Homeschooling in the 'Hood

Field Trip

There is a pause when I announce, "Oh, we homeschool," to those who we are meeting around town. The pause is enough to let me know I'm being studied; the recipient of that startling news is trying to figure out if there is something wrong with my kids, or if I believe in public education, science, or sheltering my kids to the point they haven't seen the inner workings of a playground. Through baseball seasons and soccer seasons we are meeting more and more kids that are involved in our lives but don't necessarily know us, and therefore I find myself quickly filling the pause, "Wetraveledforayearandwhenwegotbackwerealizedhowmuchweliketheflexibilityinourschedule." Phew. Done. Explained in one sentence. Our entire educational plan summed up sounding like it's because we like to stay in our pajamas. But...not really.

Climb On 

We can't stay in our beloved jammies because there is a school to get to (on Mondays), science class to get to (on Tuesdays), art class to get to (on Wednesdays), and nature class to get to (on Thursdays). Our time is filled with sports and music classes and climbing. I find myself on Fridays trying to cram in some classes and wondering how anybody even has TIME for school as I line up the worksheets for us to start on.

Fall Fun

Shifting away from a nomadic living experience that allowed us to learn wherever we were and finding ourselves in a house with no intentions of moving anytime soon led me to buckle down on some serious curriculum. We have Moving Beyond the Page, Teaching Textbooks, Math U See, VocabLit, and Life of Fred. We have start times of 9, breaks at 11 and 1, and tracking of grades. We have structure. And all that structure led us right back to looking at schools. If we were going to re-create a school here in our house, it honestly felt a little lonely. It felt non-productive and had us all yawning before our first snack. What is going wrong? I wondered as I contacted the local public school to see about a tour. Fill out these worksheets I instructed as I realized we were about 6 lessons behind schedule. "All of them?!?" the kids asked as I handed a small textbook sized sheaf to each. "Yup, we've gotta get through them, look at the calendar."

Marimba!

Recorder Time

Each weekend was coming and going with me wanting to go hiking with the family, and each weekend was coming and going without us being able to. Baseball and soccer occupied each day, work, chores, or plans occupied the nights and all I wanted was to be out and hearing the crunch of leaves as the golden and red colors surrounded us. I called a park day on a Tuesday and the kids and I headed for the hills. We explored a new park, went out for coffee and cider, and headed home when we wanted to. We read for a long a time that afternoon and we all ended the day feeling productive and engaged and it clicked. We learn SO much more when we are engaged than when we are following a checklist. Language develops during those read-alouds and fluency during our curl-up-and-read-the-favorites time. By getting supplies and actually building the buildings we read about we cement the information into our minds. By exploring areas we are already interested in, we are continuing our thought process rather than just inserting pieces of information that we don't really care about. My job as a homeschool mom is to make sure they have the building blocks for learning (HOW to read, HOW to write, HOW to do math) but it's not really my job to tell them what subject to apply that knowledge. This freedom to move within our curriculum has provided the shift we needed for our love of home education. By the time we went on the tour of the local school we had already fallen back in love with what we are doing at home.

Mini DC

I am somewhat certain at some point our boys will find themselves in a school again. I have no idea when that will be. We are no longer the Roving Pirates (though we still try to search out the fun), but we are now The Village School. A play on words due to our neighborhood's name as well as the fact that our kids are growing up in the proverbial village. Their education is formed from our network of classes and relationships with teachers, coaches, and family. Their school walls are invisible and their learning time is endless. All of these things provide flexibility in life and mind, and in that case, I can stick to our elevator pitch of homeschooling.

Valmont Bike Day