Free Range Kiddos -when life is your school-
When Life is Your School...
When I first met a mother who homeschooled her children, the first thoughts that ran through my mind were, "How weird? How are these kids ever going to be prepared for college? How can a single mother teach all necessary subjects effectively? How can she even handle it all? How are these kids ever going to be ready to face the REAL world? You can't keep kids in a bubble, this will backfire! These kids must be so weird! Poor kids!" Talk about prejudging others!!! It's amazing how our minds can just run into a preconceived rant without us even getting close to knowing the facts! I had already assumed so many things, and yet had not even met the children. Eventually, this family became the starting inspiration to our homeschool journey, and to our decision to homeschool our children from the get-go.
If I told you all my questions have been answered, and all my concerns wiped out, I would be lying! I still wonder how on earth I'll make it through this, and if me with all my countless flaws, will ever be able to successfully teach and train my children. To ease my fears, I keep saying I'll do what this first homeschooling mother I met said they do: "we take one year at a time, and if things seem to not be working out, we can always send them to school." But what I can say with confidence is that the more I research on the subject, and the more families I meet that have embarked on this journey, the more comfortable and excited I am about this!
Homeschooling offers something that "schooled" children will never have: endless possibilities! You are not bound or "caged" into a curriculum, system or classroom. You have the flexibility to explore whatever it is that interests your child, and the freedom to move as fast or slow as your child needs. They can be true "free range kiddos" and life becomes their classroom! School work can be done at a city garden or park, in the backyard, or even their pjs! And as to how they will face the real world after they are done with it? Well...I guess they were living and learning from it since the beginning! If you think about it, school children are the ones who will require a greater adjustment to life outside of the school walls, where life does not revolve around same age peers and materials, directions and instructions clearly catered by a teacher. Homeschooled kids have the opportunity to engage with people from all ages, and in the "real world" a lot more than schooled kids, because they have the possibility of learning directly from and in the real world! History can be learned from field trips to museums and historical places, science can be learned out in nature, math can be practiced at the grocery store, during family budget, or even starting up a business; responsibility and compassion can be taught through finding opportunities to serve others in the community or doing volunteer work....the possibilities are truly endless.
We are in the very preliminary stages of homeschooling, with our kiddos still 3 and under, so I am by no means expert on the subject. In fact, I'm still learning and researching as much as I can about it! But being at home with my girls, has allowed me to not only pour my life into theirs (my time, affection, love, knowledge, faith), but most importantly pour God's WORD and wisdom into them, in a way that would never have been possible otherwise. So Free Range Kiddos will also be a place where I can join the amazing homeschooling community here on the web, and hopefully share some of the things that we have been experimenting with, learning and enjoying in our big classroom of life! :)
If I told you all my questions have been answered, and all my concerns wiped out, I would be lying! I still wonder how on earth I'll make it through this, and if me with all my countless flaws, will ever be able to successfully teach and train my children. To ease my fears, I keep saying I'll do what this first homeschooling mother I met said they do: "we take one year at a time, and if things seem to not be working out, we can always send them to school." But what I can say with confidence is that the more I research on the subject, and the more families I meet that have embarked on this journey, the more comfortable and excited I am about this!
Homeschooling offers something that "schooled" children will never have: endless possibilities! You are not bound or "caged" into a curriculum, system or classroom. You have the flexibility to explore whatever it is that interests your child, and the freedom to move as fast or slow as your child needs. They can be true "free range kiddos" and life becomes their classroom! School work can be done at a city garden or park, in the backyard, or even their pjs! And as to how they will face the real world after they are done with it? Well...I guess they were living and learning from it since the beginning! If you think about it, school children are the ones who will require a greater adjustment to life outside of the school walls, where life does not revolve around same age peers and materials, directions and instructions clearly catered by a teacher. Homeschooled kids have the opportunity to engage with people from all ages, and in the "real world" a lot more than schooled kids, because they have the possibility of learning directly from and in the real world! History can be learned from field trips to museums and historical places, science can be learned out in nature, math can be practiced at the grocery store, during family budget, or even starting up a business; responsibility and compassion can be taught through finding opportunities to serve others in the community or doing volunteer work....the possibilities are truly endless.
We are in the very preliminary stages of homeschooling, with our kiddos still 3 and under, so I am by no means expert on the subject. In fact, I'm still learning and researching as much as I can about it! But being at home with my girls, has allowed me to not only pour my life into theirs (my time, affection, love, knowledge, faith), but most importantly pour God's WORD and wisdom into them, in a way that would never have been possible otherwise. So Free Range Kiddos will also be a place where I can join the amazing homeschooling community here on the web, and hopefully share some of the things that we have been experimenting with, learning and enjoying in our big classroom of life! :)
Back to the Basics
Back to the basics is where I'll be sharing my journey to learning basic skills that had once been part of our people for many generations but have been lost in our modern culture. Here is where I'll venture into gardening, growing herbs and veggies, learning to sew, knit, crochet, craft, make my own chemical-free cleaning products. Basically attempting to learn all of the things my grandma did that I never learned! Part of "the dream" is to one day also learn to homestead and live a more self-sufficient lifestyle, that cares for the environment and fosters good health to our family.
Foodie at Heart
Being a foodie at heart, I simply cannot leave this aspect of life unspoken! I not only LOVE food, but I love the health that it can promote as well. This is why I choose to eat mostly whole foods, unprocessed and homemade. This has offered me an opportunity to learn about a lot of different ways to enjoy food, and it has introduced me to many different types of foods that I had never been exposed to before. Lots of yummy discoveries have been found, and I will love to share them here as they come! :)
Everyday Gifts
(BIG SIGH!) Oh the GIFTS!!! The very fact that I'm here typing is a gift! Life is just filled with gifts, from the moment we open our eyes, to the dreams that fill our minds as we lay our eyes. As Ann Voskamp tells us in One Thousand Gifts, everything around us is a gift, and it's up to us to see it, seize it, capture it, bask in it! As we receive and cherish each gift God has graciously given, our heart is slowly shaped and nurtured in gratitude, and this my friends, is what frees us for true worship!
Pressing On
Pressing on will probably be the most intimate section on this blog, where I will be sharing the delights and struggles of my journey through this fallen world as a wife, a mother, a teacher and a child of God as I continue to press on to being exactly where God has called me to be!