Homeschooling

Even before Big Poppa and I started our family, I knew I wanted to homeschool. Just the thought of being able to teach my kids in fun ways has always been enticing to me. So when Mr. All-Star was old enough for Kindergarten (he’s in the 7^th grade now), I decided to give it a go.

Truth be told, there wasn’t much “school” as there was fun and goofing off. We dabbled in learning the alphabet and counting to ten, and we worked on writing his name, but other than that, our days mostly consisted of watching Disney shows (Bear In the Big Blue House) and playing with the gazillion toys in the playroom. I did worry that he wasn’t learning what he was “supposed to”, but for the most part, we had fun.

I did send Mr. All-Star to 1^st grade because by then, Mr. Awesome was ready for school and I was battling with (undiagnosed) depression and anxiety, so I wasn’t able to continue with homeschool.

This year, I decided to pull the Princess from school after she failed to thrive due to some bullying. We struggled at first with finding our “groove” but, we’ve found it. She’s doing well and really grasping the concepts that she failed to understand in school, and her interests in other things have taken off. She’s also a big help with encouraging the Fire Pig in learning the alphabet and numbers, and they really enjoy doing school together.

With Mr. Awesome approaching middle school next year, I’ve been worrying. At the moment, he’s enrolled in a special class that caters to kids like him (Autism Spectrum, learning disabilities, etc.), and it’s a really small class (I think they have 12 kids right now). He spends all day with his amazing teachers, learning a modified curriculum of his grade level, goes to speech therapy, and sees the school psychiatrist for group sessions on social behaviors. It’s structured and designed to help him.

However, in talking with one of his teachers during a recent parent-teacher conference, the designated middle school that he’ll be enrolled in does not provide him with that. The only thing remotely close to it will be a homeroom at the beginning of the school day with other students like him, and then he’s off mainstream classes.

7 different classes, 7 different teachers, 20-25 other students in each class.

Sorry, that’s not going to work. Mr. Awesome has Aspergers, and that kind of environment isn’t ideal. And, I’m worried that he’ll slip back into his behaviors before we got him into the EXCEL program (hysterical tantrums, throwing desks and chairs, etc.).

So after months and months of talking with Big Poppa, and equal amounts (if not more) of prayer, we’ve decided we’re going to homeschool Mr. Awesome. When we broached the subject with him a few weeks back, he didn’t seem very interested. However, when he was sick from school last week and saw what the Princess and Fire Pig were doing, his curiosity was peaked. And, it led us to a long, open conversation about homeschool, the pros and cons, and the different things we can do to create the “perfect” curriculum for him.

As it stands, he’s now all for it. Since that day, he’s constantly reminding me to research online curriculums and he’s been leaving me lists of things he’s interested in to see if we can incorporate them into his curriculum.

The Princess and Fire Pig are excited that he’ll be home with them, and have been telling him all about the things we’ve been doing (field trips to Krispy Kreme, library days, kids museum). I think they’ve got him sold on the idea.

Now, if I can only choose his curriculum; there are so many fun ones out there!