Hello :)
My wonderful parents have been homeschooling us for 8 1/2 years! My heart rejoices in the thought that my mama and daddy cared enough about our education to take it in their own hands. The thought of putting all of our lives and futures on the line scared them, but they felt like this was the calling God gave them. After much prayer, they took us out of the public education system. I was in 2nd grade, and Jessica in Kindergarten.
Mama did ALOT of research before attempting to take this on, and had a complete curriculum and schedule. We tried to recreate school at home for the first few weeks, and we pushed to stay with the children our ages everywhere else. This led to much frustration and was disheartening.
Mama then felt the Lord tugging at her heart again. She discovered the Charlotte Mason method and un-schooling, we began to take away the rigorous schedules and curricula that was the standard of public education. We began to follow the bible for our history and the Lord's creation for our science. We discovered Math-U-See and loved their way of teaching children math, we found that it doesn't take hours of structured teaching for a child to learn. It takes love, patience, and time. We checked out so many books from our local library that we filled several shelves on our bookshelf weekly. We read all the time, and did spelling games in the car on our way from here to there. We learned and enjoyed it! We were being educated without realizing it. We began to realize that we didn't need to recreate school at home, we had to rethink our lifestyle. Museums, state parks, and historical reenactments were just another day of living and learning.
We began homeschooling when I was 7 and I'm now 15, we still do school much the same way and have added Joanna to the mix. She is starting preschool and will most likely never be educated away from the home. Friday after a normal week on the farm, Mama and Daddy decided it was time for a day away, so we packed up our lunch and books and were off. We drove to our local park that includes many nice shade trees and a playground. We enjoyed a delicious meal of hummus and salsa, and spread out a big picnic blanket to do our studies. A page in our nature journal, a writing assignment, a geography lesson, and a bible discussion later, we were frolicking among the trees and grass enjoying our Father's creation. Singing the alphabet and "Jesus loves Me" on the way home made me feel very thankful for the blessings bestowed on me by our Lord.
"My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth."
~John 3;18
Pictures of our little Day at the park to follow below :)