Life as a Homeschool Family

We have hit the ground running at 100 miles an hour this week, but I wanted to slow down long enough to share some pictures from our first week of the 2009-2010 homeschool year! This is our fourth year homeschooling and we kicked off this school year, last Friday with a Homeschool Breakfast Bash with some families who are starting to homeschool for the first time! Everyone brought a breakfast dish and we snacked up on some cinnamon rolls, pigs in a blanket and donuts. The kids painted and colored and used stickers to decorate the cover pages of their subject folders for school and us, moms got to chat and visit. It was a lot of fun!

While we are on the topic of homeschooling, I thought I'd share why I chose to homeschool my children. I have had so many people ask me why I am doing this. Many people assume that I homeschool because I was also homeschooled as a child, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. While I was homeschooled from 3rd-6th grade, I always said that I would never homeschool my own children. I said that not because I didn't like it (because I did love it), but because I didn't think I had the patience to do it. Our daughter went to Kindergarten in Albany, Ga and then we moved to Columbus for First Grade. When she started First Grade, I started to feel a burden to teach her at home. It was more than just an ache of letting her go to school all day. That burden grew and grew and it started to feel like I was carrying around a huge weight on my shoulders all the time. I can remember praying everyday as I watched her get on the school bus, that God would keep her safe and forgive my disobedience. I knew I was sinning by letting her go to school each day. I spent that whole school year telling God over and over again that I couldn't do it. I told Him that we'd kill each other and that I didn't have enough patience to teach her, and of course, I was afraid of what our family and friends would say. I talked to Wesley about it and every time he would say that he thought we should homeschool. All the while I would think,"I wish you could just stay home and teach her, because I don't know if I can do it!"

She finished First Grade and I knew in my heart that she wouldn't be going back to that school. I called and got the information packet detailing what was required by law to homeschool. The first step is mailing in a Declaration of Intent form which basically says you are going to homeschool and your child won't be enrolling in the school system anymore. The day I mailed off that letter I literally felt a 100 pounds lighter. I wanted to jump and do back flips. I could feel God's smile and it soaked into every part of my being. I had finally realized that it didn't matter what other people thought or what worries and insecurities I had about myself. What mattered is that God had told me to do something and for too long I had told Him I knew better-I had told Him I couldn't do it. I had finally let go of myself and clung to God and His will for my life.

I have since learned that when God calls you to do something, He will equip you to finish that task. I was amazed at how many friends I made that first year. We still get together with a group of homeschool families that I met that year. God put people in life that had done this for many, many years and had been successful at it-even having children in college with full four year scholarships! Our family became even closer than we were as we did just about everything together. There were no more late nights doing homework and seeing my child believe what her teacher said over me and what I had taught her her whole life. She was able to be a kid and play outside in the afternoons instead of getting a thirty minute break after school before she had to start her homework. Now, I still have days where Wesley will come home from work and I'm practically in tears saying I can't do it anymore, out of pure frustration. I also have my selfish moments when I want to ask God, "What about me Lord? When do I get some time by myself?" Every time I get to that point, something will happen to counter those feelings and remind me why I am doing this. He has a way of making His point and reaffirming this decision!

Another common question I get often is, how long will we homeschool? I don't honestly have an answer to that one because I don't know. We are taking it one year at a time. We have talked about maybe sending her back when she is in high school, but alot can happen between now and then. We are just going to wait and see what God's will is, but for right now, in this moment, I cannot imagine doing anything else.

I guess the third most common question I get asked is, does she get a report card and how do you come up with her grades to make it fair (instead of just giving her all A's). When Wesley and I finally decided to do this, he was very adamant about her having grades and report cards. We are more in the minority of homeschoolers who do this, a lot of them think we are crazy. One aspect of teaching your children from home is taking away the pressure of grades and tests. We look at it a bit differently, we see it as an opportunity to better equip her for how to study and how to write papers and get ready for exams she will probably have in the future. I want my children to go to college and I want to make sure that if they decide to do that one day-I haven't hurt their chances by not teaching them what they need to know or how to study for a test. We also see it as a way for Randol to learn how to work hard at a goal and then see the fruit of her labor when she does well.

