Posted in Flashback Fridays
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Ummm...basically it was an accident. I never really intended to home school my children. I had heard of it. I had thought about it. I had even done a little researching on it. But I wasn't going to actually do it. You see, both of the kids were born in South Carolina, and home schooling just wasn't done that much there then. I only knew two home schooling families. One was Big D's. When we met, his mom was home schooling his two younger sisters, Rebecca and Susan, and both of them, while spending some time in private Christian schools as well, eventually graduated as home schoolers. They were (and are!) bright young women and very non-weird, so I was mildly intrigued by their school experience, but at the same time I had no idea how to make it work for me. Plus I was a college-degreed, state licensed educator, so I didn't believe in home schooling....right? The other family I knew had a teenage son, who attended the Christian school where I taught for science class. And he was weird...really weird. I'm sorry, but he was. I used to listen to my students berate him and laugh at him all the time. And while that kid would have probably been just as weird if he had attended public school, I had my fears of the stigma, the wackiness that sort of lingered around home schooling. And I'll be woman enough to admit that I wondered if my child would miss out on "stuff"...like eating in the school cafeteria, playing sports, going to prom. I know...I know. But then they were real fears. Annaleigh's birthday is on September 6, and in 2001 was in every way bright enough to attend kindergarten. We had decided that she would attend public school, since we lived in a good school district. I was still going to remain a stay-at-home mom, so that I could chaperon field trips, bake cupcakes for her class and drive her to school so she wouldn't have to ride the bus. Well, imagine the frustration when we found out that the cut-off to start school was a birthday before September 1. She missed it by six days. I even enquired into some private schools, but most went by the guidelines of whatever school district they happened to be in. So, she just stayed at home with me, which was fine since I really wasn't trying to get rid of her or anything. I just thought she was more than ready for school and would genuinely enjoy the experience. Well, just a few short months later, Big D was laid off from his job, but was consequently offered a job at their corporate offices in Nashville, TN, so in October of 2001 we packed and moved because...well, we like to eat and all. We weren't here long when I found out that Annaleigh could have started kindergarten here because their cut-off was a birthday of September 30. Now, I felt like she was just missing out and would be by far the oldest kid in her class the following year. But soon I started to discover a mighty strange thing....a lot of people home schooled here. As a matter of fact, about 75% of our church was home schooling, and they were all basically normal. I went to the library and checked out a bull-honkin' stack of books on the subject, and then I got on the Internet and read into the wee hours of the morning, and pretty much the next day I decided to home school Annaleigh for kindergarten. Who cares if it was almost November by this point? Who cares if I didn't know the first thing about purchasing curriculum? Who cares if I couldn't identify the term umbrella school? I just jumped in head first and never looked back. In the state of Tennessee, kindergarten is non-compulsory, so I didn't register her anywhere. I didn't buy any curriculum. I just taught her stuff. And we liked it so much that I kept her home for 1st grade too...and well, here we are seven years later, still home schooling. I took the following pictures on our first "official" day of kindergarten...
Sorry that those are not the best shots. I actually had to snap photos from my school scrapbook, and I was too lazy to even take them out of the page protectors. What I found was that Annaleigh, having been home with me for the past five years, already possessed her basic kindergarten skills, so we just focused on some things that would help her for the next year, like handwriting and letter sounds. By the end of the year, she was reading and doing simple math.
We also included some fun things, like hands-on history lessons...
Some basic science experiments...
Lots of crafts...
And regular Bible study, which usually included some type of drama. Here's both of them, reenacting the Holy family at Christmas. I think Harrison, at age 1 1/2, just thought it was fun to have a blanket wrapped around his head...
Annaleigh even went once a week to a Music Club with other kids...
But mostly, I just tried to encourage a love of learning in both of them. I really desired for them both to explore and create to their heart's content. Annaleigh decided that she wanted to be a drummer. Well, a drum set was not to be at that point in time, so she found what she could in the kitchen and elsewhere and made her own set. It was moments like this that really sealed the deal for me.
We've come a long way since that first year, when we would simply roll out of bed, and ask, "So, what should we learn today?". But I hope that we haven't come so far with all of our books and schedules and such that we've lost our focus. It's still my prayer that my kids will love to learn, that they will have a natural curiosity of God's creation and all that He provides for them, and that they can explore all these things in the safety and the nurture of their own homes and under the careful eyes and tutelage of the ones who know and love them best. I thank God regularly that I had Annaleigh on September 6, or else our lives might have ended up very differently. Do you want to flash back with us today? How did you start home schooling? Or maybe you'd just rather tells us why you once wore leg warmers over your jeans in 70 degree weather. It's up to you. Just come back and leave your link with Mr. Linky below so we can all come visit your blog! |
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