Summer Days and Thoughts on Homeschooling

   I can't believe tomorrow it will be July. Our days have been so busy and flying by. Most mornings have been spent at the park with friends, in the backyard, or meeting friends indoors to keep cool.
Nights have been spent grilling, at Liam's soccer practice, or going to Rainbow cone one too many times.

We also started family picnic movie night on Fridays which has been super fun. We lay out a blanket, eat pizza, and watch a movie. Our first night we watched Peter Pan and last night we watched The Fantastic Mr Fox, which was a movie even mom and dad enjoyed.
   In only a little over a month Liam will be back at school. I feel like it's coming too fast and I still haven't really decided about homeschooling. Some days I think it's a great idea while others I think I must be crazy for even considering it. It's such a big decision and I can see benefits to both. I just think since homeschooling is going against the norm it makes it hard to know if it is the right decision. Luckily when I told my family we were considering it they were supportive otherwise it would make the decision even harder. I guess no matter what decision I make there will always be doubts. I hope everyone is enjoying their summer!

Why I'm Considering Homeschooling Part 1

      So if you've read my previous post here, you know why I started thinking about possibly homeschooling. That was a little over a month ago, and I've been reading and researching ever since. Before learning more about homeschooling I would have thought the idea was crazy, I've personally never known anyone who was homeschooled, so I was not very familiar with it. I guess like most people I just assumed my children would go to school because that's what most people do. Of course I wanted it to be a good school, but I knew we couldn't afford private and honestly there is not a private school in our area that I think is worth the cost. When I learned our public school was going all Montessori I was excited, being a former Montessori teacher myself. I knew it wouldn't be a true Montessori like I was used to since they have to follow all the state requirements, but I knew  it would be better then traditional school in my opinoin. Then with talks of 7.5 hour days with no funding or plan I began to wonder if I wanted Liam gone that long in Kindergarten. I thought our school still had a half day Kindergarten and Liam would go to that, but I guess they recently got rid of all half day Kindergartens.
    Then I started to look into a virtual charter school in our area that meets one day a week then the rest of the work is done at home. Most of the parents I've talked to are happy with the program and from what I've heard it seems like it may be a good option for us. The only negative is that you are tied to the curriculum and books they use and I'm not sure if there will be much room for my children to pursue subjects that interest them, but I do like the fact that if my children decide they want to go to school they will be familiar with the material.
     I also started researching homeschooling and wow there are so many different styles: Montessori, Classical, Waldorf, Charlotte Mason, Unschooling, Eclectic, Unit Studies, and I'm sure I've missed a few. There's great parts to each and I'm sure I'll do Montessori along with influences from other styles that might end up an Eclectic style in the end, we'll see. The one thing I can say is that after doing some research it really made me begin to think about my own school experience and how nice it would have been if I could have followed things that interested more.That's the one definite plus of homeschooling I will be able to let my children pursue topics and areas that interest them and do more hands on learning. They will be able to enjoy learning more instead of looking at it as a chore.  For me there seems to be so many positives that the few negatives I have found really haven't sent me running yet. The only negatives I see is it will be a lot more work for me which may at times seem stressful or overwhelming, it will take time to figure out a routine and what works for our family (from what I read that can take up to a year) and I'm sure there will be some power struggles and such when being asked to do something they may not want to do. Those are pretty much the only things I have found to be negatives so far. I know homeschooling doesn't work for everyone, heck I don't even know if it will work for us, but at this point I'm pretty sure we're going to at least give it a try for one year. More on the subject to come, but don't worry this is not going to turn into just a homeschool blog. I'm sure I will include parts of it, but this blog has always been about what is going on in my life and for now this has been my main focus and besides being sick this past week that's the other reason I haven't posted as much since my free time has been spent researching. I working on finding a balance, but it may take some time so thanks for the patience:)