Our unschooling journey didn’t start out as a magical epiphany. It came as an unforeseen byproduct of simplicity. When we made the decision to simplify our lives (read all about it here) we knew that the traditional school model was not working for our kids (or us for that matter).
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During the 2014-2015 school year our oldest daughter had had a series of one after the other long-term substitute teachers, and by long term, I’m talking a new teacher every six week. Our youngest son was in an overcrowded classroom where 5 very challenging personalities got all the attention and everyone outside of those 5 students got little from the teacher in the way of support. Our youngest daughter was the only one who was having an amazing school experience and she was just in kindergarten.
In October 2015, just 3 ½ months into the new school year we officially withdrew our 3 youngest kids from the public-school system and filed our state required affidavit to home educate. We did not get a lot of support from our families and friends in the beginning. We got the usual questions of “What makes you qualified to teach your children?” and “Won’t they be lonely and have no friends?” and my favorite “Oh, it won’t last, your kids will be so board at home.” Although we had jumped off the home education cliff without a parachute… IT FELT RIGHT.
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I spent endless hours researching the best ways to home educate. There were the public school virtual academy’s that promised an excellent common core standard education. The faith based curricula’s, that although would work great for many families, felt lacking to me. Then there were the endless websites of worksheets & projects that seemed so very overwhelming. In my research I read a lot about the deschooling process and I knew we would have small buffer zone from the time we would take them out of public school until we would need something a little more formal.
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We had been staying with my parents during the first 3 months of out drastic life revamp. The winter weather in Arizona is amazing and it is the time of year to be outside. To keep the kids from being underfoot of my folks we frequented parks & libraries all over the east Phoenix valley. We ran errands, taught the kids about money & taxes and visited various historical landmarks in the surrounding area. My mom (who by the ways is an amazing lady) started getting involved by cooking with the kids. She was so wonderful in explaining the why’s and how’s of cooking. My dad (who is just as amazing as my mom) would take the kids to the garage and let them tinker with wood crafting. It was amazing to watch the kids flourish.
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One thing I noticed right off the bat was our kids were HAPPY! There was little strife within the family, there were no homework battles, no bedtime wars, no morning getting out of bed drama. We were adjusting to our new lifestyle and it felt so natural. I witnessed time after time that our kids were exploring the world on their terms and they were LEARNING & RETAINING information and teaching it to the other siblings. MY MIND WAS BLOWN!!!!
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Our unschooling journey was just beginning………