Are You Considering Homeschool This Fall?
After a couple months of distance education in the midst of a pandemic and repeated conversations about what school might look like in the fall, you might be asking the question, “Is homeschooling a good option for our family?”
That’s what our family is asking.
Schooling in the midst of a pandemic is hard. It doesn’t matter whether you are referring to the parents who involuntarily became homeschool families, for teachers who never planned to focus on remote learning, or even for homeschool families who no longer could access the usual places for field trips and adventures.
For our family the unique challenges and the opportunity of the current moment has made us question what school looks like this next year. We’ve never really seriously considered homeschooling until now. In fact, we have loved our local public school.
But remote learning is not for us.
In fact, for us, remote learning seemed to take all of the parts of school that our kids hate and eliminated all the things that help them thrive in a classroom environment. On top of that, the expectations prevented the freedom and flexibility that homeschooling normally would provide us.
And then homeschooling, which we never thought possible, we’ve been trying it. We’ve tried adventuring and journaling those adventures. We’ve tried letting our kids direct the subjects and themes. We’ve tried taking the things we are passionate about and our kids are interested in and letting them shape our learning.
And we’ve loved it.
If you’re considering homeschooling in the fall, here are some things that we want to encourage you in.
You Are Not Alone
The fears, the challenges, and questions that come as you consider school at home are plenty. You are not alone in any of those. But you are not walking into this by yourself. You will be surrounded by a community of people who are on this adventure with you. You have experts who have walked this adventure ahead of you and can’t wait to encourage you in your own journey.
In fact, this site was created just for that purpose.
We want you to feel supported and encouraged as you jump into this adventure.
Just Try It
You don’t have to commit to the rest of your kid’s educational career. You can try it and change your mind. And if you’re trying it, as a community, we will walk alongside you in trying it to make sure you feel loved and supported throughout that process.
You can try homeschooling and change your mind. You can try a hybrid approach and change your mind. You can try private school, a charter school, or public school… and still change your mind.
Just try what you think will work best and see how it goes.
We are here to help you answer the hard questions. We are here to help you think about learning styles, curriculum choices, co-ops, and community.
We are ready to help the parents who love to research, do all the research they can. And for the parents who just need to know they can do this, we will load you up with encouragement. We will share with you our favorite resources.
We really don’t know what this new adventure will look like for so many of our families. But we do know that every parent is a child’s first and best teacher. We know that no one knows your kids better than you do. We know that throughout each and every phase of your kid’s life, you will have unique opportunities to influence their faith and their love for learning.
And we want to help make sure you don’t miss that opportunity.
Braver, Stronger, and Smarter
If you’re questioning yourself and your ability to do this, that’s normal.
If you’re afraid of what this might look like and of making the wrong decision, you’re not alone.
If you’re unsure of whether you know what you think you need to know to figure this out, join the club.
But in the words of Christopher Robin don’t forget, “You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”