The change

We did it. We became homeschoolers a few weeks ago. While we had originally planned to start in September, we asked ourselves what the point was to making our kids keep going to that building where thier learning and morale were clearly going downhill - although they called it a school it was a misnomer, as that would imply that education was taking place there.

Homeschooling first came up a number of years ago, when we both agreed that should our kids end up having the kind of horrible school experiences we did and with the knowledge that we'd never be able to afford public school, we would homeschool our kids.

But the first few years were absolutely awesome; Taryn had great teachers in a school that was clearly there to serve their students and families. She loved school and was excited about learning.

When we moved, that all changed and the number one thing that Taryn said was that she was bored, and Ashlin cried often about going to school.

So we started examining the idea of homeschooling a bit deeper and our focus shifted. Instead of trying to avoid what was bad, we started to see the benefits of home schooling, to see how it could tap into children's natural curiosity and desire to learn.

Most people worry about peer interactions. It is not much of a concern for us, because we are quite confident that it is their relationship with us is much more important than relationships with other kids. As my friend Cindy says, my children have a better chance of learning good socialization skills from adults who have them than from children who don't.

Although Rob is carrying the bulk of the homeschooling efforts, I realize that if we don't tie learning to a certain place and time, it happens all over, anytime, and I can also create environments in which my kids will naturally learn and have fun doing it. In that regard, I've started a project with the kids:

The Toilet Project
We are finding out how much money we would save if we installed low flow toilets in our house. This week was the first phase was to track how many times we flush the toilets. Thus the kids learn about data collecting. Phase 2 is to find out volumes of our present toilets, giving them knowledge about area, volume, and the metric system. Phase 3 is a field trip to learn about low flow toilets and the science involved. Phase 4 is doing all the figuring - practical math. Phase 5 is I'll encourage them to write it up like a report - language skills.

What's best: the stress level in our house has dropped substantially now that we're not fussing about getting up for school, getting the kids to school, from school, pleasing school, keeping track of school events, worrying about school. Now we can focus on life and the learning that goes with it. I'm liking this journey.