homeschooling?
I haven’t chatted a lot about homeschooling Nia… we just kind of do it each day. This post will hopefully shed a bit more light + give you the scoop on what we’ve evolved it to look like. Enjoy!
So… we decided to homeschool! It wasn’t a decision we took lightly, but I knew in my heart that it was the right thing for our family. I’ll tell you about our journey (right now), share what we’re doing, and everything in between because this is something I’m STILL figuring out & can’t wait to share with you here!
And I just want to preface: This post is out of no disrespect for parents choosing to school their kids. It’s part of my mission of walking this alt path to help show another way to do things outside of the system that tells us how we should be doing things. So please keep this in mind as you read on💕
how it all started
When my daughter was little, I never really thought we’d be the type to homeschool. Yup, you can read that sentence again!!
We had her in a 2-mornings a week daycare when she was 3 years old, then right into VPK, and then into kindergarten, but something never felt 100% right about the whole thing.
I never cared for grading, testing or where she’s at compared to other kids her age. (And guys, that was my biggest indicator to start asking questions, which ultimately as you can figure out the answer, led us away from the school system). Plus, the idea of someone else getting to hang out with my daughter all day long instead of with us was just really not what we wanted. (And don’t worry we’ll get into the whole “socialization” thing…)
These above reasons + a few more are what really pushed us into motion (one being that we didn’t love her school at the end of kindergarten), and finally in September 2019, we traded private school for life school (at home).
Special note: I also wanted to acknowledge how grateful I am to be in a position that affords me the opportunity to keep them home. I feel very fortunate and I know not all families can do this despite wanting to, and I’m sending so much love as you navigate!
the transition + what homeschool looks like for us
I think the biggest challenge with bringing Nia home was how to balance working with her and taking care of Fife (who was under a year old when we first started homeschooling). As a pretty ‘hands on’ parent, I knew I had to be flexible with how our day looked & what we were doing… which is how we came to a more “unschooled” approach to homeschooling vs. formally doing school at home.
Although I was trying to really force the process of school at home (you don’t want to know how many homeschool articles/blogs/books, etc I’ve read…), after much resistance, I started to accept that our experience wouldn’t be Pin-worthy or ideal to anyone.
There are a lot of ways shown how to do homeschool, but we just had to do it our way to figure out what that looked liked (and also what I encourage for every.single.family deciding to do this).
And although I still can’t formally tell you what that is, I can tell you a little bit more about what our flow is like instead:
wake up naturally (if Nia’s up before us, she usually heads downstairs to read & eat breakfast)
there’s no set time to do work or anything for that matter—if Nia wanted to read all day long, she could (same goes for Nintendo… well, maybe not all day)
we eat when we’re hungry (especially for snacks) & drinking water is highly encouraged (Mom is a nutritionist after all ;)
movement & getting outside throughout the day is encouraged (during this past (home)school year, Nia had beach volleyball practice on Wednesdays and Fridays which helped & we’re assessing what she wants to do next)
sometimes we do school work based on course material I’ve purchased, and sometimes we don’t
TV is allowed (we like PBS Kids & other learning shows), but we definitely need to do less of it (hello covid times!)
no set bedtimes in the eve, but we take the cues when Nia (especially) needs to head that way
read in bed until lights out and then snuggles
understanding our process
Although it felt REALLY uncomfortable at times (and still does) to take a lax approach to learning, and the more I let go of the “shoulds” + the “how tos,” the more we started to enjoy it.
Because the truth is: You don’t actually need notebooks & curriculums to achieve learning. Natural learning is led by the child’s curiosities.
And maybe that was my biggest fear in the beginning…
How will she learn how to spell properly if she’s not being taught spelling rules?
What if she can’t do multiplications when other kids her age can because we’re not quizzing her?
Is she “missing out” on opportunities only provided in a school setting?
Will I ruin her?
The funny thing is that what I’ve feared has actually never happened (shocker, right?). And even if it did (minus the last question🤪), guess what? She would still be ok.
