Things I Have Learned During This, My First Year, of Homeschooling

1.  The laundry room is a fantastic place to hide the good chocolate.  The kids don’t want to get sucked into helping with the laundry more than is necessary, so they stay far, far away.  And  a family of six people makes a lot of laundry.  And as it turns out homeschooling three kids with a preschooler in the house requires a lot of chocolate.  Chocolate in the laundry room just works!

2.  Kids learn vast – and by vast I do mean ginormous, enormous, really, really big – amounts of stuff just by being out and about!  When I was a teacher, I always wanted to do hands-on learning; it was also really hard.  The district didn’t have money to provide materials, or the required curriculum didn’t allow time.  Homeschooling has provided that forum for my kids.  Every week we do some sort of project or activity or field trip or fun thing that puts my kids in a situation where they are learning about their environment!  We’ve learned about tides by experiencing the differences in the beach itself.  We learned about the solar system by making a big model.  We’re learning about rockets by building (and hopefully launching) model rockets.  We learned about eagles (and a billion other kinds of birds and  manitees and dolphins and turtles and so much more) by watching them in their habitats.  We learned about the US space program in the twentieth century, then we saw a shuttle launch into orbit.

3.  Homeschooling affords one the opportunity to experience NO lines at fun places!  Sea World – no lines!  The zoo – no lines!  The National Park – no lines!  Everyone else is in school while we are on vacation!  (We also worked our tails off to get extra work done when everyone else was on spring break, but that was okay with us, because, “Look ma!  NO LINES!”

4.  I’ve learned a LOT about my limits this year.  I’ve learned I am prone to be cranky if: a.) I have not left the house in three days, b.) I do not have at least one day out of each week at home, c.) I do not get enough sleep, d.) I go too long without spending some time in my beloved kitchen preparing healthy food . . . or just really tasty food, which often isn’t overly healthy in the case of my kitchen.  In short, I am prone to be cranky.

5.  My children are willing to tolerate a lot.

6.  I really do like being with my kids.  While there are days that I would give both my arms and legs for five minutes – five. minutes. – alone, I do just love this time I have with my children.  I wouldn’t trade it for all the days of the week to run errands and have “me” time.