Homeschooling is gaining a lot of interest these days, and that's not surprising considering all that's currently happening in our collective reality. I made the decision to take my children out of private school in 2020 after they were first sent home for the remainder of the year with a thick stack of worksheets and weekly FaceTime calls scheduled with their teachers.
That was a huge adjustment for my family of six, since at the time our kids were 10,7,3 & 1 and the toddlers were already home full-time. We had just moved into a new house and were going through a major transformation. Now here comes this stack of worksheets & Bing Bong I'm a teacher :) Wasn't easy but we made it through those months.
During the summer of 2020 I was able to really sit back and analyze what life has become for us. I heard a lot of people talking down on their experience in that year, and I am grateful to say that I was able to see the silver lining in all that occurred. I realized I was missing out on a lot of hours spent with Maxx & Sommer ( my oldest two). At the age of 7 & 10 kids go through some major growth mentally, and if they're spending most of their time at "school" with teachers and peers... that's where they receive most of the information they're storing in their subconscious. MINDBLOWN!! I really had to think about that. When my kids would behave in a certain way that seemed so out of pocket and I'm wondering who raised them LOL!! I realized it wasn't me. The lack of presence I had in their lives 7 hours a day, 5 days a week was starting to show and NO.Not having it.
After accepting the possibility of not to sending them back to "school" I began to receive so many confirmations that we were on the right path. The only thing left to do was ask the kids for their opinion... That took no convincing at all! Sommer was super excited ( she never really found her groove in school) Maxx was cool but with conditions. HA! So it became final and then I began to STRESSSSSSSSSSSSS. All of the things started flooding my mind about what curriculum we would use, what if they fall behind grade level, what if I'm not a great teacher, what if they don't like homeschool, what if????? A sea of limiting beliefs and doubt that were a result of my own programming that truly meant nothing. Because who the fuck even made up these curriculums anyway, and how are they still relevant today? Are our kids really learning true and useful information? Is this information being taught even serving my child as an individual? Questions I had to ask myself and my children, and the answers that came led to where we are now.
With a little meditation, affirmations, and mental preparation & a lot of wine we began to prepare for our first year of homeschooling :)
To sum it up, it started off solid, found an earth school curriculum that was really fun for the whole family. We were outdoors a lot, crafting a lot, and singing a lot of songs. We continued to do the things we loved from that curriculum and looked into another... The Waldorf Method. Thats was cool, but we needed a little more structure so we started to implement some online lessons too. We went through a lot of trial and error to find what worked best for each kid individually and what worked for us as the parents being the teachers. During this time I got to learn a lot about myself as a parent and getting to know my children as students of life. That inner standing led us to where we are now, still using some of the standard methods of education but ultimately making learning a personalized journey for each child based on our observations as parents, and the strong interests that our children express.
Our typical day right now includes lessons on applied science & nutrition through cooking & experiments, anatomy through exercise, art of course in its many forms of handwork, drawing, crafting, painting, gardening and more, astrology through studying our own charts and observing each others behavior, imaginative play, and visualization. I like to spice it up by finding fun additions that the kids would love too.
I wanted to share this piece to show anyone interested in making this great change that homeschooling your children is more than just keeping them home, it's more than teaching them standardized information, and its more than grade levels and report cards. Its a journey of discovery and it has been unfolding so beautifully for my family. Watching my children be their authentic selves, allows me to be a better parent and teacher them. And the harmony within my home is the most beautiful part for me. Even on the rough days, the respect for one another keeps the energy right. I know we are on the right path and I wish nothing but the same or even better for everyone that decides to enter this realm of educating our children at home.