EP2: Our Homeschooling Adventure: Five Years Later

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Welcome back to homeschoolhints How We Do It, a podcast for parents

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curious about homeschooling but unsure where to begin.

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I'm Britt. Today I'm sharing our story.

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How we ended up homeschooling when we never planned to,

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what the first years really looked like, and why. Five years later,

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we're still at it.

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Before homeschooling, both my husband and I worked full time.

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Family helped with childcare for our two little ones. And when Covid

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hit, we finally found ourselves working remotely while

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juggling childcare between meetings. It was a little crazy.

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Then it came time to register our oldest for kindergarten and we did

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the normal thing. We signed him up, we met with his future teacher,

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and we assumed he'd go to public school like we did. Honestly,

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homeschooling wasn't really on my radar. I had been homeschooled

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briefly as a child, so the idea wasn't foreign. But with both of us working

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full time, I just couldn't see how it would fit within

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our life. A few weeks before school started,

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I couldn't shake this anxious feeling, like the world was so uncertain

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and schools were full of restrictions, masks,

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distancing. There was no in person open house.

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And on one hand I knew his teacher personally

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and she was wonderful. I was so excited for

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this rite of passage to send him to kindergarten to make friends and

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to play. But on the other hand, the rules were always changing.

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Every four to six weeks or so, things were totally different.

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And that's a lot of change for a little kid.

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Then I saw the video that they sent of his classroom.

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There were kids sitting at opposite ends of long tables.

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They each had their own toy bins to play with underneath their desks.

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And then they were spaced six feet apart on the floor for story time and

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learning French without being able to see their teacher's mouth.

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That was my moment. I was grieving

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the kindergarten experience that I thought he would have had or was going to have.

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After a lot of prayer and conversations with my husband,

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I finally said, you know, I'm on maternity leave this year.

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It's only kindergarten. Like maybe we could try homeschooling.

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I told myself if I could teach him to read, he'd be ahead of the

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game, he'd be ahead of his peers, and no one could argue with a five

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year old that knows how to read. And thankfully, my husband was very supportive.

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We officially pulled him the week before school started. I emailed the district.

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I tried to find a curriculum and I prayed that we hadn't made

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a Huge mistake. At first I tried to recreate school

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at home. You know, snack times, activities, structure, stories,

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songs, you name it. But I quickly learned that kindergarten

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really only took like 45 minutes a day. Most of our day was play

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and library trips and a lot of time outside.

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And we were able to do the hard stuff while the baby was sleeping most

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of the time. We decided to use a simple open

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and go faith based curriculum that a few distant Facebook friends were using.

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And I was excited for it because while I loved seeing

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others creating those manipulatives and games and

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worksheets themselves, I did not have the headspace

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to plan daily or weekly with a kindergartener, a toddler and an

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infant. However, the kindergarten language arts

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curriculum was being revised that year, so I needed a different plan for

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language arts. I pivoted again and I decided

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I will just teach him how to read. A good friend swore by

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a book that she used to teach all five of her kids to read.

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And so I bought that and we jumped in. You know what?

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It worked. I still treasure

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the videos of him sounding out words and proudly reading his first

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little sentences. My son still loves to watch them.

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That year was a little messy, but it was really good.

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We all survived and I'd say we even enjoyed

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it. So much so that we decided to do it again.

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Year two started with a shock though, because nothing is so

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straight and narrow. I had ordered a grade 1 language arts curriculum

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and I panicked when I realized how much that he didn't know

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yet. We're talking nouns, adjectives and commas.

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This curriculum felt very advanced. In fact,

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it was absolutely more advanced than the public school

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standards for grade one. We realized he wasn't

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ready to start that grade one language arts book. I panicked.

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My worst nightmare with homeschooling felt like it was about

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to happen. I was setting up my child through failure or causing

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him to fall behind his peer group. That was not

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an option for us. Academic rigor isn't optional.

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Our goal was and continues to be that our kids will be

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at the same level or exceed public school standards every

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year. With that, we had a choice. We could push him ahead and

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figure it out together, or we could go backwards and build

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the foundation. From the beginning, we chose to build the foundation.

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So that year we did two full grade levels of language

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arts in one school year, kindergarten and

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grade one. It was a lot, but it was totally

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doable. What does that look like realistically? Our 6 year old did

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240 lessons of language arts in addition to his

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other schoolwork, and he Attended a co op and was involved in

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extracurriculars. And that year, my younger son wanted to do

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school too. So we bought him a kindergarten book at age four.

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By the end of year two, both of our kids had finished kindergarten and

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my oldest had also finished grade one. Our kids loved

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learning and others were beginning to notice how advanced they were

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for their respective ages. And that's when I thought, okay,

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maybe this homeschooling thing works.

