So when we unexpectedly found ourselves jumping into homeschool I had that tucked in the back of my head. I wanted free form school, I wanted exploration time, I wanted child directed learning. I found that style was just too loose for me to feel comfortable. With 5 home now, 3 of whom are ELL learners, I realized that workbooks mixed with unit studies and cool field trips would happily meet both my need to be freer as well as my fears of leaving important learning out.

We morph with homeschooling and as educators, just as our kids do with learning. Allowing that procerss to take place helps us to create the “perfect” homeschool for our families. But remembering that it IS home, that sleeping in late sometimes, or stopping to point something out or cuddle and read on the couch is what makes all the difference in the world.

I don’t ever want to be school at home…I want our home to be a wonderful, warm environment where we all enjoy learning new things every single day!

This post is that whisper.

Today, our free-write assignment will be: What is home?

Not because the kids need it, but because I do.

Thank you.

Now each boy has one sport, one does football and the other basketball. However, the older one is the assistant coach for the basketball. We do one co-op two days of the month but only for four hours each time and two of those hours is social time. We also do church. That in itself keeps us busy. I would go crazy if it was more than that.

As for learning, one child is spending a lot of time using PowerPoint to animate a story he is writing and doing all the drawings for. The other boy is exploring simple machines using LEGO from pieces we already own based on things he finds on the internet. Some would call that playing, I call that learning how to use their special talents.

Yes, they do math and grammar and history but it isn’t forced. We read a lot of history and talk about it but it’s books they helped choose at the library. They are both voracious readers and choose what they like at the library. I have taught both of them to use Google and how to discern what is reliable information and not. In fact, it occurred to me the other day after talking to other moms just how computer savvy my boys are.

Both boys have been given the standardized tests and both do well in their respective talents. In the ones they aren’t so good at they are only a grade behind. Am I worried? Sure, a little. My concern is that they will live with me forever. Yet I see how industrious these two are at keeping themselves busy and have to remind myself there is more than one way to “skin a cat”, more than one way to get over the river to dry land. Would they have been so if I had sent them off to the big, bad, brick building down the street? Maybe, but likely not. Home is where their hearts are and for good reason. They can just be themselves here the best.