The season tis over

I just thought I would check in now that the bulk of the holidays are over.

I think Hope enjoyed her first Christmas, as much as an 18 month old can. She liked opening the gifts and demanded that they either be taken out of the box immediately or taken out of her sight. The big kids loved helping her open her gifts, maybe a little too much.

We gave the big kids ( and Hope too, but she is too young to understand) a trip to Disney for Christmas. It was really fun to watch them figure it out. First we gave them new suitcases, taped a note on the top telling them that they would be using these very soon, but they had to do a scavenger hunt to find out where they are going. Then they each had a clue with a letter on the back that lead to the next clue. They were running all over the house trying to find their next clues. Once they found them all they had to work together to unscramble the letters of DISNEY WORLD. I think Brooke was the one that actually figured it out first then Will put the letters in the right order. They are very excited. Lots of fun.

Now that the New Year is approaching I am preparing more and more to home school the big kids. So you ask why? Why are we choosing to educate our own children? Well, our standard answer is "Our decision to home school is a reflection of our desire for a more family centered lifestyle". But you want to know more than that, I know you do, otherwise you would not even bother reading my blog.

We loved the kids public school and all of the teachers they have had. We have no problem with what or how they were being taught. Our children are not highly advanced learners nor did they struggle with learning or social issues..really everything was going just fine. Except they were not with us 8 hours (counting the hour before school we spend fussing at eachother) out of say 14 of the hours they were awake each day. And although we all need time away from our kids, we feel like that amount of time away from us was impacting their behavior in a way we did not want.

We believe that homeschooling will give us the time and flexibility to foster a connection with our kids that we were finding difficult to achieve with the demands of public school. And after doing much research we are confident that we can find and use resources to teach our kids at or above the same achievement level as the public school setting. And it will give us the opportunity to teach them to their individual strengths and weaknesses, in ways that a teacher with a class of 20 or more could not accommodate. And we will get to be part of all of the learning experiences that excite and interest them, instead of just hearing about it after the fact. Our area has great home schooling resources. There is a group right here in our neighborhood and a very large group at a church near to us that we are planning on being involved with. So don't worry our kids will get plenty of social interaction as well, especially running around outside with all of our neighbors in the afternoon.

Although our family is not growing in number right now, we are embarking on a new journey of growth and learning.