I researched curriculum for months. I studied methods and learning styles. I set goals, wrote lists. I convinced (ish) my husband that this was the right thing to do. After the Christmas holidays I withdrew my children from the public school. I cleaned and organized our supplies, our library schoolroom and our toys. All the while I shivered with both excitement and fear. Anticipation and dread. It seemed that every time I would have a moment of "what the heck have I done?" I would see something to ease me over the bump. An encouraging quote or poem that I would normally overlook as sappy and overstated suddenly became a guiding light in the deep, dark forest of my psyche. The curriculum arrived and I got to work sorting and studying so that I could begin teaching my children at the start of the new week. I was so happy to discover the lessons were everything that I wanted them to be. Finally, a comprehensive guide to how I wanted to parent and teach my children, all in one convenient package! Of course, I worried that this was too good to be true. If you've spent any time at all researching homeschool you will have come across plenty of veterans that warn loudly and often of the pitfall that can come with a comprehensive curriculum. You may hate it. Your kids may hate it and then...oh, then you are in deep trouble. A true nose-dive is imminent! All that money, wasted.
But this didn't happen. We love our curriculum and we love homeschooling. Oak Meadow is everything that I've wanted to teach my children, along with the proper methods, but just didn't know how. Because of this, it not only educates, it inspires. It inspires my parenting style and patience level. It inspires the children to put in the extra effort to observe and then tackle an assignment rather than rush through to be finished. Being finished isn't the point anymore. Education is never finished.
*I began this post on a day a few weeks ago when I was riding that "we've had a great day high". We've had some lows since then. Mostly, we are normalizing. We are learning to observe each other and the world around us. It is truly amazing the amount of daily teachable moments that occur naturally. The children are blossoming in this garden of education freedom that we are creating. We create a little more every day.
But this didn't happen. We love our curriculum and we love homeschooling. Oak Meadow is everything that I've wanted to teach my children, along with the proper methods, but just didn't know how. Because of this, it not only educates, it inspires. It inspires my parenting style and patience level. It inspires the children to put in the extra effort to observe and then tackle an assignment rather than rush through to be finished. Being finished isn't the point anymore. Education is never finished.
*I began this post on a day a few weeks ago when I was riding that "we've had a great day high". We've had some lows since then. Mostly, we are normalizing. We are learning to observe each other and the world around us. It is truly amazing the amount of daily teachable moments that occur naturally. The children are blossoming in this garden of education freedom that we are creating. We create a little more every day.
