{"id":42608,"date":"2019-01-15T08:45:16","date_gmt":"2019-01-15T13:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ahealthysliceoflife.com\/?p=42608"},"modified":"2020-02-14T05:03:30","modified_gmt":"2020-02-14T10:03:30","slug":"why-we-choose-to-homeschool-and-how-long-we-plan-to-do-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ahealthysliceoflife.com\/why-we-choose-to-homeschool-and-how-long-we-plan-to-do-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Why We Choose to Homeschool and How Long We Plan to Do It"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently opened up Instagram<\/a> stories asking for questions related to homeschool. Wow, what a response! Funny enough, most of the questions overlapped quite a bit with the most popular by far asking why we chose to homeschool and how long we plan to do it. My answer is long and I didn’t want to try and squeeze it all into 15 second video snaps, so I opted to answer it here instead. So here’s how we got to where we are today!<\/p>\n

\"Our<\/p>\n

Our Homeschool Journey<\/h2>\n

When I was growing up, homeschool wasn’t something I ever heard about. In fact, I barely knew a thing about private school. It was more like, you just went to the<\/em> school, the same one everyone else went to. I had a very positive public school experience. I was social, captain of my competition cheerleading squad, and in AP classes. From a child’s perspective, it was overall a very positive experience.<\/p>\n

When I got pregnant with Hailey I imagined having five years at home with her until I’d send her to kindergarten. I still had barely heard of the idea of homeschooling at that point, much less thought about it myself. We enrolled her in preschool starting two mornings a week at age two, then three mornings at age three. Around this time I remember David telling me about a guy he worked with who homeschooled his two girls. We both were intrigued by it.<\/p>\n

At first I was in awe and wondered how this mom knew what to do; I assumed the mom must have been a teacher previously. Then I wanted to know why they opted for homeschool. Then I was curious how they liked it and if the kids were bummed that they didn’t go to regular school. Basically, all the same things anyone I’ve ever talked to about homeschool wonders when they first encounter the concept.<\/p>\n

After many conversations about the pros and cons of homeschooling and talking to a coworker of David’s and a couple friends of mine about it, we both agreed we liked what we were hearing. We decided to dip a toe in. Hailey was entering her last year of preschool and had a few options to choose from: five, four, or three half days a week. We took the three day a week option so I could spend the two days at home with her “trying homeschool.” I alternated the girls’ days so the two days I was at home with Hailey would be the two days Kaitlyn was at her morning preschool program,allowing us to have one-on-one time for this trial period.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It went just fine. We read and played in a relaxed fashion, loosely following and enjoying The Homegrown Preschooler program<\/a>, but I still doubted myself and my capabilities for how I’d do when it came to really<\/em> homeschooling full time. I researched local schools and found a charter school that aligned beautifully with our educational philosophy. However a lot of people feel similarly apparently because the lottery and wait list for kindergarten usually climbs into the 400’s easily.<\/p>\n

I decided it was worth a try, despite the low odds. I went to two open houses. I started reaching out to parents that attended the school to get the inside scoop. I even set a meeting with one of the directors of the school where I not-so-gracefully asked if there was a job I could take on from home (because employees’ kids automatically get in). I loved<\/em> this school. We entered Hailey in the lottery and figured this would be the deciding factor; if she got it, great! And if not, we’d homeschool.<\/p>\n

I woke up at 12:00 AM the day the lottery results were released, grabbed my phone, and held my breath as I started to scroll. Then I saw it- her number- listed as ADMITTED<\/em>! My heart stopped but to my surprise, my emotions were mixed. I felt extreme joy and luck, but also a twinge of oh… ok, so no homeschool<\/em>. I put my phone down and let my mind wander through the possibilities of both paths that David and I would have to decide between.<\/p>\n

Then I grabbed my phone just to double check the list- after all it was just grid of a lot of different numbers. I pulled up Hailey’s registration number again to double check and realized I was off. She was not<\/em> on the admitted list. She was number 382 on the wait list.<\/p>\n

Talk about an emotional roller coaster in the middle of the night, but it ended up being a fortuitous sequence of events because even though I was truly sad that she didn’t make the lottery, I got insight into my true emotions that revealed to me that I did want to homeschool, but was scared to make that jump on my own. I had wanted a reason to be forced to choose it. Now I knew we’d homeschool, and<\/em> I knew I was excited about it, so I threw myself into researching and preparing.<\/p>\n

\"whistlefritz<\/p>\n

The trial preschool year had gone just fine, though it really felt more like playing school two days a week than “real” homeschool (whatever that means). Then when the time came to decide for kindergarten, my emotions went crazy again.<\/p>\n

All our friends were registering for school. True, a lot of them were splitting into different schools- public, private, charter, the university model school (school 3 days a week, at home 2 days a week), etc. But still, it felt really scary to watch this mass registration taking place and to simply sit it out. It felt a little lonely because I wasn’t able to participate in the “what teacher to try for” or “what time does the bus come” conversations.<\/p>\n

However, once the rush passed and summer arrived, I got more comfortable with the idea. I stopped saying “I think we might homeschool” and started answering with “we homeschool.” I redecorated our playroom to turn it into a homeschool room<\/a>. I finally chose curriculum and ordered it<\/a>. I felt as ready as possible.<\/p>\n

We started our first real day of homeschool in September so it aligned with Kaitlyn’s first day of three’s preschool. It was such an emotional day for me- you can read all about it here<\/a>. But from there, I learned a little more everyday. I learned more about my child’s learning style. I learned more about my strengths and shortcomings in both parenting and teaching (which are closely related as homeschooling truly is just a natural extension of parenting). I learned to relax and embrace what I had been told- homeschooling is not<\/em> trying to replicate school at home; it has its own beautiful rhythm and speed.<\/p>\n

The year was so much fun and when time came to decide whether to send Kaitlyn to preschool for her final year or keep them both home, I opted to keep them both home. It was a hard decision because we all loved her preschool, but we were still having to get up, eat, dressed, and out of the house on someone else’s timeline. Deciding to keep both girls home was the final piece to our homeschooling puzzle.<\/p>\n

\"First<\/p>\n

And here we are today! Hailey (7) is in first grade. Kaitlyn (4) is in her last year of preschool. We love homeschooling.<\/p>\n

We choose to homeschool for the following reasons:<\/h2>\n