Where We're Coming From

Giving Daddy a tour at open house.

We like school.  We like some of the trappings of school that homeschoolers could easily miss out on--classrooms decked out for the season, snow days (we're having one as I type!), open houses, centers.  And so, we do them.  Many may feel like this is too much of a bother, and they are very likely doing something that WE would think is too much of a bother--to each his own!  One thing I like about team teaching is that when I might get lazy and not do things that are a bit of extra work, the fact that my sister and her kids are also counting on me and the fact that she puts in a ton of work to offer my kids "specials" puts just enough extra pressure on me to get things done.  (Though in all honesty, I didn't do things in an easy, sustainable way when I was teaching in a public setting either--it was exhausting, lol.  But fulfilling.)

I think there are a few key things in our background that have shaped both our decision to homeschool and the way we go about it.   We both experienced public, homeschool, and private school ourselves.  In my case it was K-3 public, 4-6 and 10-12 private Christian school, and 7-9 homeschool.  There were things I loved and loathed about each of these experiences, but I'll tell you one thing, homeschooling as we did it was not enough structure for me, and so I asked to go back to school.  I didn't feel I had enough self-discipline for homeschooling.  I'm sure this is one influence on why we run our homeschool a bit more like a "regular" school.

However, although my mom was the captain of that ship and I asked her to bring me ashore, she also had a long career teaching elementary school and was very gifted in it.  I have many childhood memories of sitting in her classroom as she set in up in late summer or after school.  She made games and fun bulletin boards and taught kids to read.  I think this was highly influential on both B and I.

The school where I went to kindergarten and my mom taught.

Remember the movie "You've Got Mail"?  One of our favorite parts is when Tom Hanks offers Meg Ryan a "bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils" to celebrate that fall back-to-school feeling.  (And yes...B has given me one.)  That kind of happy, eager feeling about school is one we hope to pass on to our kids.  We did school today...can we do it again tomorrow?!