After much prayer and discussion, my husband and I decided that I would homeschool the younger 2 of our 3 children. We left the homeschool option up to our oldest child because he had just become involved in speech and drama at his school and we didn't want to force him to drop out in the middle of a school year if he did not want to.
As the school year had already began, we debated on when a good time to start homeschooling would be. Our children were currently enrolled in the 2nd, 5th, and 9th grades and we had no clue on where to even begin. Our first thought was 'we need curriculum before we pull them out of school or it will be devastating to their learning process.' Well, that's where I began seeking a lot of advice from one of my dearest most beloved friends (who happens to be my sister). She is a homeschool mom too, and a very good one at that. She directed me to lots (and lots and lots and lots) of websites containing helpful information. We decided that we wanted to use Alpha Omega's Switched on Schoolhouse (SOS) curriculum. Well that lead us to the problem of finances. We couldn't afford the cost of two full years (2nd grade & 5th grade) worth of curriculum at that time, so we decided to wait until the following school year 2010-2011.
A few days later, I received a call from my second graders homeroom teacher telling me he was acting out in class. My straight 'A' student acting out! Then a few days after that, the school nurse called to tell me he had gotten a bean stuck in his ear and they could not get it out. Yes, I said a bean. In all my years of being a mother (14 yrs), I had never experienced anything being stuck in an ear or nose. After many trips to the ear nose and throat doctor and a minor surgical procedure, the bean was finally removed. During that whole process my sister informed me that she had some second grade curriculum prepurchased for her daughter and that I was welcome to borrow some of it if I wanted to until I could purchase the SOS curriculum. So after prayer and discussion my husband and I decided that was the route we would go. My sister was going to bring up her curriculum at Thanksgiving and I had found some free material online to last me until then. So, on October 28th, 2009 my youngest son Timothy started his first day at my homeschool, The Academy of Edification.
4 comments:
I like your new blog. It is very encouraging and it is great to see all this written out. I look forward to reading and seeing more!
One thing I didn't share last night in the chat. My kids are PS (public school) drop outs as well. This is only my 2nd year of homeschooling. We dropped out of PS June of 2008.
Thanks SAHMinIL, that is encouraging to know. Most other homeschoolers have started from the beginning. Did you find it hard to make the transition and can you see a change in your children since you pulled them out in 08?
It wasn't a horrible transition, but I did have my road blocks. I would (and still) get things like "that's not how we did it in school" Or resistance to do things together, because we can't do that she/he is not the same "grade".
It has mellow out some as the time gone by and I wouldn't trade it for the world now! It really, despite having my bad days, is a good thing and I'm happy to be homeschooling them.
Sometimes I wished we homeschooled from the beginning because my kids are only 10 months apart and I wish at times we could do more together then we are.
I do things like, Art, Science, History, Music, together And things like Grammar, Spelling, Reading, and Math is separate.
Sometimes I wish the Math, Spelling, and Grammar was together as well....together meaning the same material.
There are going to be bad days and there are going to be struggles, but in the end I believe it will pay off. My kids are happy now and they don't want to go back.
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