Our Home School Beginnings....

Our kids are young, so we are new to the home school world.

If you were to ask me today why we have chosen to home school our children, I would give you many reasons. I won't go into detail with that now, but they would range from the valuable education we believe our children can receive through home schooling to a testimony of our lack-luster public school experience to a passionate diatribe on the valuable discipleship opportunities it provides us as we seek to shepherd our children's hearts. My list now could go on and on really.

If you were to ask me a year or two ago why we had chosen to home school our kids, my answer would have been a lot shorter. It would have gone something like this, "Well, we want to raise our kids to know and love the Lord and I don't feel comfortable putting my children in public school in this culture in the wake of my own public school experience and the Christian school is too far away and I do not want to spend 2 hours a day in the car, so we decided that's what we should probably do."

To be honest, the idea of homeschooling terrified me. I was public schooled. I have an advanced degree, but not in education. I am not an arts & crafts type of mom! What if we have to do projects requiring glitter? I'm not sure I can bring myself to it.

Thankfully, we live in a community with a widespread home school presence. I was introduced to a home school method that didn't make me want to get sick when reading through the weekly plan. In fact, our curriculum doesn't even have one of those complicated weekly plans (I'm sure I'll share more about our 'method' another time, but we'll leave it there for now). I was introduced to helpful podcasts and to many different approaches and philosophies of home schooling. These provided me with the opportunity to grow in my understanding of education, home school approaches, and to craft our own approach that we believe will be best for our family. 

We've stepped out in that slowly, applying these approaches we believe in as is appropriate to our children's ages and abilities. And? Though it has been far from easy, it has been amazing. Our family culture has changed from a "do all the right things, but still feel like we're flying by the seat of our pants" approach to a cultivated family culture centered around the things that we believe are important for our souls. Life is so much richer this way. We are creating shared memories and experiences together through this home school experience, and I am so grateful to be part of this journey with them.

My girls are young. I'm sure it will change. I understand that the Bible does not give a mandate to home school, and I believe that both public school and private school can also be good, godly options for a family to choose. I hope this blog will in no way reflect a worship of home schooling and that all our family paths will be held with an open hand. I actually really hope this will not be a blog focused on glorifying home schooling. I hope it will edify all believers as they let the Biblical worldview permeate all of their living. I wanted to start this blog as an attempt to put into words the things we are learning and have been blessed by on our home school and parenting journey. As one redeemed by the blood of Jesus, I love God much (though completely imperfectly). I also love theology, so I hope this blog will reflect those passions as they spill over into our home school journey.