Homeschooling; how it all began

My eldest daughter never went to formal preschool but was reading by the time she started kindergarten in public school, I was not happy about how the teacher refused to work within my Childs potential, but instead she (the teacher) said that she had a broad spectrum of reading levels and that they" teach to the middle" the goal, she said is "to try to get all the kids all onto the same level."

I didn't even know (at the time) that homeschooling was a legal option. We had a wonderful teacher in the first grade and my daughter flourished, was engaged and inspired and loved school. The next year however was a horrible situation, the teacher labeled my daughter (who was formerly one of the best and brightest students in the class) as a problem child with ADHD and other learning disabilities and she emailed complaints and sent angry notes every day, and after several meetings with the principal and other school officials I was absolutely fed up. The school refused to listen to me and totally sided with the teacher. This teacher even accused my daughter of being a liar, a thief and a vandal. I knew my daughter and this was the polar opposite of the character I saw in her. All of this occurred within the first two months of the school year.

I started looking into private school which was way out of our price range and then remembered that years ago I had known a family that home schooled and I had seen the Duggars on TLC; I decided to look into it. The more I researched, the more I felt like this could be the option for our family.

Our first year began on Columbus Day of that same school year. Our first semester I just used workbooks that I found at retail stores and printouts from the Department of Education, our second semester I got organized and purchased curriculum from Alpha-Omega publications. I thought I could set her in front of a workbook, a worksheet, or a computer and the curriculum would do the work for me. Oh how I have grown in just these few short years!

Obviously, what we were doing was not working, so starting with our second year, I decided to completely ditch the store-bought curriculum and use unit studies revolving around my daughter's interests. This created in my child a passion for learning and inspired her to pursue her passion. However there was a pitfall, my child was excelling at what she wanted to do, but falling even farther behind in areas of weakness and struggle.

Once again, even though we all enjoyed the unit study approach, I knew I was still doing something wrong and began to research other options. I then found the teaching of Charlotte Mason. I read all six volumes of her books and felt like finally I had found the answer. So the next semester we started Ambleside Online, letter by letter. I knew that I was on to something; my daughter became more "well-rounded" and (she) began to find other passions and interest instead of just focusing on the one area. However, I was also now on the journey to Homeschool my special needs son and his goals became the priority. So I focused on working with him one on one and my eldest was a slave to the schedules and lists I gave her to work on and apart from Hymn study, picture study, and narration most of her Ambleside Online curriculum was self taught.

This is fourth year and my special need son is going (a few hours a day) to a new Church-based school that uses a Reggio-Emilio Emergent Curriculum. During his time there I work with my preschooler and one-on-one with my eldest. We still use a Charlotte Mason methodology, but I have a myriad of different materials that work for us. There is so much out there that I have tried and now I have found some things that are staples in our scope and sequence. My youngest daughter will have the benefit of all of the mistakes I made (and learned from) with my eldest. I still feel the outside pressure of "cookie cutter education" and suffer from the glares of people who gasp at the idea that a 10 yr old would be working on a book that clearly says on the cover 3^rd grade. However, what they do not know is that in other many other areas she could well out-perform her public-schooled-peers. And just because I JUST STARTED grammar with her does not mean that she will not catch up or perhaps even excel past her peers in years to come. What people do not understand is that if material is easy for her she can breeze through it in no time at all, she is not restricted by waiting for other class members. She works to the highest of her own potential at all times and in all areas. She has been tested by Sylvan, and showed that she is excelling in every area except Math and we are working hard at strengthening her weakness in that area.

My Special needs son just turned 7 and he is reading, skip counting, and beginning to add and subtract simple numbers. We continue to work hard on all of those areas at home and he is in weekly Physical and Occupational Therapies.

My 3 year old daughter is learning and loves school time and all of extra-curricular activities.

I feel so blessed now to have been trusted by God to teach my children at home and I perhaps even my husband have grown (and I'm sure will continue to grow) as people during this, our family's Homeschooling journey.