Beginning Our Journey

With Fall approaching, we are getting closer and closer to the beginning of a journey that has been in "planning mode" for a very long time. Within a year or so of Mollie being born, I knew that I wanted to home school our kids.

If you told 16 year old me that 26 year old me said that, I probably wouldn't believe you. I went to public school and enjoyed it. I'm just one of those people that love everything about school, and I have happy memories of the whole experience. I'd always been around people who were home schooled, but it wasn't something I'd ever thought much about. It wasn't until I became a parent that I really started thinking about the reasons why families choose to home school. I quickly learned that people don't just home school so that they can shelter their children. There are so many reasons to home school that I won't even get into them, but I'll just say that the pros list grew, while the cons list dwindled, until homeschooling seemed like the only option for us.

I was pumped and ready to start. I mean the earlier the better right?! Mollie was probably 2 at this point and I figured I'd do a little research about the options for home-preschool, and start by the time she turned 3. I remember asking a home school veteran I knew about what she did with her kids for preschool. Admittedly, I was a little disappointed when she said that she waits until the year before they start Kindergarten to do some lightly structured learning. In fact, that's what a lot of the blogs I read were saying too. But that's such a long ways away, I thought, I want to start now! But sometime after, it clicked..

Mollie already knew her colors. She knew her shapes. She could count. She even knew her letters, and all of the sounds they made. She loved to draw, and paint, and because she knew what her letters looked like, she started to write too. And she learned all of that without any structure of any kind.

She didn't need to be taught these things, because they come naturally when kids are allowed to just be kids.  
And so we put home school on hold for a while.

(to be continued)