This is a reprint of a post I did on my other blog on January 6, 2006. I thought you might enjoy reading it.
When our oldest child was in 2nd grade at public school, I read a book by Joni McCoy, called “Living on One Income in a Two Income Society.” She talked about homeschooling her children in this book. I became intrigued at the idea of teaching my children at home. I LOVED being a stay-at-home-mom, and I MISSED my daughter greatly while she was in school. At this time, I also had a two-year-old at home. And I was dreading the time when he would go to school. I thought I would have to get a job outside the home again.
Around the same time as I was reading this book CBD (Christian Book Distributors) sent me a catalog with homeschool materials in it. I would sit and look at this catalog every day. I REALLY wanted to do the “Prairie Primer” study. I talked to DH about homeschooling, and we neither one knew a lot about it.
So we just kept sending our daughter off to public school year after year. By the time she was in 4th grade, her younger brother started kindergarten. We also had a another son and another one on the way. Our second child made it less than 2 weeks in the public school system, before we took him out to teach him at home. His class at school had too many children in it, mostly boys. And our son was in trouble daily. The breaking point was when he was sent to the assistant principal for a minor infraction. He was scolded until he cried. We decided it was not worth his self-esteem to leave him there, so we took him out. At his age, we did not have to notify our state of this decision.
Our daughter was not happy in 4th grade. The homework was overwhelming, and they were using the semester system to teach science and history. And this meant a lot more homework and tests more than once a week. I talked to the teachers and principal about it, and they were unwilling to make any changes. Our daughter asked to be homeschooled, too. So we registered with our state and took her out of public school on her 10th birthday.
We have not looked back. I felt like I got my children back, and our daughter tells us that her worst dream is that we would send her back to public school. She is a 9th grader this year, and she is loving high school. We are providing opportunities for her to be with other teens, and we are hosting a monthly dissection class at our house. We have all ages at this class. Last month, they dissected cow eyes. And this month, we did microscope work. Next month, we are dissecting a sheep’s heart.
God has blessed us as a family since we took the leap of faith and followed Him in teaching our children at home. (See Deuteronmony and Proverbs for more info on that.)
I am also blessed to be serving the homeschool community with our home-based business. It is our goal to honor God with this business while serving homeschoolers. I hope one day someone looks over my catalog day after day and dreams of homeschooling, too. And then I hope they take the next step of faith and decide to homeschool.
Have a blessed day! Tami
PS We finally did use the Prairie Primer!
