Learning As We Go: The Journey Begins

School starts in a few weeks. The summer flew by! We are doing things a little different this year for school. The kids will not be attending the local public schools. We opted to homeschool this year. This is our first year homeschooling. When people hear that we aren't sending our kids to public school they ask why we are homeschooling. It's not a simple answer. There are many factors that helped us reach this decision, not just a single reason.

When I first talked about homeschooling I would try to explain my reasons for why we want to do this. Some people still do not understand. I've come to the conclusion that no matter what I say there will be people that disagree with this decision. This is fine. I don't expect everyone to feel the same way I do about my decision, but it is my decision. Well, and my family's, but mostly mine. ;)

I am hoping that even though people do not agree with it they will still respect that it is our decision. I respect other people's decision to educate their children as they see best. For us, right now, this is what I feel is best. It may change down the road, but I don't think so.

I have been wanting to homeschool my kids for years now, but I have never really known how to get started with it. Especially now that I have 4 kids in school. I heard about k12 and thought that it would be a great way to start out our homeschooling journey. Not only do we get to be at home and get a great education, it's FREE!! That's one of the biggest reasons for doing k12. I would have had to pay for a curriculum if I want the flexibility that comes with choosing something different. Not an option right now.

After I had signed the kids up I started hearing how a lot of people didn't like using k12 because they don't have the flexibility to do what they want to do with their homeschooling experience. I also heard a few people say that they didn't like the k12 program for Utah. Well pooey. I guess if we don't like it all that well we can do something different next year. So far, I like what I see with the program and will determine how well I like it based on my kids' success this year.

As I mentioned, I will be homeschooling 4 of my children (we have 5, but the youngest is a baby). Parkour Boy (PB) is 15; RooRoo is 13; Gogie is 10; and LooLoo is 6. (These are obviously nicknames. Or, maybe not so obvious with the crazy names in the world these days. =}) In our area, the elementary school is K-2nd, middle school is 3rd-5th, junior high is 6th-8th, and high school is 9th-12th. My kids would all be going to different schools this year (as they did last year) if I kept them at the public schools. This was a pain! I'm happy we don't have to deal with that this year.

The kids also had a say in whether or not to be homeschooled. They have actually been begging me to homeschool them so this was an easy decision for them. We made a pros and cons list just so I could make sure they really wanted to be homeschooled. I made sure that they knew that it wasn't going to be a vacation for them. I didn't want them to think that homeschool was easy and have that be why they chose to do it. The pros list took up an entire side of the page! The cons list only had three. Phew! I'm glad the kids can see as many reasons as I can as to why it is a good thing. They are as excited as I am to start. We'll see if that enthusiasm lasts.

We got Looloo's supplies yesterday. It was like Christmas for me! 9 boxes filled with free supplies to use for the school year.