The last year

Okay, I warned you on my first blog post that I'm horrible at keeping up with journaling.  At least I know my weaknesses ;)  Now be prepared because I'm going to talk for awhile to make up for it.

11 months ago, I created this blog as an easy way to "out" myself as a new homeschooler.  I didn't want to have to deal with the same conversation over and over again where I explained how we came to this point while I defended our decisions.  11 months later I'm very happy to say that I am definitely a homeschooler, very proud of it and will talk anyone's ear off about it!  This last year has been amazing!  Don't get me wrong...it hasn't been perfect.  My educational vision has evolved multiple times, the girls and I have had our share of power struggles, I've been ready to pull my hair out when my husband got home in the evening (even more so on the evenings when work kept him away), my housekeeping skills appear to have been taken over by a 6 yr old child and yet, through it all, I still say that it has been amazing!

For those of you that like specifics, I will give a quick listing of SOME of what we studied last year and what curriculum we used to guide us through those studies:

As a family, we learned in surprising depth, about space and what is in our sky, using Apologia's Astronomy course.  We also went through many different areas of history using pieces of Biblioplan, Story of the World, and TruthQuest.  Aly went through all facets of single & multi digit division using Math U See Delta and Sav went through single digit addition & subtraction using Math U See Alpha.  Aly began the Student Writing Intensive course from the Institute for Excellence in Writing while also using Christian Light Education's Language Arts books to work on her  language arts and grammar skills.  Sav made amazing progress in her reading using Hooked on Phonics, while she did Grammar from First Language Lessons and Writing from Writing with Ease.  They also did some handrwiting books, made several lapbooks, did art projects and read more books this last year than they have read their entire lives.  Miranda still attended our awesome co-op preschool 2-3 times a week but when she joined us at home, she adored doing her Letter of the Week work, playing all sorts of fun file folder games, and just generally tagging along with what everyone else was doing.

So, why has this year been amazing?  I don't want to negate the fact that the learning they have done has been phenomenal, but that honestly hasn't been the best of it.  The growth they have made emotionally, socially and spiritually is what has made it all worth it.  For anyone that is concerned about the social aspect of homeschooling...well...it's crap.  Sorry, just putting it out there, but it is!  This last year has shown me exactly what the difference is between "socializing" in a 5 day/wk regular school environment and socializing in normal, every day environments.

I can see the difference most clearly in Aly, simply because she was in the regular school system for longer.  The peer influence of regular school which caused my then 3rd grade daughter (8 yrs old) to constantly discuss the continuously changing cycle of what boy she liked, what boy liked her, how large a male classmate's boy parts were (yes, really), and so much more, is now practically non-existent.  Don't get me wrong, she still has her crushes.  The difference is they are now normal, 9 yr old crushes.  Not the obsessive, my-life-revolves-around-this type of crushes.  She has, on her own, picked up on the difference between those friends who exhibit virtues that she agrees with and those who she still may enjoy hanging out with, but she doesn't necessarily want to emulate.  She has learned that her sisters aren't the enemy, they truly can be her friends.  She has learned that her mom and dad are available for any off the wall question she may have (and boy does she have a lot), no matter how personal they may be.  And best of all, she has learned that God isn't separate from life...God IS life!

Since Sav is younger, and only went through kindy in regular school, I don't see the amazing about-face like I do in Aly.  Instead, what I see is a tremendous growth in the confidence she has in herself, her love of Christ and her patience with her sister.  She is growing into a wonderful young girl, who doesn't have the 7 hr/day, 5 day/wk influence from other immature children.  Instead, her main influence is a woman who is confident in who she is and very confident in who her children are becoming.  Unless things drastically change, Sav will always be the quieter one.  She's more reflective, more introspective and just darn sweet.  This isn't getting squashed by 30+ loud and overbearing 7 yr olds.  Instead these qualities are being enhanced by a mom who can see exactly how to work with it and bring out the good parts of these traits.

Let me also clarify all of this by saying that I am NOT their only influence!  I'm just their main one, the same way I have been since their birth.  They still have tons of interaction with their peers through enrichment classes, tennis lessons, dance classes, play dates, field trips, church activities and so much more!  Whoever came up with the term "home"schooling really should be slapped because it truly gives an incorrect picture of our day. We are anything but just home!  I've put more miles on my car this last year than in quite some time...and I'm enjoying all of it :).  It really isn't anything like most people imagine!

So, while I have loved watching the learning take place, and loved seeing them grow to new potentials, the thing that really has made me have that amazing year is to see who the kids are becoming as individuals.   I get to see that just because they hit school age, all my years of being a stay-at-home mom don't have to be thrown out the window.  It's an amazing sight to see and I'm very happy to say, we will be proudly continuing this adventure through another year (and hopefully more).  I've changed some of our curriculum around (and am VERY excited about the changes...more on that later) and I've kept some the same.  Very anxious to see where this next year in our Life of Learning will take us!

So here it is...

A new blog.  We'll see how I do with this. I've always loved the idea of a journal, but have started and stopped at least a million of them. I especially loved the early high school one I recently came across. Unfortunately, because of my lack of follow-through on journal writing (and my miserable memory), I'm not exactly sure why my crush on the school rebel ended, but the pages that I DID write almost 20 years ago (eek) sure were entertaining!

I love reading blogs, but because I'm well aware of my weaknesses, I've always hesitated entering the blog world. Despite that, here I sit, typing away at my first blog post entry.

What would bring me to this point?? Nothing but some major changes in our lives and with those changes...

The pressure of entering a whole new world.

The idea of going completely against the "norm".

