Homeschool

Wow!  What a crazy, awesome week this has been.  We started homeschooling for the first time on Tuesday.  Aidan is in 4th grade, and I am doing preschool with Ella.  I don't know who learned more this week, me or the kids.  I learned so much about them...their learning styles, what they already know and about myself...my teaching style, my strengths, my weaknesses.  It has, at times, been great, amazing, scary, frustrating, and exhausting.  But, overall, I am really excited that we're doing this.  I've already figured out some things I'm going to keep doing, and some things that just don't work. 

I have had to constantly keep in mind my reasons for doing this.  Lots of people ask me, "so, why are you homeschooling?"  And, I never know what to say.  A lot of people home school because their kids are not flourishing in public school.  Aidan did great in school.  A lot of people home school because they worry about the influence of other kids at school.  This was certainly a concern of ours, but mostly those experiences have been great teachable moments about why we have the values we have, why we believe what we believe and what it means to be in the world, not of it.  I'm sure there are tons of other reasons too...but none of the typical responses matched up with what prompted me to make this decision.

I guess the short answer would be, God asked me to.  As third grade progressed, there were many times I felt God prompting me that it was time for Aidan to come home.  The long answer would be...
1. I want to reignite Aidan's natural curiosity about the world and excitement about learning.  School had turned this into drudgery.
2. I want to integrate our values and our faith into everything Aidan does...instead of having it compartmentalized into "school," "church," etc.
3.  I want to expose Aidan to a great variety of experiences so that he can discover what his gifts are, what his passions are and what God has for him to do.

So, this week, I had to check my "public school teacher" self at the door.  I had to work hard to find that perfect balance between high standards (Aidan seriously acted like I had 2 heads for demanding correct capitalization, punctuation and spelling!) and keeping it fun and engaging.  And all the while, I had to balance this with feeding the baby, working with the 4 year old, doing laundry/dishes/cleaning/meal prep, etc.  Wow!  It's a lot...but it's working, and it's amazing.

My greatest gift this week...hearing my kids encourage each other in their work, watching them make up games and play them during our "recesses," and spending lots of quality time together.  Don't get me wrong...they also had moments of fighting like cats and dogs, making unbelievable messes, etc.  But, let's not dwell on that.  :)

The kids even came up with a "school" mascot...we are the Jaguars.  We have a little stuffed jaguar that does school with us and will go on all of our adventures with us.  Speaking of adventures...I joked with a friend last week that I am like a teacher on speed...this is what we have coming up in the next 2 weeks:  making a paper mache model of the earth, making a salt map depicting the regions of Texas, visiting the Texas wild exhibit at the zoo, Baseball camp, Farm camp, writing letters to Major League Baseball teams (and hoping they send us some free goodies), a tour of Ranger Ballpark, and possibly a camping trip to Gonzales to see a reenactment of the battle that started the Texas Revolution. 

Just writing that makes me want to go to bed.  Pray for energy and stamina for me!

First Day of School :)