Adams Family News: Home Schooling

I really wish that I wasn’t so behind so that I could have kept up (blog wise) with the thought process and prayer that went into our decision to home school Jackson. Basically, we bought our house specifically based upon the great school district. I had ALWAYS said I would NEVER home school. Always and never are two words that I’m learning not to use so much. It wasn’t that I didn’t get a good education being homeschooled or that my mom wasn’t a rock star, super creative, home school mom (she definitely was). But man, home school moms always work, they never get a break and really, I have put in my time, right?! I have THREE boys and not the quiet, calm, color in the corner while mom cooks dinner kind of boys. I wouldn’t trade their energy for the world but sometimes I just need a little break. And I’m certainly not that super organized, creative type. I have a business degree and spent my entire (short) career in outside sales. I basically made money by doing nothing but talking. . .not exactly equipped to teach. Teachers are trained in child development and I almost died after teaching vacation bible school for just 4 days. Not to mention I’ve never wanted to shelter my kids or keep them away from the rest of society. Surely this isn’t God’s plan for me. I’m pretty sure he wants my boys to go to school and have fun and for things to calm down a bit in my home, right?!

It’s always funny how God whispers at first and then just gets louder and louder to get His point across, isn’t it? I had not even considered anything other than public school and then started hearing, from all angles it seemed, about homeschooling. Something on the radio, something on a blog, a neighbor who home schools her kiddos, it was coming from all angles. One day I was talking on the phone about how strange it was that I kept meeting all of these home school families and then went inside Jack and Bear’s preschool to talk to the director. Our meeting was about the Valentine’s party and had NOTHING to do with homeschooling. Yet, she randomly (to me, certainly not to God)volunteered that her son was having issues in school and how she really lamented that she had not been able to home school him. Hmm, weird, but had nothing to do with me, right? Finally, I felt really convicted to at least look into it and pray about it. I solicited some advice and hear from a tremendous number of the mentor moms at our former church in Plano who had homeschooled. Dangit, these were all women who I really respected and who had wonderful God fearing (now adult) children. Now I was starting to sweat, I really did not want to do this. At this point I decided to talk to Jay. Pretty much knowing that he would absolutely never agree to such a thing I brought it up. From the first mention, he was a huge fan and really wanted us to do it. Well, there was my out, and he was more of an advocate than anyone else I had met.

God has such a sense of humor and it always amazes me how His plan for my life is so different and so much better than any plan I could make. So, here I am, living in Austin, with Jay and our 3 boys and HOMESCHOOLING?! Would not have seen that one coming.

Anyway, once we made the decision I started researching and wow, there are a LOT of methods to homeschooling. I finally decided on a kindergarten curriculum (My Father’s World) and also a coop (Classical Conversations).

Once all was researched and decided upon, a 3 day training practicum was attended, support groups found and moms’ nights out enjoyed I got really excited about what this could mean for our family. Knowing so many great (and only a few weird) families in our area who home school has been such a blessing. Not to mention our church is 100% home school friendly and supportive. People/resources/etc have just come out of the wood work to help us along this journey. And as crazy as fate would have it-Adrienne is homeschooling Ellie and using the exact same curriculum and coop that I am with Jackson.

Ok, onto the actual school , the day before I started school with the boys Lincoln and I had a date at Target to buy school supplies. He looks so big sitting in the cart all by himself.

The night before we started school I began to freak out. What if I wasn’t capable of this? What if I was so ill equipped that Jackson would have to go to public kindergarten at 7 because I had screwed up his year so severely. What if he still wasn’t reading by 3rd grade. Don’t they build prison’s based on the 3rd grade illiteracy rate?!? Ahhhhhh! What was I doing, what had we decided, was this really God’s plan or did I invent it and project it onto Him? Even Jenna hadn’t home schooled the kinder year, and said she had no desire to teach a kid to read. If it sounded hard to her, who totally has my moms, “built for home schooling success” type of personality, how could I do it. Seriously, y’all, I was second guessing myself, big time. Thankfully, Jay was super encouraging and said that this was God’s plan for us, with Jackson, this year. We could re-evaluate the decision each year and with each kid. We didn’t have to commit to anything more than 1 year. Not to mention he reminded me that kindergarten was a piece of cake. Basically, teach some phonics and numbers and you’re good to go. If a year were to be screwed up. . .this is the best one for it. Phew!

And then God blessed us with the greatest first day ever. Beautiful weather, compliant and excited kids and a sleeping baby. I’m pretty sure the birds were even harmonizing outside of our window.
For our first week of school we studied creation and made creation books. Baron really enjoying participating.

Jack’s day 2 page.

Jackson (left) and Baron’s (right) day 1 and day 2 pages.

Jackson was so proud of his work and really liked what we were doing.

These are two of the books that I got to go along with our creation study. The boys really loved them.

Our first day/week was so much fun and really got us off to a good start.

After naps Jackson and Baron went and picked flowers as a surprise for me. These boys really do have such precious little hearts. I am blessed beyond belief and having this extra time with them to learn and grow as a family is something that I wouldn’t trade for the world!