It gets me jumpy sometimes.  I miss him more.

As things would happen I find myself on the cusp of homeschooling again.  Seasons change and we'll be in the US for part of 2015.  I'll get @ back for 6th grade, or some part of it anyway.  And as luck would have it, @ is looking forward to homeschool.  He enjoys school at 5th grade but I wonder if he isn't ready for a change of pace.  I have been surprised by how eagerly he talks about it.  Soon we'll be looking through our Sonlight catalog together and eagerly awaiting box day.

Maybe homeschool will only last for a semester while we're away.  Maybe it will extend the whole school year.  But all the same, I've decided homeschool to some extent is a state of mind.  Probably that isn't what I should say, but its accurate for where we're at.  Presently @ is in a school building school.  Presently so is !.  I know ! has another few years before I need to think about school- like curriculum school.  And she is a different bird than @.  The very things that met that @ NEEDED a school building school are some of the very reasons that I don't know that ! will.  I wonder if she won't thrive a bit on homeschool.  And then at some point maybe she'll flip and NEED a building school.  The good news is that I have wised up.  The better news is that I can see that we have choices and we'll do what is best for each of them at the time they are ready for it.

how i know homeschooling worked out ok this year

Sunday morning is kind of a relaxed time of our week. We have a leisurely breakfast together. Read news. Play games. Color. Couch Church. Maybe a little laundry. Tell stories together.

This Sunday @ sat at the project table while I cleaned Dorothy's fishbowl. Jonathan polished on a final exam. Itunes played. @ was busy inventing a game that consists of sliding playdoh containers into a large tower of playdoh containers. I asked about the game. He explained that this game actually came from Southern Chile. He went to our world map and proceeded to point out the region of Southern Chile it came from and yes, he found Chile on an unmarked map. Then he told me about a similar game played in Greenland (child points to Greenland on an unmarked map) but they stack dice in Greenland instead of playdoh containers. Then he explained about how the Northern and Southern Countries play different versions. Correctly pointing to North and South.

@ is 5. I'm feeling pretty awesome about the decision to homeschool.

why i homeschool and you can too

An article on homeschooling I really enjoyed this morning. Reminding me that I'm not messing up the kid and even if we don't press science as much one day because we are busy making our own intrepretation of Picasso, its really ok.