In the Beginning

Hello! I am glad you have decided to join me on my family's journey through home schooling. I have never done home schooling before, I myself went to public schools. For me, public schools were great! I made lots of friends and don't remember about much else! When I got to college I realized I hadn't paid much attention in school and therefore did not retain much of the information provided to me.  Also, I was not afforded much education on "real life" skills such as cooking, sewing, or money management skills.  I myself am a very hands on learner and this type of learning can be hard to teach in public school settings. I would love to be able to SHOW my children what they are learning about. Have them get a personal experience about something so the lesson means more to them and sticks with them longer. I know not every parent is capable of home schooling their kids because in today's economy most families require two incomes and therefore moms and dads are out of the home during the week. My mother was a teacher and my father a nurse and although they did their best to teach me what they could when they were home they worked 40+ hrs a week. Don't get me wrong, I think they did a great job with what they could do (look at me, I turned out just fine :) ) but I was that child that WANTED my mom to come on field trips and spend more time with me.  I am fortunate that I work part time from my home so I am able to set aside time for teaching. I have a lot of friends who are now educators themselves and their biggest beefs with public schools are 1) the lack of time they actually end up teaching (they are spending the majority of their time doing behavioral management) 2) the restrictions on HOW they can teach (there are many different learning types and it is hard to teach each child to their individual needs) 3) and the school districts strong desire to have passing test scores that this tends to be the only curriculum they focus on. It is my hope that by home schooling I can give my children a more well-rounded education in less time allowing them to explore more extra curricular activities that they enjoy (i.e. music, arts, athletics) and giving them hands on experiences with life skills. As I said before, I have little clue on where to start or how it is done. So this will be a blog about trials and errors, triumphs and disasters, but mostly I hope it is a journey to a love of learning!