Why We Love Our Decision to Homeschool!
I can hardly believe we have a kindergartner on our hands! Sam and I have spent the last year discussing our plans for the kids schooling. We both were not in favor of public, traditional schooling for many reasons. I attended public school and Sam went back and forth between homeschooling and public school. It has been helpful having different experiences to share! Though I am not here to say that anyone who chooses other routes are wrong. Everyone chooses an education route that they feel is right for their kids. This is just what we felt was best for our kids! I am very happy with our decision and I would love to share why we chose homeschooling! We made this decision long before Covid was a thing, so this has been quite a roller-coaster! However all the craziness with Covid did solidify our decision to homeschool! We paid dearly to buy a home in a good school district with the best elementary school in it. Only to begin thinking of alternatives a year later (and a year ago now) as Odin approached Kindergarten age. In the last year we have gone from being unsure of ourselves and keeping the public school option open to being researched, confident and incredibly excited in our decision. We decided to name our school for fun – Two Cedars Schoolhouse!
We are taking a child-interest led approach with lots of time for nature and unstructured play! So really it will be a combination of homeschooling and wildschooling. We will be using the Blossom and Root Curriculum for our focused learning. It is a secular, creative and nature based curriculum inspired by Charlotte Mason’s teachings and the Waldorf Philosophy. It is a very flexible, hands on approach, and very light on the academics! Right now we are planning about 30 minutes of focused learning a day. And there will certainly be days when no focused learning happens! The rest of the day will be spent digging into the things Odin is interested in, play, reading and outdoor adventures!
Everything we have done with Odin so far has all been interest led. He has told me what he would like to learn and we work on that. We have seen how easily he can pick things up when it is something he shows an interest in! The plan is to continue on with that as we have seen great results from it so far. I’m excited to see where he leads us this year! Some of his recent interests have been volcanoes and anything space related!
Another thing we have seen be super beneficial for both kids is unstructured play! They create some awesome things when they just have time to play without rules or guidance. I have been doing so much research on the benefits of unstructured play. It gives kids the chance to be creative, imaginative and explore to find their own interests.
Obviously we are huge nature lovers in this house! The thought of making our kids sit inside for 6-8 hours a day was really hard to accept. Odin will continue to be able to spend most of his days outside in kindergarten. It is incredible the difference in mood we see when the kids spend a good portion of the day outside. It is definitely a reset for us too when we are having a bad day.
We want to limit the amount of time the kids use electronics and technology! We find everyone seems to be in a better mood when we keep them off! In the past, we’ve also noticed our kids become incredibly impatient, irritable and desire nothing else than more TV time. Even though they are “educational shows” they are not always worth it. As parents today, it’s easy to use electronics as a babysitter and while we struggle with it as much as everyone else we are trying the best we can to not use it out of laziness. Right now, it’s been about 4 weeks since we turned on the TV last.
A big thing for us with homeschooling is being able to have a flexible schedule! Sam’s job will eventually involve some travel and we would love to be able to pick up and go with him without having school attendance policies holding us back! All our family is out of state so it would be so nice to be able to have a free schedule if people are coming to visit us or we are traveling to go see people. We also enjoy long road trips and living a schedule that works best for us.
We will also be spending time each week with some close friends who are also homeschooling! This way, Odin will still be getting plenty of interaction with kids his age! Both kids will get plenty of opportunities to play with other friends and meet new ones through other plans we make. One of Sam’s highest priorities for Odin is opportunities for social interaction.
Sam and I are so incredibly grateful that we are in the position to be able to make homeschooling work! I am so excited to be on this journey. I’m grateful for all the veteran homeschool moms giving me advice and helping me along the way. Also need to give a shout out to my dear friends who are first time homeschool moms along with me! It feels great and a little less overwhelming to have a great support system surrounding us on this new adventure!
In light of everything that’s been going on with Covid and public education, I’ve been getting many questions about homeschooling and wanted to share some of that here. I’m sure there will be more to follow but until then, on to the next adventure!