Because here’s the truth…
HOW “LEARNING” IS ACTUALLY GOING OVER HERE…
Despite not completing one full curriculum / work book / course, etc since we started homeschooling, Nia has still learnt A LOT. Now, it might not be the exact same stuff in the exact same order that she would have in a school setting, but it’s been everything that she’s genuinely been interested in and wanted to know more about/what naturally stuck in her mind.
I definitely have to mention though that she LOVES to read (I currently hear her flipping pages in the room beside me🤣). She reads about 5-10 books per day, but usually more. At almost 9 years old, she read the first Harry Potter book in a day and proceeded to ask me how long it took ME to read it! (No answer, my child…😬)
This, to me, shows she’s doing ok. And there’s no grading system that could convince me otherwise. So for now, we’ll keep doing what we’re doing & I’ll try to update it here or create a separate resource page.
the only pitfall
In all honesty, the hardest part about homeschooling is having a very small support system. Blame it on covid or just not connecting with the right people, but this is the one area I’m hoping to grow in, in the future. Especially now that Florida is almost fully functioning again (I say ‘almost’ because we have made the choice to not support the use or wearing of face masks, so there are still businesses who require it and we need to be selective of them for the time being), we didn’t get to experiment + experience as much as we would have liked to this past year.
Another one that gets me is to hear another mom say to me after I tell her we homeschool, “Gosh, that must be so hard!” or, “I could never do that!” It breaks my heart because it not only makes me feel slightly more isolated, but also that we think a school system is easier on our kids/us than having them home.
So although the days aren’t always smooth (but are they ever—homeschool or not?!), this has been the ONLY setback I’ve truly experienced.
but what about socializing?
I know the common misconception is that homeschooled kids aren’t properly socialized and this still blows my socks off that people think this.
A homeschooled child actually has the opportunity to be more socialized than a kid in school.
Wait, what?
Yup, you read that correctly.
Because here’s the truth: School settings are focused on kids of the same age congregating together in the same classroom (of 20-30 kids) for the whole school year as their main socializing time, but a homeschooled child has the potential to interact with many different people of all ages (with uncapped potential).
There’s no reason that children should only be taught around kids of their own age. It’s actually much more beneficial to have ages intermixed with one another.
And just in case you needed some real life examples to know that socialization takes place at every second of the day that you’re around someone else, here are some of Nia:
while other kids are in school, we might be out at Target talking to different employees (one time Nia had to ask them to unlock a Nintendo game from the cabinet that she was looking to purchase)
when we used to go to Disney (pre-covid), there was no escaping being social! (And we actually just became Universal annual members, so let the socializing in this new setting begin!)
out to eat / ordering meals
she has plenty of girls & boys around her age in the neighbourhood and she pretty much plays with them every evening once they’re home from school
And if we’re really going to dig deep on this topic, I’ll also talk a bit about her being around kids in a somewhat “school setting” to “socialize”. Because homeschooling is becoming more common, there are so many different ways we can get her involved with either other homeschooled kids or with other kids her age. Here are a few I’ve seen around our area that could help out & might inspire you for your kid(s):
gymnastics homeschool program (1 morn a week)
art programs
(Orlando) Science Center homeschool morning (once a month)
Nature preserve / zoo homeschool days
Film school homeschool program
and when all else fails… trips to Universal!
friends that also homeschool—plan homeschool days with them!
And finally, we’ll end with what we’re actually currently doing!
the 2021 school year
I didn’t mention this above, but even though we homeschool, we actually were super fortunate to find a school for homeschoolers! We toured it pre-covid, then that happened & we were waiting until they removed masks for kids (almost 1.5 years after originally touring it), and I’m happy to say that Nia is officially a student at it!
She goes 2 days a week from 9am-1:30pm and so far loves it. And back to the socialization part… she hangs around kids from 8-11 years old in her classes (which is termed “upper elementary”). Another reason to love it is that they did an age range vs. one age/grade classes.
On top of that, we will incorporate the things mentioned above and just do life together!
I’ll keep the post at this length for now & provide more info/updated post in the near future!
Hope this helps & please let me know if you have any questions or thoughts!!
xo char
(updated September 2021)
