The Journey Begins

As I embark on the start of the new school year, I am flooded with memories from my first year. Now to be clear, this will be my second year homeschooling four of my children. I am by no means a veteran, however I thought it important to share my experiences with other moms just beginning their journey.

My husband and I agreed to withdraw our children from public school near the end of the 2013-2014 school year after I had a temporary teaching position (5th grade) at their school. However, several factors contributed to our decision, and it is one of the best decisions we have made concerning our family. Although, I still had thoughts like, "Wow, are we really going to do this?" Yes, we really were and we really did.

My middle child (age 10) agreed to share a bedroom with her two younger sisters...again. And we converted her bedroom into our homeschool room. I moved out every piece of furniture, bedding and clothing. The room was already painted yellow and I did not feel like taking on the task of repainting. So, I needed to come up with a theme and color scheme that would incorporate the yellow while making my son (11) feel comfortable. I wanted to make sure the room was not too feminine for his taste. Ah ha! A bee theme came to mind. Black was just what the room needed to tone down the yellow. Not shown in the pictures below are Bible verses that we later added. The verses were posted on the wall and went along with a 'bee wise' or 'bee kind' or 'bee thankful' theme. In the front of the room above the whiteboard was, "Bee a reflection of Christ."

We removed the closet doors for open storage options. I bought the square storage shelves from Big Lots ($19), desks and chairs from Ikea, and my wonderful whiteboard from Home Depot ($13).

Our classroom was complete and we were ready to begin our homeschool journey! But just as moms sometimes do, I began to question myself. I wondered whether or not my homeschool space was too much like a classroom. Should I have school at the kitchen table instead and just add a bookshelf? I had seen other homeschool moms do that and it looked great. It had an intimacy and coziness that I envied. That was not for our family though. We had what worked for us. Those questions brought me to the realization that we did't have to remain in the classroom all day every day. We could read in the family room together. The kids could lay on the floor if they chose to do so. Science and Art could still be done at the kitchen table because we would need the larger space anyway. As time went on, that is exactly what we did! Many days my husband would come home and the kitchen table was still full of the activities of the day.

There are so many field trips, lapbooks, activities and lessons that we did in our first year that sometimes I wonder how we did it all. I can't wait to share them with you. And even more exciting is our theme for this year..."Around the World in 180 days: Explore. Travel. Discover."