Getting into the homeschooling groove

Since Marica started preschool two days a week last year, I have been doing some casual schoolwork with her at home. When the school year finished and we decided to school her at home rather than send her to yet another school, we started making ‘school work’ more of a part of our daily routine.

I have to admit that I used to be pretty opposed to the idea of homeschooling, and slowly but surely my views have changed. I still don’t think that it is necessarily a perfect fit for me and my kids, but it’s what our current situation requires, and probably will until the end of next year. We hope they get into one of the Christian schools back home, but chances are looking pretty slim. We don’t consider public school to be an option for our family, so in the mean time, I’ll be teaching the kids at home (so far only Marica!).

It’s been going very well, and our biggest hurdle is usually not the work, but attitude. But that’s a life thing, and we’re working on it in all areas of life. Sometimes Marica’s attitude needs some work too. :-)

Marica’s only turning 5 in February, but she just loves learning and she’s desperate to start reading (she’s already reading a bit), so we do about an hour or less of work a day which includes reading/writing/spelling, basic math, a page or two out of a Rod and Staff book and a Bible story with a colouring page (we’re currently going through the book of Ruth). She’s been enjoying it a lot.

But we try to make a point of not thinking of education as simply the stuff they learn from books. There are many lessons to be learned from life, from nature, from other people (you get plenty of teaching opportunities simply by living in New York!), and from just reading, reading, reading loads of good books.