Now that I am a bit more seasoned in homeschooling, I thought I would share what I have learned and what I have changed.
First, homeschooling is a lot harder than I thought it would be. Not the teaching aspect, but the finding time and forcing yourself to get to it. It is so easy to say, "We will do it tomorrow." Then tomorrow comes, and something comes up, and you don't get to it, then you find yourself piling 3 days into 1.
The next thing I learned was, having a school room is dumb. Maybe it works for some people. But it wasn't for us, it was much easier to do school work at the dining room table, or living room floor, or even the kitchen table while I washed dishes. Not only that, but baby quatre will be needing the school room soon.
I also learned you don't need a lot of stuff. The posters, the big colorful calendar, none of that was needed. All you need is your curriculum, or books, paper, pencils, and you and your children.
A two year old is easier to handle while teaching your older children if you include her, give her a piece of paper, a coloring book and crayons, and she sits and listens, and learns. She sits right along with Parker saying "B says buh".
You also don't need to do everything all at once. In the beginning, I would do math, then language and phonics, then social studies/science/health, then spelling, then any extras. By the time we were done for the day, both boys were spent, I was spent, and we were tired of being around each other. Yes it got it all done and out of the way early. But then I changed it up, we still do math first because it is the most hated subject, but then we take a break, have a snack, play outside, play a game, watch TV, or whatever else. Then we move on to something else, take a break, then something else, take a break, and so on. Yes it can take all day, but there is no burnout, and the kids are learning quicker, there is no whining, no "Are we done yet?" Some days we do still knock it all out in the morning if we have somewhere to be or if the kids want to keep going. Some days we take one or two breaks, some days we take a break between everything. We take it day by day. The kids take the lead, and I am fine with that as long as it gets done. Yep, we might be practicing spelling at 6 at night, but it works for us.
One of the most important things I have noticed, is Landon is not as mouthy, he is not as colorful in his choice of words, and he isn't so into popular items. For example, this time last year, I heard Oh my God! several times a day. Now I hear, Oh my goodness gracious! instead. Last year he was saying crap, even though he knew that was a no no in our home, I would still catch him saying it. I haven't heard it in a while now.
All in all, I would say homeschool has been a success for our family. Is it right for every family? No. Is it right for your family? Maybe, that is a choice that every family has to make for themselves.
