Homeschool Home

Public School? Homeschool? Apply for charter or magnet? Homeschool? Montessori? Homeschool? We went back and forth and back and forth during Little D’s kindergarten year at a nearby church day school. We finally decided homeschooling would work best for our family. Donna did a lot of reading, research, and looking into homeschool curriculums, and we decided we’d give it a go for a year. Worst-case scenario (which is not a worst-case at all), is we would end up enrolling her in a public school if it didn’t work out.

We came to some fast realizations on our journey. First, no matter how much info we read and how much we prepared, we were totally winging parts as we went, finding what works and what didn’t with our style of teaching and Little D’s way of learning. And we assume we will continue to get creative and adjust. Second, that mistakes saying is 10000% true. “You learn from your mistakes.” So true. We are learning a LOT. 😂 However, our third realization was this. We need to stay the course on our fun ship. For us, we realized we need to be consistent, get back up, be willing to try something different, and do our best to make learning fun for everyone.

If there is one thing I have learned from becoming a parent, and then again after my first year of homeschooling, is patience is paramount. Patience is a virtue and a skill, and I haven’t mastered it yet. BUT, I’m working on it, doing my best, AND I get lots of practice. 😆

Moving on to the practice. Little D often gets frustrated, so I’ve adopted a simple statement that I reinforce daily. The more you practice, the better you get. This is also true for us as parents/teachers. The more we do anything, the better we get, and that definitely includes homeschooling.  

And though it’s not always smooth sailing, we’ve found we enjoy it and the flexibility it provides. And we’re learning a TON on this homeschool adventure. Not just Little D, but Donna and myself, too. We are learning patience, how to be better parents, about her interests, and how to better communicate with her while she is learning math, reading, spelling, and science.