Homeschooling and How It Happened to Us
When my oldest daughter was getting close to kindergarten age I began to look at the schools in our area. In 2008, we bought a piece of land that would have us in the same school district when we move, but a different school I set out to see how I could have my daughter in the school near our land instead of our current home. Well, I will spare you all of the boring details, but I just don’t think that Jaelyn was meant to go to either school.
While all of this was going on a cousin of mine suggested online school or homeschooling. I began to research programs like K12. Neither my husband nor I had any real knowledge of homeschooling, but my husband was against it. He felt like it could put our children at a disadvantage- that if we didn’t know something who would teach our children.
As I continued my research, mostly online searching and reading, I shared with him the programs I was finding and the resources that were available. This began to change his mind about homeschooling. As I began to speak to a homeschool mom at church I learned that programs like K12 were essentially virtual public school and not considered homeschooling. I then began my search into what my homeschool laws were in SC and what was required of me. When I shared with my husband all the information I had gathered we decided together to give this homeschooling thing a try, at least for a year.
Well, here we are eight years later and still homeschooling. I can tell you this is one decision I have never regretted. Back then I did not know the way our lives would twist and turna dn that we would be a traveling family. Only the Lord knew. Homeschooling has been an incredible journey. It has made me grow as a parent and given many more moments with my children that I otherwise would not have had. I came into motherhood with a lot of baggage from my childhood and I can see how we may not have been such a close knit family if not for the decision to homeschool.
Has it been challenging? Yes, a lot of times it has. When we first began I was working full time night shift. A few years later I cut back to working two twelve hour day shifts a week. Now I am back to working full-time and my husband has become the full-time homeschool teacher. Homeschooling is incredibly flexible and the options in curriculum are never-ending.
The Curriculum We’ve Chosen
We are currently using Sonlight Curriculum. Sonlight uses ‘living books’ to teach. Living books are non-fiction and fiction books that teach history by sharing through sharing stories of history. It’s reading that engages the reader and gives the student a love of learning. With Sonlight we don’t have to drudge through dry textbooks. I love Sonlight.
Sonlight is not for everyone, though. As a matter of fact, when Jaelyn was in the first grade I tried to use Sonlight. I was still working full time nights and we were having school on my days off. I could not keep up with the reading, It was just too much at the time for me to keep up with. One of the amazing things about the company is they have a money back guarantee. If you do not love the product you can send it back, up to a certain amount of time. That’s what I did, and I received a refund without any problems. I finished the year using Bob Jones Curriculum.
I have used different materials for teaching over the years. I will work on a list of resources for anyone that is interested in homeschooling.