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Fast forward this fall, we are starting our fifth

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year. We now have three kids in the mix, and honestly,

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I can't imagine our life without homeschooling. The biggest

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gift is time. You know, we control our days. We say yes or no to

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co ops and sports and music lessons, park days, field trips,

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travel, sick days, you name it. But more than that,

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we get to spend this time together. We are watching our kids learn

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and grow and build deep sibling relationships.

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We have the time to have quality time, both on purpose

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and just accidentally, because we're always around one another.

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Watching my kids play together and creating new games, using their

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imaginations and helping one another solve problems like how to climb

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a tree when you're really short. It's so wholesome

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and rich. Sometimes I just look out the window and I

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see them holding an umbrella. After reading Calvin

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and Hobbes for a couple days and wondering, what are they up to now?

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There is a richness to life that I just don't think we

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would have if our kids were bused to school seven hours a day, plus homework

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and extracurricular activities. There's just not enough time.

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Homeschooling also gives us space to disciple our kids,

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to shape their character, and to weave our faith into their daily life.

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My husband and I often wonder how anyone has time

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to teach their kids all of the skills and values that you

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want them to know while they're young. Whether you're in public school or private school

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or homeschooled to that matter, there's just so

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much and so little time. Over time,

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our roles have shifted. Now my husband does most of the teaching while I work

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from home remotely, but it still feels like a team effort. He has a

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gift for teaching, and I think that the steady male influence is

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a huge blessing and advantage for our kids. They get so much

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time with their dad, and he's amazing. I am still

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very involved in the social aspects and curriculum research and

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helping out when I can. We discuss what the kids should be learning on a

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regular basis. And I would say that we are both very invested in their success.

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In fact, being responsible for our kids, education is a real burden

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that we both willingly take on and we both take

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very seriously. We believe in academic rigor and

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application. We have high expectations for not only learning concepts and

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completing the book work, but also applying what they're learning to real life.

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The learning never really stops at our house.

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It's just part of our day to day life. And the fact that our kids

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have been homeschooled should never hold them back from pursuing any career in the

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future. Over time, we've become huge

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advocates for homeschooling. Not because it's perfect, but because we've seen firsthand

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how our kids have, have thrived. You know, academically,

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socially and in their confidence. They have a hunger for

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knowledge and they're developing a discipline to pursue what they're interested in in

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addition to doing all their book work. For one kid, that looks

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like a love of history and music and engineering,

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and for another kid that looks like a love of reading and writing

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and art. And they have the time to explore

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those things and then they're sharing those things with one another. You know,

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the student teaches the teacher kind of thing. It's beautiful.

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Our kids being wonderful is not just our rose colored classes.

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Others are noticing too. When we started, I only

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knew a handful of people homeschooling and I didn't really feel very comfortable asking for

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much more than the curriculum tips. But as time went on,

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more, more people started asking us about it. Like why

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are you doing it? How are you doing it? What's good and what's hard?

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Can we see your schoolroom? And what does your day look like?

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That's why I started this podcast. I wanted to create something that I wish

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I had found in those early days. Real stories from real families.

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Not every day is pretty and we've all threatened to put our kids on the

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bus at some point or more than once. But there's so

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much good here too. If you've been considering homeschooling

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for your kids, I want you to know that you can do it. There are

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so many resources available to make it easier or to fill in the gaps where

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you don't feel confident. I hope that through our conversations

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with these real families, we're able to balance the stories of what's possible,

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of a rich life giving experience filled

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with sunshine and rainbows, with the grit and

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reality that sometimes your kid doesn't want to sit still,

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but you're still going to get through the day, Even if a 30 minute

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lesson takes two hours because they just keep getting

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distracted. Not that that's happened recently or

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anything. You will surely experience both,

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but we always feel that the benefits make you forget about those challenging

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days. In our house, we often talk about how most things

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in life that are worth doing require effort. You know,

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infants don't always sleep when we want them to, and preparing

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home cooked meals creates dishes that need washing. Or growing

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a garden with too much or too little water or heat or sunshine

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leaves you reeling to come up with a creative solution so that you reap a

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harvest that is life.

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Homeschooling is no different. Life was never meant to

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be effortless, but it can be rich,

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it can be meaningful, and you can enjoy a front

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row seat to watching your children discover a love of learning

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and to developing a curiosity that will drive life

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giving adventures. And with every little

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win you are reminded it is so worth it.

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With that, thanks for listening to our story. If it

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resonated with you, I'd love for you to follow the show,

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leave a review, or share it with a friend who's curious about homeschooling.

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Next time you'll hear from Melissa, a mom of four who never planned

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to homeschool but ended up starting a co op in her backyard.

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You won't want to miss it. Until then, be blessed.