Our path to making the decision to homeschool our three children was sparked with the passing of SB-277. Before that, it was never even something either myself or my husband considered. We were grateful to have found an awesome school within our shotty school district that had a challenging curriculum and great teachers. A rose among thorns, but not without it’s own issues. Sadly, just this past year, they adopted the Common Core curriculum.
So with the spark ignited, we began to have random conversations. My husband had said we would homeschool before we would vaccinate our kids. I was on board from the word “Go”. It would be a while before I got the solidified decision from my husband that we would be homeschoolers this coming Autumn.
Immediately, I had began looking up information. Aside from my brother and sister-in-law homeschooling, this was totally foreign to me. I refused to take this on and continue to feel uninformed. But, oh what a world! I had entered into the twilight zone for sure. Lord, help me!
And he did.
I began to find an amazing community of homeschoolers. Facebook (cringe) groups have really been my saving grace. There are some amazing people in those groups with an amazing wealth of knowledge! Who knew?!
After loose and often times overwhelming introduction to a plethora of curricula, I was lead to the place where my heart and mind were settled. We would be using Ambleside Online to guide us through the remainder of our school years.
It was after looking at Ambleside’s curriculum and listening to many homeschool podcasts, that I realized I need to deepen my own education. No, this does not mean I will be enrolling into university. What it does mean is I will become a student teacher. I consider myself a fairly smart individual. I took honors classes in high school and tested out as a junior. I went to college for a while, but didn’t get a degree. I love to read (I sure about 90% of what I’ve read Miss Mason would categorize as “twaddle”) and write. But, what I’ve come to realize is I missed quite a bit during my public school education. I missed being taught the true richness of good, quality literature. So, I will take myself through the Ambleside upper year’s booklists and attempt to retrain my mind to think outside of what we were taught as Generation X. I’m looking forward to broadening my vocabulary and really taking myself deeper in thought about the way I see and interact with and in this life I’ve been blessed with.
Here’s to rekindling a lifetime of learning!
Sojourning Thru Life 