Another Good Reason to Homeschool

Last week we started our homeschool for 2010/2011. I love summer but it sure is fun to pull out the books and study again. I look forward to it almost as much as my teens. They have a great writing book they’re using this year, I’ll be doing the exercises with them. I dug through some boxes in the basement and found an old standby. Erica liked it so much, she stashed with her things rather than put it away in the school boxes when she went to college. The Writer’s Toolbox – you guessed it, another grammar book to feed my English addiction. We’ll be making good use of that this year.

As we got down to business, the girls asked me for their schedule. They’re old enough to know what they need to do so I had them make it themselves. They were thrilled and came up with great plans. Per usual, we have music and art. I don’t think we’d survive without those. Molly’s got a great watercolor book that I’ll be doing with her this year. Did I say we homeschool? Sometimes I think it’s Mom school or Mom’s re-school!

With our schedules in place and time for reading and good movies and field trips and homeschool group events, I remembered the reason I love to do school at home. We can design it the way we want to. Molly had a chorus retreat last weekend that she gets school credit for. She’s also singing with the highest choir this year in the Boston Children’s Chorus. Another good reason to homeschool; we have time to do the extras and still get some sleep!

Today we drove Erica to the airport; she’s on a photography trip out of state. We left the house at 6:30, dropped Paul off at work, and drove to Erica’s apartment where we all had breakfast. Then we leisurely drove to the airport. We got back around 10:00. The girls were concerned about finishing all of their subjects with less time to study, normally we start at 7:30, so I gave them the day off from math cutting out about an hour from their work for the day. Two little faces beamed at me. This is the beauty of homeschool, we can rearrange things to have more family time. When all is said and done, they may not remember the formula for an area of a circle or how to find the vanishing point in a painting, but they will remember having bagels at their sister’s house on a rainy Friday morning and dropping her off at the airport for her first traveling photography gig, and then coming home to have decaf coffee with Mom and not having to do math for one day out of the year.

These are the things that make my heart sing.

Every homeschool day and week isn’t as glorious as these have been. I have my off days and so do the girls. But all in all, we wouldn’t trade homeschool for anything. I’m a selfish mom. It’s just not enough for me to see my babies take their first steps and say their first words. I have to be there for all their moments as long as I can. Eighteen years is a very short time to hang out with my favorite people in the world.

Wishing you all another wonderful homeschool year!

photo credits: morguefile.com & http://www.ericascottmcgrath.com/