I was raised on a combination of Catholic school (3 years) and Public school (10 years), graduating at the top of my class; homeschooling never even entered the picture. My first encounter with homeschooling was hearing of the negative effects it had on a family I remotely knew only a few years before I decided to homeschool; the kids were mostly behind in schooling and seemed awkward and lacking social skills.
My oldest, Rockman, started kindergarten in our local public school and graduated valedictorian in his class of 200.
So how did I end up homeschooling my youngest?!?
It’s a funny story, actually. It really started as a joke.
After the birth of Sunshinegirl, I decided to work part time at the company I had been at for seven years. They were accommodating and allowed me to continue my IT job on a limited schedule. The spring before Sunshinegirl was to enter kindergarten, though, a typical big-company reorg occurred, and I wasn’t happy in my new role. My husband half-jokingly said if I wasn’t happy that I should just quit and homeschool our daughter. Ha ha.
I am not sure why the idea intrigued me, but I decided to just look into it for fun. I read up on some methods online and attended a “So you are thinking of homeschooling” at our local Homeschool resource center. I always thought homeschool would be just like “real school”, just at home. Workbooks and textbooks and tests and stress. Nope!
Somehow along the way I read about Charlotte Mason methods, and I was intrigued. Early on something I read mentioned that “public school can kill the love of learning” and that homeschool should nurture that love. Love of learning. Hmm.
As a typical type A, left-brained good test taker, I went through my public school career achieving A’s all the time, but did I have a love of learning? I really don’t think so. I did what I had to do, memorizing my facts and verb conjugations, finishing the test, and then moving on. I wasn’t necessarily enjoying it; that wasn’t what school was for!
The idea that kids could be nurtured to love to learn struck me. The idea that children at a young age could be encouraged to listen to great literature, hear the true stories of history, see beautiful art with their own eyes and indulge in classical music and enjoy it all amazed me.
At a young age I taught Naturegirl some basic sign language so that she could communicate before she could speak. (It was extremely effective, though 90% of the time she signed “more cracker”). Similarly, children can be READ great literature and understand it long before they can read.
Kids are a lot more intelligent than traditional thinking/teaching suggests.
The idea that I could homeschool by reading wonderful literature to my daughter and exposing her to “culture” astounded me. I could do that! Could I teach her to read? There were methods for teaching that made perfect sense, so yes. Could I teach her math? I have a college degree in Math, so I figured I could. (For a few years of college I thought I would work towards a teaching degree, but I fell in love with coding/IT, so never pursued it. The idea of teaching has never left my radar.)
So there I was, ready to do it, and I had the most supportive husband through it all. We decided to do it, and I never looked back. (Of course, I had my doubts throughout the years, but I never loved homeschooling any less.)
And here I am, about to start four years of high school homeschool with my daughter. This is a chronicle of that adventure.
Top of Her Class of One 