Homeschool II

Joseph and I knew we would probably home school our children before we even got married. We both were home schooled for high school and enjoyed that experience much more than public school. Still, we did our research to make sure that the home school decision was right for our family. Actually, I did the majority of the research, knowing I’d carry the greater responsibility of teaching. We lived (and still do) in a small town where the only educational options were (are): public school and home school. If we lived in a larger community where more options are available we might not be home schooling our children now. I would love to be able to send my youngsters to a Montessori school, or a good private school (if we could afford it), or even a Spanish immersion school (like Calandria, lucky duck!). But our reality is we don’t have those options so home schooling it is.

I absolutely love it! And I’m pretty sure the girls are enjoying it too. Oh, there are days when they want to go to public school “just to see what it is like.” Then they begin thinking about spending 6 ½ hours (8 ½ if they took the bus) away from home everyday, not being able to finish their school work before lunch, etc. Eve has gone to the local middle school several times to participate in some of their activities- dissecting a cow’s eye, creating a state exhibit for their state fair, etc. She said, “It [public school] wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be. When we were learning it was great, but the way the kids acted and treated each other made me feel sick.” I did remind her that happens, especially when you get a large group of kids together, whether at school, the park, the pool, or even church.

Our home school style is an eclectic mix of different classical education methods. We use some Charlotte Mason (CM), some Thomas Jefferson Education (TJE), some from “The Well-Trained Mind” (TWTM), and some of my own style (I love unit studies and lapbooking!). The term “Classical Education” can have different meanings depending on who you talk too. For our family Classical education has come to mean education that focuses on the study of the classics: language, literature, arts, philosophy, aesthetics and history. I won’t really delve any deeper than that because I figure if you really want to know what in the heck I’m talking about you can follow the links of the above mentioned methods and learn all about them or already pretty much know about them and can understand what I’m saying (for those that already home school and know what ‘classical education’ is). How’s that for explaining myself? :-P

Tomorrow afternoon I’ll post what we did for school in the morning.