BFS Assignment #100 - Oh What a Feeling!

Assignment: Take time this week to write about YOU and your feelings of trials and triumphs with homeschooling. Touch on when you first heard about the concept of home schooling and whether you tip-toed into the idea or just jumped in and never looked back. Share your schooling as a child and how you compare it to what your goals are for your children.

I really do LOVE homeschooling! I enjoy having my girls home with me, and learning right along with them. I went to public school, so I have plenty of "gaps" yet to fill!  Besides, who could resist all those lovely books???

I eased ever so slowly into the whole idea of homeschooling.  Though I had heard of homeschooling, my plan was to get a job working at the local school when my daughter was old enough to start attending.  Of course, the Lord had different plans...much better than mine, of course. 

When my oldest dd was 4 years old, and everyone kept saying she needed to go to Preschool; the LORD just kept sending those lovely homeschool families along to encourage me that homeschooling was the way to go.  I enjoyed visiting with them, and the issues that my SIL had with her son in the local school made me very skeptical about sending my child there anyway.  Well, in the small town we lived in, you only qualified for pre-K if you were low income (not a problem for a bi-vocational minister's family); AND if you couldn't speak English. One of the kind ladies at church, who also taught at the school, told me we'd never get past that one as much as my little one talked (she gets it from her Father, I promise). I took that as the final sign that I needed to just get started homeschooling.

I went to the local teacher's store and had a wonderful time looking at all their curriculum; but after reading For the Children's Sake and A Charlotte Mason Companion, ended up with lots and lots of living books, and a few Wal-Mart workbooks "for fun".

For the first few years, when skeptics would ask all "those questions", I would say, "We are deciding year by year about homeschooling." Now I know that we will homeschool until all 3 are finished with high school.

One of the most rewarding things about having them learn at home is seeing them enjoying the learning process. When we hit a "roadblock" and have a difficult time, I can put that book away, or try a different approach. I've found that learning happens naturally when they have the freedom, time, and opportunity to do so. Good books will be read, and good learning tools will be used if they are strewn about for them to "discover".

They have their mother's love of books, so it is a common sight to see 3 little girls and one not so little girl all curled up with their noses in a book! Of course, this does sometimes make it difficult to get those other necessary daily things...laundry, vacuuming, sweeping etc. done!

I just heard my "middlest Love" singing the song "Make Me A Servant"...perhaps I should take her up on the offer, right away!

 Blessings, Catherine.....off to see if the little Love would really like to be a servant !

Oh...try as I may, the graphic  isn't working for me...I'm a disaster at these techy things; would someone please tell me how to post it properly???