Homeschooling

Early in January, I had decided that it was time for me to find a school for Marco to go to in the Fall. He would be going into PK3 and I was ready to release him a bit.

I decided to enroll him in a local Christian school that had a 3 day half day program. So he'd be going Monday-Wednesday-Friday from 8-12. I only wanted him to go 3 days because I didn't want to separate him from Jonas so abruptly. They're best friends and they're pretty attached to each other.

One day I was talking to two ladies that homeschool their kids and the subject came up. When I told them that I didn't think I had the patience to do it, they said that they didn't either but that God equipped them for it. Then one of them said that when you make a decision to homeschool, you don't have to decide then and there to do it all the way through high school graduation... You can choose to go year by year. I really liked that. So often we feel like we have to make all of the decisions for our kids RIGHT NOW... But we don't. We can "play it by ear".

But even after our conversation, I said hellz no... I want my freedom. I want to go to the grocery store or the doctor with only one child.

And then during the Bible Study of Jonah that I was taking this summer, Priscilla Shirer said something to me during her DVD lesson. It was like she may as well had said, "Nicole, are you listening?". She said, "maybe God is calling you to homeschool when you just thought you were about to have some freedom for the first time". I looked around the room and put my head down "no God, not me...".

Then we bought our house, and we went from saving every penny to spending every penny overnight. A few days after the close, Mauricio turned to me and said, "I think you need to withdrawal Marco from the preschool you enrolled him into... It's just an unnecessary expense that we don't need to take on right now." to which I responded, "well, he's already 3, so I want him to do something..." and them he said what I had been running from all along, "why don't you homeschool him". Hmmm? Come again?

But in my experience, running from God and going against your husband does not yield the best results, so I submitted to both of them. I called the school the very next day and explained our circumstance and withdrew him from the program.

I also spent most of the afternoon researching PK3 curriculum. It's very limited and sometimes expensive. I also know that if I tried to make up my own curriculum, I'd get frustrated because there's a lot of prep time and not a lot of do time. And truthfully, I'm just not that creative Finally, I found the one!

What I love about it is that it's very versatile and fool proof. There are step by step instructions for materials, preparation and instruction. There are 6 subjects per day; English, Literature, Pre-Math, Motor Skills, Science and Art. And sometimes one or two are switched out for Social Studies or Music.

The curriculum has been laid out to be covered over the course of 26 weeks, one week for every letter of the alphabet. 5 days a week with 6 lessons per day! That's a whopping 780 complete lessons!

So because it's so extensive and because I plan to include Jonas in a lot of the lessons, I'll be cutting it in half and doing 3 lessons per day. At this rate it'll take me 2 weeks to complete each letter. And an entire year (52 weeks) to complete the whole curriculum!

Will I be permanently homeschooling the boys? Will Marco go to PK4 next fall? Honestly, I don't know. I don't have the answer to any of these questions. For now, I know that this is what I'm supposed to be doing.

And I'm gonna do it. I'm really going to try and stick with the plan and get these boys learning together.

I'm encouraged. And excited. Now I've got to do a little preplanning and we'll be ready to get started as soon as we move into our new home!

Stay tuned for updates!