We are a family of four . .  . plus a dog and a goldfish.  We live just outside Jacksonville, Florida.  I am divorced, something I never expected to be.  Just after my husband left, I thought I would have to put my three boys in school and go back to work.  But God quickly impressed upon my heart that He had called me to homeschool.  Just because my husband had rejected God's call to lead our family didn't necessarily change His call on me.  So I promised I would continue to homeschool as long as He provided for me to do so.  Now, almost four years later, I am still staying home and juggling the challenges of being a single mom and training my children.  In that time, God has taught me amazing things about what trusting Him means and what He will do if we believe Him and obey.  I have also had the priveledge of serving others because I am at home.

As I mentioned, I have three boys.  Josh, age 11, is the lion.  He leads with determination, and sometimes force!  He is very auditory and scares me with his ability to remember the things he has heard.  I definitely have to watch what I say around him!  Stephen is eight years old and is a beaver.  He is very resourceful and creative, and is stronger than his size would indicate.  Although he often loses focus, he probably does so because he is dreaming up something much more important than math or chores.  My five-year-old, Andrew is an otter.  He is always into something new, will probably create a mess to clean up, but in spite of that is fun to watch and be with.  He's not much interested in school except that he thinks it is something big people do, and he wants to keep up with his brothers.  Life would be quite boring without him.

We use a hodge podge of resources for our homeschool program.  I tend to be spontaneous and impulsive, and I don't like to be bound to a schedule.  I have learned over the years to use schedules and lesson plans to get where I want to be, but I still like to have some control over what we do.  I have also found each child to be so different  in learning style and strengths that I adapt what we use to the kid who needs it.  I love the Charlotte Mason approach, but see value more and more in classical education as well.  I have used unit studies a lot in the past, but am now finding that at times we need a text book or work book to help us with a rough area.  So I just experiement and use what works for us at the time. 

I love homescooling-most days anyway.  I have actually been accused of clinging to homeschooling because it is what Lisa wants to do.  My defense?  Just because Lisa loves it and wants to do it doesn't mean God doesn't!