Everyone has a homeschooling story. Why they chose to homeschoool. What finally made them make that decision. How many different curriculums they have tried along the way. And what keeps them going. For me the answer lies in one thing . . . Shelby.

Shelby is my oldest daughter, now age 7. I had several friends homeschooling and I told them they were all crazy! I made it quite clear that I was NOT going to torture myself or my children by homeschooling them. Plus I had a really good reason for not homeschooling - my daughter was deaf. How in the world would I homeschool a deaf child? It was just silly!

How? I said. Well, my husband, also very much against the idea of homeschooling, said we will try public school and go from there. It was horrible! So then we went to homeschooling, but with help from the school district. One day a week a deaf ed teacher was provided and 2 days a week speech therapy was provided. Me, knowing nothing about deaf ed, listened to every word my deaf ed teacher told me. She was quite concerned that Shelby wasn't talking well enough and did not have a very large vocabulary.

So we moved her to a private deaf school in a nearby city. That was better than public school, but still not good enough to reach our family goals. So back to homeschooling we went. At this point my little angel is 5 (they start special needs kids at age 3 in the public school system).

I haven't stopped homeschooling since! I love it and have found the unit study approach to work very well with my deaf daughter as well as my younger two children.

 . . . I'm thinking a book may be in my near future . . . just to tell my story so that others who have the same fears I did will see it can be done . . .