Nov. 15, 2007 - A Li'l Bit About Us
I just realized that I haven't said much about who we are or what we do. Perhaps I should re-introduce us now.
We are a Christian Canadian family, currently living in Mexico. I am an at-home, homeschooling mom. I love to read, write, learn, cook, sew, sing and much more! But I espeically love spending time with my family!!
My husband has been a variety of things driver, mover, upholsterer, educator's assistant, pastor and now... well, I'm not sure what you'd call him! He has a very unique job. He started a non-profit, charitable organization taking teams of people to developing countries to do humanitarian work. He also works for another, larger organization as their director doing the same thing, but mainly with high school and university students. Last year around 600 people participated in these trips. This year there will be many more! It is quite an experience for all of us! He LOVES his work and we love being a part of it. However, due to the nature of this work, he travels a LOT. Last year he was away nearly two weeks out of every month. We went with him on a few of the trips, but it was difficult because of the costs involved and finding someone to care for our home back in Ontario. So last spring we put our house up for sale (we had owned it for a whopping 6 months!) and purchased the camping trailer we are currently living in. Now we will be able to do a lot of the travelling with my husband, or at least spend more time with him.
We have 3 precious boys who fill our lives with many great adventures! Caleb is 5, Christian is 3, Charles is 25 months (for the sake of privacy, I am using their middle names for this blog). They are very imaginative, very outgoing, fun-loving, adventure-seeking little guys! It's quite hard for me to keep up with them at times, but I love every minute of it!! I can't imaging what my life would be like without them.
So here we are in Mexico for six months. At least that's the plan. Plans change frequently around here! We are hoping to gain more cultural perspective by living here. We're trying very hard to learn Spanish (if anyone has any recommendations for software, websites, etc. we'd be happy to hear them!).
Our life is unique, but we love it! Our boys have done a LOT of travelling since they were born (more than the average adult does in their life) so they are quite accustomed to it and are excellent travellers now.
I made the decision to homeschool my children back when I was in high school. There was a period of time where I begged my parents to let me do school at home, but since they both worked, they felt it wasn't an option. I believed, at that time, that school was a huge waste of time. I didn't feel like I was learning much, if anything, relevant to my future. Class time was wasted by disruptive students and much more. I just wanted to study at my own pace and learn things that I felt I might actually need to know in the future! Since I couldn't homeschool, I worked really hard to complete grades 11 and 12 in one year. Actually, come to think of it, I didn't have to work hard at all. I just had to shift some of my courses around to complete the 3 required grade 12 courses and I was done! My graduation was an exciting day! I was so happy to be free!! My high school student counsellor had warned me that I would regret my choice to complete school a year early, but he couldn't have been more wrong. I never had a single moment of regret about my choice to leave that environment. I went on to study the Bible and many other things I was passionate about. I started a family and now have 3 wonderful, brilliant little boys! My 5 year old already knows more than the average grade 2 student. My 3 year old already knows more than the average Kindergarten student and my 25 month old is learning some things that public schools don't introduce until grade 1!! How could I ever consider putting them in a classroom setting with 30+ students from ALL kinds of backgrounds and learning levels with 1 overwhelmed teacher, trying to meet the needs of FAR too many children, while expected to have them end the year with a certain ammount of required learning skills somewhere in their heads. That kind of learning is just not for us!
Caleb and even Christian (who tries to keep up with Caleb on all levels) love homeschool. It was a bit of a struggle at the start, figuring out what I should expect of them and what I should expect of myself. I still struggle with this at times, but for the most part have become a very laid-back homeschooling mom. By laid-back, I don't mean we don't learn anything. Instead, I've been trying to focus on the things that interest them and we learn about those things together. Perhaps I'm a bit of an unschooler. I still haven't decided exactly which "category" of homeschooling we fit into! I think we have one toe in each of them! But my children are learning about ALL kinds of things and are developing an overwhelming LOVE for learning! I'm a happy mom!
I've said this before, but I'll say it again. I believe the BEST part about homeschooling my children is learning alongside them. I love being able to see things from their point of view, to remember what it was like to be a child and look at things for the first time, to deeply explore things I would never look twice at on my own, to seek out the often simple solutions to many of life's very complex questions, to show them that this world is all about it's Creator - that nothing in it is separate from him, and to grow and bond with my children in a way that would be nearly impossible if they were spending several hours a day, 5 days a week, away from home.
Right now my boys are in front of me at a campground park in a foreign country, listening to the roosters crowing nearby, hearing the sounds of another language spoken all around them, watching stubble burn on a nearby hill (in a very unusal manner!), playing with an imaginary Word Machine, creating new words, having spelling races as they shoot down the slide, and learning how to get along with each other and the people around them despite their many differences! This is our school. This is our life. We love it!
Comments
Nov. 17, 2007 - Untitled Comment
Posted by BChsMamaof3
Oh wow you are living a very interesting lifestyle! How neat to be able to travel with your husband and what learning experiences your children will have as you visit many different places! One of my favorite things about homeschooling is learning along with the children to. I think I have as much fun as they do if not more sometimes *grin* I love being able to make it so much more interesting and engaging than it was for me in public school! Very glad to meet you and I'll be back to read more later :) I'm going to add you to my friends.
Blessings to you and your family,
BChsMamaof3
