Our 10th Year Homeschooling!!!

     As the 2017-2018 school year starts (August 1).  I think back over the last nine school years, how I was nervous to start teaching our children at home.   That first school year I taught third grade, Kindergarten, and preschool.  We also had a newborn.  We did not know what our family was heading towards in some ways.  All we knew is that we were going to take homeschooling one year at a time. 

     The first year is a blur for the most part.  Some of the year I spent trying to replicate a public school classroom. But having a very set schedule.  Because as someone that attended public school that is what I thought that was what was expected of us.  I then sought out council from other homeschooling moms and found out that my homeschool did not have to "match" a public school classroom. Wow, I thought how much stress I was feeling about that was not even necessary.  If the kids and I got done with our lessons that it was ok for them to just play, read or be read too.  It was ok for them to paint, draw, or play outside.  I did not have to keep them cooped up in the house on nice days.  We could have impromptu "field trips", even of it was to the store down the street.   I remember one day we took our school work to the park by our house and took lunch with us.  I did not have to fear having someone call in on me because my kids "were not in school".  The first year we built a cover wagon out of sheets and my boys bunk beds.  We talked about how westward expansion happened, the Oregon trail and so much more with that unit.

     Over the years we have changed up some of our curriculum and we have done unit studies.  We have gone on countless field trips to places like our state capital building, museums, the zoo, and so many more.  This year is biter sweet for me. We have a senior in high school, a freshman, 7th and 4th graders. How have things changed for our school?  Well not much we still go on field trips, but the conversations about the field trips are much more in-depth with my kids.  Instead of just mommy look a lion, we talk about classification of lions or what ever animal we are in front of.  We might look for one particular style or artist in the art museum and talk about other works from that time or artist. Instead of can we find all the paintings that have the colors blue, read and yellow in them. If we are at the history museum we take a closer look at a particular time or culture.  Instead of when they were little hearing things like mommy look they have a train can I go see inside it. Ok, I will admit I still hear when we go to the Durham Western Heritage Museum, " Mom can we go on the train?"  When we go to the library the stacks of book don't get shorter in fact they seem taller, but the count of books has gone down for most of my kids.  It is just that the books they are reading are now four or more times the page count they used to be. 

     I will say that it has not all been easy, but it has all been worth it.  We have had times were everyone has cried about not understanding something new.  We have had times of celebrations, because someone learned something new.  So as we start our tenth year homeschooling I know that we will have many more ups and downs, many more field trips, and many more conversations.  I would say that the most important thing I have learned on our Homeschool Journey so far is that time goes by way to fast and I am glad that I can spend the time I do with my kids and help them learn the things they need for life and so much more.