The idealistic theory of showing off a little of our life in order to dispel judgement of the unknown.

The love of looking back and seeing how much we've grown.

and I'm sure many others...

So what are these changes in our lives? As of the 2011-2012 school year, our family will begin homeschooling. Okay technically, as I've learned in this process, the state of California doesn't consider it "homeschooling". We have transferred Aly & Sav to Valley Oaks Charter School, through the Kern County Superintendent of Schools. There are several ways you can homeschool in California, but we've decided that the best option for our family at this point in time is to go through Valley Oaks. It is a school through the public school system where I, as their mother, am fully responsible for their education. We are still able to us our tax dollars on our children, and yet we have amazing power in their life of learning. We are held accountable to their education by regular visits with our resource teacher at Valley Oaks, which includes samples of the work the children have produced through their schooling. We also have some amazing perks by going through the school. While the curriculum we use is 100% our option, if we wanted to, we could have the state funded curriculum provided to us for free. The girls will have the opportunity to attend weekly enrichment classes which include things such as cooking, sewing, arts & crafts, gardening, farming, etc. This is an opportunity for them to hang out with friends and get to know others that are in this new world with them. There are also TONS of field trip opportunities through Valley Oaks, plus normal public school activities such as Battle of the Books, science fair, etc,. In addition, there is also a per child allotment to local vendors who provide extra-curricular activities such as dance, swimming, gymnastics, etc. The perks are simply too numerous for me to list here. When I first visited the school, I left there saying, "Wow, this reminds me of our co-op preschool [which I adore], but for older kids." The sense of parental involvement is amazing. The idea of making learning personal is everywhere. The feeling of learning and fun being practically equal is abundant. I fell in love.

Of course, this decision has not been an easy decision. For those of you who are interested, I will give you a little insight into how this all got started. If you'd rather not listen to more rambling, then feel free to stop reading here :).

Soooo...this whole adventure started with me looking for a program to help Aly keep up the math skills she'd gained in 3rd grade, throughout the 12 long weeks of summer. Math has been proven to not necessarily come naturally to her and I wanted to give her as much advantage in 4th grade as possible. A friend of mine, who happen to be jumping to the homeschool world for her own son, mentioned a math program that she had found. I checked it out and loved it for Aly. It happened to be created by a math teacher, for his own homeschooling students. Some who know me, know that I am a research-addict. When I'm curious about something, I research it ad nauseam. Seriously. It's like an addiction that I can't give up. It doesn't normally cause me to make life changing decisions, it just gives me insight into the way others think, feel, live or believe, which generally makes me stronger in my own thoughts, feelings, life and beliefs. This time was different.

Through this research addiction, I began to enter the virtual homeschool world. Now, you have to realize, I've known several homeschool families through the years, so the concept is definitely not a foreign one to me. I've always thought the idea was great, but I had never had a need for it because I loved our public school and was very happy with our situation. The crazy thing is...that still hadn't changed!! I still loved our public school and was very happy with our situation, yet I just couldn't get this homeschooling thing out of my mind. I kept reading the blogs, visiting the internet boards, talking with the friends who do this, and it just went on and on and on. Before I knew it, I was exploring the girls' learning styles, figuring out how that meshes with my (previously unbeknownst to me) teaching style, reading books galore on all the different ways people homeschool and just filling my mind with the amazing new world this information seemed to open up. I learned that I loved the idea of a classical education, but with a Charlotte Mason feel to it. I also learned that Aly's brain is not designed for spiral math, that history can be amazingly interesting and thought provoking when studied through living books, not random ol' text books, and that life is FILLED with learning opportunities everywhere you turn, but my kids couldn't see that full potential when they're in a room with 4 walls, 30 kids and 1 teacher, for 30+ hours a week.

Soon I was ordering some amazing curriculum, I was rearranging our home to provide space for a room of learning and fun, and I was feeling the girls out on this new idea of mine. Sav was a "go" from the start. She had only had 1 year of kindergarten behind her and while she enjoyed it, it wasn't something that she was attached to. It took a little more to win over Aly. She had been at her school for 4 years and that is alot to leave behind. Nevermind the fact that she was inline to have a repeat of her incredible 1st grade teacher (her teacher idol...and mine too), now teaching 4th grade. She had been looking forward to that for the last several years. Because I wanted to make this new adventure a fun one, not one that she resented me for, I left the option open to Aly. For a while, she was still going to go to her old public school this year and would try homeschooling next year, but after a visit to Valley Oaks herself, and a visit with some homeschooling friends, she came to me and said she was ready to make the jump herself. It was a big step for her...a big step for any 9 year old. A step into the unknown, away from what was familiar and comfortable. I'm happy to say that it's a step she's VERY proud of now! Within 30 minutes of our first visit with our resource teacher, she already had the name and phone number of a new friend, who was visiting with her resource teacher also (whose dad happens to be a Vice Principal in our school district).

Both the girls are incredibly excited to be starting this new adventure. We've committed for the 2011-2012 school year. We'll see how it works for our family and reassess our situation at the end of the year. In the mean time, we're having a blast getting everything started.

I could (and will) say TONS more on this subject, but I'll leave that for some other long-winded posts. This isn't something that I think everyone should do. I don't hate public schools, nor do I hate the school the girls' were previously enrolled in. I love teachers and think they are AMAZING. I just truly feel that everyone should make the right decision for their own family (in regards to EVERYTHING) and public school has been that right decision for us for the last 4 years. This new adventure is right for us at this point in time. For now, all I ask is that you keep an open, non-judgmental mind, and know that this is not a decision we made lightly, but it is one that we are very excited about :).