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Flexible homeschooling




I follow a Facebook page called Simple Homeschool. One of the things that I love about their page is their reoccurring Facebook statuses answering the question, "How has #homeschooling changed your family's life for the better?" Their followers submit their answers and Simple Homeschool features one of the answers. I love reading all the reasons why people love homeschooling. I love reading about how people's lives have changed for the better because they homeschool and feeling encouraged by their answers, especially the answers I relate too.

We recently took a long trip-- a little over 3 weeks away from the house. We spent a week at the beach with my parents then drove from the beach to my parents' house. While at my parents' house, I drove from there to a friend's house and then back to my parents' house. Then I finally made the trek from my parents' house back to our house. We did a lot of outings while visiting all these different places, saw a lot of cool things, and saw a lot of familiar (and dearly missed) friends and family. It was so refreshing to mix things up, have a change of scenery, and spend quality time with people we love.

While away, I frequently was grateful we are homeschooling. There were many moments where I said, "I am so glad we homeschool!" to my friends and family. I loved that trip. I loved that we could spend almost a month traveling in the middle of the school year and that school traveled with us. When I left my parents' house to go visit my friends, I did school over the weekend so we could take the first couple days of the week off. Homeschooling is so flexible. Being a military family (a submariner's wife, nonetheless), flexibility is key. My confidence in our decision to homeschool was most definitely boosted on this trip. I felt that we would have the freedom to travel when my husband gets back on a submarine in the next couple months and that we would also be able to adapt our school schedule to my husband's schedule, guaranteeing we get that family time we need.

After the long trip away, I drove home with the boys on a Sunday. Monday morning I woke up feeling horrible. I completely lost my voice due to a wretched cold. I realized pretty quick that I wouldn't be able to do school without a voice. I decided to take the days off that I was sick. It wasn't until today that my voice came back along with (most of) my energy. Because I was taking it pretty easy this week and putting a lot of things off, we were totally off schedule all day. By early afternoon, it was apparent that school was not going to happen today-- so I didn't make it. I decided that we would finish out the week in our "unschooling" style and resume structured homeschool on Monday when we've had time to get back on schedule after the trip and my cold. How awesome is that? No tears, no fuss, just doing what works best for us. If you have ever forced more than one child out the door in the morning to get somewhere on time when you don't feel well, you will know how amazing it is to avoid all that.

With each passing day of homeschooling, I enjoy it more and more. I enjoy the time we spend learning together. I look forward to doing kindergarten with my oldest and that time of day we have together. I enjoy how excited our preschoolers are to do "school" (they do not have any structured school yet, but they love pulling out notebooks and pretending to do what our oldest is doing). It has been a blessing for our family. I became even more aware of what a blessing it is after this trip.

Why do you love homeschooling?
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