Explaining Homeschooling

I often find great insight on the Sonlight forums. Recently, on the "New Instructors" area, one thread was discussing how we have been doing. Jill, the moderator, wrote something that really "clicked" for me.

I felt that I came to realize that homeschooling is a lot like faith. People won't really understand and will question and so on, and you really can't explain it to everyone--but you can live it out, day by day--live it out in such a way that others will come to respect you for it, if not understand.

This week

It's been a busy week.

We went to Vacation Bible School. This is the first time we've gone anywhere other than our own church. The first day the boys were very shy at the beginning. I stayed with them during the opening singing, but when their groups departed (they were in different age groupings), they each went with their own group. I stayed around and read a book. The second day they were still a little shy, but went to the singing without me. I took a nap in the car, went to QT for a snack, then read in the hallway. The third day I went home and came back for them 3 hours later! Every evening they had fun telling Daddy all about "Avalanche Ranch". Our bedtime Bible story reading matched up with the story at Avalanche Ranch when possible, and the boys both noticed and enjoyed that.

One day this week (Wednesday?) I read the entire Almanac section of Berenstain Bears Big Book of Science and Nature to DS1. I also read the first 9 pages of the Nature Guide section. The next day we read about 10 more pages before we got distracted by DH coming home and needing to fix dinner.

Thursday we visited Grandpa (my dad) for a little while. Today DS1 went with DH to the AAA office to get a kid's map for our upcoming trip. Then they took the car to be serviced. DS2 and I walked about a mile to a friend's house to check on her cat. On the way back we stopped at a little pond in a park and saw tadpoles. They were about the size of a dime, had legs, and still had their tails! I scooped one up and DS2 held it for a little while before throwing it back in the pond. A little closer to home we stopped at a garage sale where DS2 got a toy train (just like 6 we have at home from Kid's Meals). The guy asked DS2 for some money to pay for it, so I have him a quarter. DS2 gave it to the man, who said, "Now I have to give you your change." and gave the quarter back to him. It was a nice way to give the toy to DS2 but still have him learn that you have to "pay" for things.

Unschooling Voices #9 is up

An Unschooling Life: Unschooling Voices #9 is up. The themes this time are "How has unschooling changed you?" (the parent) and "What unschooling looks like." I sent pictures.