So how do we come up with her grades? Every grade, other than English is all objective and simple to come up with a grading system. For instance, either she spells her spelling words right or wrong on her Spelling tests; she gets the math problem right or wrong on her math tests etc. When it comes to English, part of her grades are objective and part of them are more subjective, having a writing assignment for instance. Wesley handles all of her book reports. He chooses the book and reads it ahead of time. He then prepares a series of questions for her to answer, all having different due dates (ex. Tuesday, questions on ch 1 and 2 are due; Friday questions on ch. 3-6 are due etc). He goes over them with her, making sure she understands and then has some questions tying the whole book together (ex different themes, symbolism etc.) Last year she had to write out the climax, protagonist, antagonist etc, but he's trying it this new way this year to see how it goes. For Randol's book reports, Wesley has picked out The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by CS Lewis, Old Yeller by Fred Gipson, The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien, The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert O'Brian and lastly, The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander. She will have two book reports every nine weeks. Wesley is very good about being objective when it comes to grading something that is more subjective. He gives no lenience at all, in fact I think he probably grades her harder than an average teacher because he knows what she is capable of and gets disappointed when she is lazy or makes silly mistakes. That being said, I usually have him grade her writing assignments because I am more likely to be slack on something like that than he will be. I'm not sure why I feel that way, but it has just always worked out that he grades a lot of her English papers, book reports, writing essays etc. And he loves doing it too, which is an added bonus!

As for curriculum, I use a hodge podge of stuff. I don't pick one company and use all of their stuff, I instead have found a few different companies for certain subjects, all being christian based curriculum. For those of you who are interested, I am using Abeka Book for Math and Science, Rod and Staff for English, Evan-Moore for Spelling, Bob Jones for Bible, and The Trail Guide to World Geography for Social Studies. I am very excited about our Social Studies curriculum this year. We are going to be learning all about the different countries in the world, including making crafts and cooking authentic meals from around the globe! Of course we'll be making all kinds of maps and learning different geography and atlas terms in addition to those things.

I do give a conduct grade, which may also sound silly. My first year teaching her I decided that I had to have a way to punish her for acting up while we are doing school. I decided to use the red, yellow, green light type system that she was used to the year before in public school. Every day she starts off with three points. If she talks back when I tell her to do something or is disrespectful or anything like that while we are doing school then she has to take off a point for that day on the calendar that I have on our bulletin board. At the end of each week I tally her total points, divide points possible by her points earned and get her numeric grade. You'd be amazed at how upset she gets when she has to take off a point. It usually snaps her out of whatever funk she has gotten into because she doesn't want to have more points taken off. As Wesley always reminds her-this should be the easiest grade on her report card!

This year I made lesson plans for almost the whole school year (yes, I am border line obsessive when it comes to being organized!) I can and will adjust things as I need too, but this way I'm not spending almost my whole Saturday grading papers and planning out what we are going to do the next week. I spent all those planning hours over the summer versus during the school year.

Homeschooling is not for everyone and I always, always ask a parent if they have prayed about doing it before they pull their child out of school. It is such a God thing that it must be in His will for your life, not just used as a means to pull your child of a possible temporary situation. God calls His children to different things for different purposes, but all under His will and with His blessing. For the season of life I'm in, He has called me to homeschool, now I'll just keep at it until He releases me from this task!

Here are some of my favorite verses that help me with homeschooling and raising children:

Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ~Deuteronomy 11:18-19

He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms

and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.

Isaiah 40:11

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God,

who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.

James 1:5

It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect.

2 Samuel 22:33

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved,

clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

Colossians 3:12

PS~Randol rode her bike to school on her first day! She went around the neighborhood and then came home and called me Mrs. Lambertus the whole day! It was cute and a fun way to start off our year! The photos of Wesley and the boys were taken while Wesley was trying to rest on the couch on his lunch break before heading back to work. Of course the boys had to be with their Daddy! They can be so silly sometimes!