And So It Begins

18 years ago, I started homeschooling. I was a young mom and my son was 3 years old and I had a 6 month old little girl. We started simple, but consistent. We would spend time reading fun stories about whatever topic was his favorite at the moment and learning about how the world worked. We would spend hours walking around the grocery store talking about shapes, colors, and counting, which slowly morphed into more complex conversations ranging from how things are made to how to budget.

Over the years we added more students and then miracle of miracles, we started graduating them. For the first time in about 15 years, we are back down to 2 students.

I love that we tailor make each school year for the developmental level our children are at, and make it correspond with their interests at the moment. Addyson is really loving to read, which is the biggest miracle of all as she overcomes the challenges that dyslexia can bring to her studies. As she enters her junior year we decided to pursue more literature studies (The Good and the Beautiful) and set her up to continue working on her novel. She loves to draw and create character artwork so encoperating that element to her school day makes everything more enjoyable (Procreate). We took out those annoying letters from her math and she is working through practical math skills in consumer math (Not Consumed). Chemistry (Apologia) and unit studies on the constitution will round out her workload.

For Reagan as she completes middle school, she really hates sitting still. Pretty sure this one has a text book case of ADHD with the passion to pursue everything and anything. Big text books are not helpful, so we keep everything short and simple in unit studies. We got a variety of math workbooks (Spectrum & Kahn Academy), unit studies for English (The Good and the Beautiful), and a reading journal to document and reflect on the books she wants to read (Not Consumed). We are focusing some time to really work on her handwriting and understanding how to read cursive and why it is important, because its always about the why with her. She is studying American History (American the Beautiful) and some general science (Apologia) with lots of documentaries from the Discovery Channel and Curiosity Plus streaming services to give her the big picture.

The value of emparting a love of learning to my children has been one of the biggest joys in my life. I am thankful I have been given the opportunities to continue to grow, learn, and develop my own knowledge database and be able to pass that on to them in new and creative ways every single year.