An introduction to our little schoolhouse
Welcome to our little schoolhouse. It's our converted two car garage that was poorly designed without possible access from the main house. We never really used it to its full potential until now. You may wonder if we have always known we wanted to homeschool. The blunt answer is absolutely not. I come from a long line of educators and I never thought that I too would devote my life to teaching. But here I am. Let me tell you how I ended up a teacher.
I was not a homeschooled kid. I went to public school, K through 12. I was in the gifted program. I excelled in school and took honors courses, participated in extracurricular activities and clubs. I graduated with honors and scholarships. I had a great experience in school and I had some of the most influential and inspiring teachers. I never planned to homeschool my own children. So what changed? The school system.
I sent my firstborn to kindergarten at one of the top ranked public schools in our district. They talked a lot of hype and I admit I drank the koolaid. Then I went to open house after the year began. I saw my daughter never completed an assignment. Shared supplies meant my kid who had never had a doctor visit besides wellness and vaccinations was now seriously sick every two weeks. She was repeatedly on antibiotics and as I inquired how this could happen I saw the rules that they could only miss 10 days before legal action was pursued. So kids went to school contagious so their parents didn't get a DCF investigation. Lunches at 10:30 am? Yup. She had a boy expose himself to her. Another hit her with a traffic cone. She was not thriving there. Active school shooter practices and locked classroom door were standard practice. This was not the school I remembered from my youth. We had hot lunches with real food. We had music class with xylophones and glockenspiels and recorders. School used to be fun.
I had to make a choice. I did a lot of research and I found a public school program online that meets all the standards for a state issued high school diploma and had licensed teachers with a 2 hour a day, 4 days a week schedule for me to work my own plans around. It was perfect!
Now that I am 3 kids and 5 years into this journey I find that I am using all the things that made school great for me and applying to our little schoolhouse. Books galore, hands on activities, art and unique accents fill our walls and encourage wonder and learning. There is a section for science with bones, dissection tools, real specimens and reference materials, nature wildlife exploration has its own section, geography and social studies are grouped together beside the arts. I refused to allow those things to be removed from my school curriculum. We have so much in our little schoolhouse that the world has deemed non-essential and I have omitted the school ideologies that don't align with our family's core beliefs.
This has been an ever-changing thing as I believe it should be. If you are having doubts about your children's education and want to make a change, do it. You will never regret it. I certainly don't.
Tour our little schoolhouse.
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