Why Homeschool? Guest Post Series- Chrissy

Welcome back! It’s time for another wonderful guest post in our “Why Homeschool?” series. Today we are lucky to hear from Chrissy.   Each one of these posts has been wonderful and inspiring. To those of you writing them, I think you sincerely for sharing your thoughts with all of us!  To hose of you reading them, I hope you are also being inspired be reading their stories. If you are interested in participating, or reading past posts in the series, visit THIS page. 

Hi! I’m Chrissy from Muse of the Morning and Teach. Learn. Imagine. The Hubs and I have been homeschooling our children for almost a year now!

I have felt called to homeschool for quite some time. It seemed that every time the question of school came up, homeschool always entered the picture for one reason or another. When Kindergarten time came around, we found out that we had mistakenly moved into a different school district than the one we’d wanted to. To get into the district, it was a huge waiting list, and then we would be lucky to lottery into the school we wanted. We weren’t terribly happy about the schools in the district we were in, so we started out with Lil’Miss at home.

I had a very loose view of homeschooling for the Kindergarten year, wanting it to be very natural and relaxed. In my mind, we’d do some baking, read some books, explore our city parks. Lil’Miss on the other hand, wanted worksheets and a schedule. Our ideas for homeschooling clashed and we ended up sending her to the nearby Kindergarten at her request. Although I felt like the school was way too bookwork-y, she had a great time.

Before her First grade year, the districts opened up and we got into the district we wanted and lotteried into the school we wanted. The school was pretty good. She had a wonderful caring teacher and made friends quickly. The school is very family friendly, in fact I could bring my toddler when I volunteered in the library. The classes had multiple grades in them, which was the main reason I had wanted to get her into that school in the first place. 

But it just didn’t fit with us, and we ended up pulling her out. The issues we had were things that probably couldn’t be helped- library time was too short, lunch time was too short and she never got to finish her lunch. Math was too easy and they were at a loss on how to challenge her and keep her interested. 

So the issue of homeschooling came up again. We talked it over as a family and decided that maybe Lil’Miss and I could compromise our styles a little bit to create something that we both would benefit from and still find to be fun and interesting.

So far it’s working really well. She has math and copywork workbooks, which fill her need for worksheets and we read from living books and talk or write about them, filling my need to be more relaxed. We still get to bake and explore the parks. In fact we get to do so much more! She spends a lot of her time creating board games that take over the whole house, putting on plays and writing stories and songs and performing them. She creates a lot of artwork. She wouldn’t have time for any of these things if she was in school all day long!

I enjoy the freedom that homeschooling allows us. We don’t spend a lot of time on bookwork, just an hour or so in the mornings. Then we can spend the rest of the day working on our urban homestead, baking and cooking. We spend time at the parks, bike riding, hiking in local nature areas. We spend time on my parents’ farm, and tending to household matters. All of this teaches her in a myriad of ways that she wouldn’t learn in school. 

I love the many varied activities that we get to try, that wouldn’t be covered in school. So far, we’ve mummified a chicken, we’ve built pyramids and made a model of a canal! We made clay tablets and learned about ancient leaders and concepts that aren’t even covered in school!

I like not spending a lot of money on schooling supplies. Of course there are some costs- glue and colored pencils, paper and printer cartridges. But all the money I’ve spent on curriculum is less than $50 and we stock up on school supplies the same time everyone else does- in September. We chose to buy a history curriculum and a math curriculum, but there are several online for free. We supplement our curriculum with living books from the library and resources from the internet. The internet has brought the homeschooling community closer than ever, and resources for every subject can be found online. In fact, I’m trying to collect as many as possible on my website Teach. Learn. Imagine. 

I also love learning alongside Lil’Miss. Many of the things that we’re learning weren’t covered in my schooling, or was covered so lightly that I have no recollection of it. Everything she learns, I am learning too, and there is so much that is fascinating in history and our world that I didn’t even know about!

Lil’Miss has a little brother who is almost 2. Although he’s a challenge to keep busy when Lil’Miss is trying to work, he gets to partake in all of our activities. Mr.Man has his own “work” pages that allow him to work alongside her. Because she’s home all day, she gets to read books to him, which he loves. He got to make clay tablets and pyramids too. 

The Hubs works at home, so we often get to spend a lot of time together as a family – doing activities, working in the garden, making food for our family. 

I am constantly in awe of how much my children know, and how much they are able to glean from their activities. Homeschooling has allowed me to watch as they both learn and I am so amazed at how fast they gain knowledge and skills. I am sure that we’ll be homeschooling for many years and I am excited to experience the future along with my children and husband!