How We Got Here (And Where We Are)

The children and I are entering our fifth year of "official" homeschooling.  When my oldest, now 8, was a wee little thing, I talked my dear, patient husband into the idea of home education.  Neither of us had a particularly positive public school experience, we couldn't afford a private school where the children would be allowed to pray and hear about God, but mostly I just couldn't imagine being apart from this sweet tiny girl.  (Or her sister and brothers, as they came along.)  So, when she was two or three (!) I went to my first home school convention, and started circling things in the gigantic Rainbow Resource catalog.  We started having something akin to "Morning Time," though I hadn't yet heard of it.  I had been reading to her all along.

A few weeks after the oldest turned three, my husband and I started working at a children's home.  We were houseparents, living with and caring for boys.  They attended public school, but all of the other staff children were home schooled.  It was an easy reason to give to those who questioned us, to say that it was a good way to spend time with our own children, since our afternoons, evenings, and weekends were very busy.  

I still give that reason, and it is a valid one.  One that people can easily comprehend when I can see that the idea of home education concerns them.  However, it's not nearly the greatest reason that we chose this path.  Spending my days with these growing people, having the time with them to see their strengths and weaknesses, and to help them with both.  That's a reason. Watching them as they learn, and grow, and make connections.  That's a reason.  Introducing them to the Creator, to Christ, to the Word.  That's a reason.  Also, I like them a lot!  

When that oldest girl was four, with an early October birthday, we started Kindergarten.  I couldn't wait any longer.  (If you want to know - yes, I wish I would have waited!)  She was already reading and writing.  I had a 3 year old, 2 year old, and a nursing six-month old.  Plus, a passel of additional boys and a job.  Why wait??  

So, she started, and it went fine.  (By "fine" I mean I was exhausted, but realistically that had little to do with homeschooling, and much to do with the busyness of life and my own health issues.)  We started with a math curriculum, and a reading curriculum, and an "open-and-go" curriculum for everything else, because I thought we had to do "everything else."  Two years later, her sister started.  We started a different "open-and-go" curriculum that they could do together.  A lot of that happened in Morning Time, which we called Marshmallow Time, because I bribed the little boys to participate by giving them mini-marshmallows at the end. What didn't happen in Marshmallow Time was saved for nap time.

The day before Thanksgiving, the year that our second child entered Kindergarten, we moved from South Carolina to Tennessee.  My husband began to work as a farm manager for his step-father and mother's cattle farm, and we moved in to the farmhouse that his step-dad grew up in.  We moved from a campus of five families with a total of 19 children, in addition to the boys who were living there, to a farm with many acres, but few neighbors.  None with young children.  We missed our people.  It has taken time to get used to the relative isolation, but we have found a good church, and a good homeschool group.  We have made friends, and life has slowed down. 

We just completed our first entire school year here on the family farm.  We're on a seven week break.  Our third child, a boy who thrives in this environment, just finished Kindergarten.  The girls are entering the second and fourth grades.  The "baby" is four, and in just one more year they'll all be in school.  That makes my heart ache a little, but the ages they are now, all between four and eight... it's a beautiful place.  

They still think that I'm brilliant.  They all still want to snuggle up with me.  They spend most of their free time outside.  They know me well, and when asked by their Sunday School teacher what my favorite thing to do was, the three youngest said "sleep," "read," and "drink coffee on the porch."  That's pretty accurate.

We read a lot.  We go on walks, go fishing, look for snakes and crayfish and grasshoppers, and picking wildflowers.  The youngest is nervous that he will be "alone" in Sunday School this year.  The oldest is already looking forward in several years to being in our church youth group.  I'm looking forward to the teen years, and dreading them leaving home, but I love where we are right now.