Begin Homeschooling

From the inbox....

"I am from Romania... I am stirred for homeschool. I started to pray, I looked on line for homeschool curriculum, but I felt overwhelmed by the immensity of information! I do not know how to start. I would greatly appreciate your effort in enlighten for me the new path of homeschool."

Corina
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"I am still struggling with how God would have me home school our children – trying to develop our home school philosophy, if you will. If you have time to share your thoughts it would be greatly appreciated... "

Alli

I remember that place, that deciding place. I remember its weight.

I recall standing there with pudgy hands wrapped around my leg, peering down that road diverged in the yellow wood. Unsure of the next step, the faint whisper from a faint heart came, “Which road for us, Lord?”

Please know it is alright to stay there awhile. We did, waiting, asking, listening. And yes, from experience, His voice on how to educate the children bestowed is best heard on one’s knees. He will speak: Keep your nose in the Book.

There on your knees, waiting for the Word, it is sometimes easy to forget that He loves these children even more than you do (for they are His)---He does have a unique, individual plan for each of them that He will faithfully reveal.

He called this family to take up the road less traveled, the one marked “Home education.”

Though many had gone before, winnowing a worn and true path, I confess, we felt like pioneers, forging new ground.

(But isn’t each family pioneers in their own right? We are each father, mother for the first time, traversing the parenting prairie with these children for the first time. Where are we going? How do we get there and what do we need for the trek? Raising up children is new territory for each of us.)

You wrote, asking for some markers we found on our homeschooling trail? I can share guideposts we found along our journey, but I understand that you begin from a different destination with a different past….and you may have different vistas in mind…so yes, use the postcards of our journey only to inspire your very own.

And may I share a word before we visit the places we’ve passed? Whichever trail you set your foot to will decide your landscapes and views. Be it home education and the myriad of paths therein, or other educational routes, a family grows out of the landscape of the path which they tread.

That trail becomes a way of life, a way of seeing, a way of being. Consider, dear Mama, which landscapes and vistas He has put in your heart to see… and embrace that path and its lifestyle. The journey, whichever one, encompasses the travelers.

Here is how I might suggest you begin the journey into Homeschooling:

Authentically.
Live your life. Invite your children to join you! Read together. Pray together. Sing together. Work, bake, garden, chore, clean, sew, fix, build together. Don't fabricate artifical demarcation lines between schooling and living. Live a one-piece life. Live holistically.

Joyfully.
Explore! Be awed by His World! Restore Wonder! Be a creative, thinking, exuberant person who spills with the joy of learning. Your zest for learning and life will be contagious--the children will catch it!

Curiously.
Read, read, read. Fill the house with library books. Play classical music. Post the art of the masters about the house. Go for walks in the woods. Learn a new language, a new culture, a new poem. Everyday set out to discover again, and again, and again. The whole earth is full of His glory! Go seek His face...

Consistently.
Consistently read. Consistently pray. Consistently keep the routine. Consistently live an everyday liturgy.
Children thrive in routine. So do households. Have hardstops: times that you fully stop to pray, to read, to write. Regardless of what isn't done, what isn't finished. Make a full stop, do the needful thing, then return to meals, laundry, household management.
Consistently be consistent.

That's all. The curriculum doesn't really matter, so much. Use what works for you, how He leads you.

Just make it part of your real life, make it a joy, make it all a discovery, and prayerfully make it consistent.

More education thoughts tomorrow...
Photo: our well worn dictionary, atlas