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So, as I mentioned in my last post, the kids are going back to school! It’s a little bittersweet after homeschooling for the past two years but everyone is excited about this change. This experience has taught me so much about my kids and myself and I am really grateful for having this opportunity. I had never planned to be a “homeschool mom” and I get asked often what it is like. It’s so hard to explain but I am going to do my best today!
I homeschooled my kids for the past two years and this is what I have learned!
First of all, homeschool is very different for everyone. To some, it is replicating school at home. To others, it is free play with little structure. For traveling families it gives them freedom. And to the kids with deep passions and talents, it gives them the time to pursue them. I know people that do it for one year and some who know that they are in it for the long haul. Long story short there is no right or wrong way to do it and rarely does it look the same for everyone.
I had never planned to homeschool Abby and Jake and for the first few years, we had access to some amazing public schools. Abby thrived in the classroom from K-2 while we lived in Illinois and Jake got off to an ok start in Kindergarten. While she was tested and classified as gifted, he needed extra help when it came to reading and writing. I remember Abby’s beloved 1st grade teacher who called her an “excited little learner.” I have to laugh because it sums her up well!
When we moved to California we were zoned for an underperforming school and while we gave it a shot we quickly knew it wasn’t the place for us. It wasn’t necessarily the teachers but more the behavior of other students. At the same time, I heard about the public charter school system in California. So, as our homeschool journey started I enrolled my kids in the public charter school. Basically, I got a certain amount of money per year to spend on curriculum, field trips, etc and met with my teacher (and we had a great one) once a month to chat and turn in a work sample. I met so many like-minded families and it was a perfect fit for us! I remember the first day of “school” when we all met down at Crystal Cove State Park for a ranger-led talk and exploring the tidepools. We then spent the night in Laguna Beach and went to the art festival. This is what it looked like for us. And the kids were excited and I was so inspired.
While hands-on, in the moment learning was fun, I am also a big fan of curriculum and traditional learning. I knew that I wasn’t going to homeschool forever so I wanted to make sure that my kids stayed on track with their grade level I know many families who plan to do it for the long haul and don’t pay any attention to standards. It’s to each their own on this.
I quickly realized that children learn differently and there is no perfect curriculum. As a parent, I had always just taken their current school’s textbooks and lesson plans as to how it was done. I had no idea that there were hundreds of different ways just to teach math. And I have a degree in math. Did my kids need a mastery approach or a spiral approach? With our charter school, I had the freedom to choose any curriculum that I wanted and piece together different ones for different subjects. That first year was a lot of trial and error for us. By the end of year two, I knew so much about different options and how they best fit a child’s way of learning. For example, we love living books for history and Saxon math worked best for both kids. We enjoyed Liberty Kids (amazing DVDs for the car) for American History and found a bunch of subscription boxes that we loved. Can I tell you a secret? I LOVED learning again. It felt so good to have that stream of information flowing inside me.
More importantly, I saw how my kids learned. Jake is much more visual than Abby and he needs a lot of review work. Abby can master things fast and thrives on a challenge. This is one of the biggest takeaways from my homeschool experience. I now know how to best help my kids succeed in school. I look back at our lives before and I paid little attention to what the kids were actually doing at school or patterns of successes and failures. Because I taught them myself I am going to be such a better asset for them as they navigate the rest of their education.
And now I am tearing up. That is what made this whole experience bittersweet. I really enjoyed teaching them. When it was good it was really good and when it got ugly it was ugly. Homeschooling is hard. And homeschooling is easy. I put a lot of pressure on myself and feel like we made the most out of every day but it wasn’t easy. It’s easy to doubt yourself. I lost my temper way too many times and at this point, I am pretty tired of wearing all of the hats. In my case, I think that another year may have tested us a little too much. I am ready to step back and be their biggest cheerleader as they head back to school. But I am so thankful for the experiences. We had so many beautiful moments together. We read aloud some incredible books. I taught Jake how to read. Myself. (PS: now I am full on ugly crying) We explored some amazing places. We met some incredible friends. We went to Disneyland for 40 days in one year. During the day, when it’s slow because everyone else was at school.
Did I mention the amazing friends? I want to debunk the myth that homeschoolers don’t socialize. It’s just like anything else. You can be as active or as social as you want to be. We were out with friends all of the time. It was wonderful to be surrounded by link minded families. Abby thrived in her STEM group with the other kids who loved science. I loved chatting about life and learning with my new mom friends. I found a community where I didn’t know that I had one. The internet and social media make it very easy to connect with other homeschoolers and I actually feel some relief that my kids didn’t have to deal with the pressure that comes with “socialization” at school. They didn’t have to deal with peer pressure or bullying. They had an extra couple of years to just be kids and for that I am grateful.
When I tell people that I homeschool(ed) my kids many often say that they have been thinking about it. People want to know what it’s like and it’s so hard to explain. If you are thinking about it (or even not) I have a few suggestions for you.
First, listen to the Wild and Free podcast. This helped me understand why I was doing this when I didn’t even know. The wild and free community is an incredible resource for homeschool moms. There are groups around the US and the idea is to slow down, enjoy the ride, make it beautiful. Also, I think that reading and fostering a love of reading is so important in this journey and something that often gets lost in the traditional school system. The Brave Learner is a great book for you to read and learn how to foster that in your children. We found a true love of the library over the past few years. I love seeing what the kids are reading and finding good literature for them. Books are so much more than the AR number on the binding. We find books they love and don’t even look at that. And take some time to learn how you can best help your children at home. Feel free to leave questions on this post. I am more than happy to answer them. I also am trying to get all of my favorite fun learning resources up on my Amazon Favorites page.
And please remember that what these photos don’t show are the tears. We had our fair share. I always tend to focus on the good in things and those are the memories that we will take with us from this experience but it was hard. I wasn’t always my best self around them. I lost my temper more than I should and my patience wore thin.
Maybe we will homeschool again. Maybe we won’t. Kids change, we change, there isn’t a need to put yourself in a box. Maybe your kids are in public school and you are thinking about trying homeschool. I say go for it. Especially the younger years where learning by play is so important. Or maybe you homeschool right now and your heart is telling you that it’s time for a break. Sending them back to school isn’t admitting defeat. Change is inevitable and one of the best things we can teach our kids is how to adapt and how to react. It’s so exciting watching them grow up.
I never thought that I would be the one writing to you today, talking to you about this subject. I am by no means an expert but I am happy to share this experience with you all. And one of my friends made a great point. Just because I am not homeschooling doesn’t mean that I can’t teach them. We can still read beautiful books together and explore fun places. We can do our fun science experiments over the weekends. It’s not one or the other. Nothing in life really is so we have to remember that.
So, we wait with excitement and nervousness for school to start on August 20th. Mostly excitement, to be honest. You know how it feels like summer break went by too fast. For me, it kind of feels like it’s been a two and a half year-long summer break. One thing that I didn’t prioritize enough on this journey is my own self-care and time away to decompress. That is one thing that I can say for certain. To be successful at homeschooling you have to take care of yourself. You can’t pour from an empty cup. And I am excited about my next chapter as much as I am for them. And change is good! As Robin Charma was quoted saying… “Don’t live the same year 75 times and call it a life.”
