Karen’s Homeschool Story

Our family recently decided to become homeschoolers and while we have a mixture of emotions most important is our excitement to be creating our own journey.  The past 8 years our children have attended a private catholic school and we have been blessed with a loving community and great education.  My son and daughter both started at the school when they turned 2 and have done well academically and personally.  

Last quarter when the pandemic hit, our children ( a 2nd and 3rd grader) were at home trying to virtual school with their teachers and class.  We quickly realized a zoom class with 22 students was nothing more than a very loud virtual playdate.  The teachers and school tried their best but weren’t set up to teach their students virtually.  I have a lot of friends who homeschool so I began reaching out for recommendations and advice.  We discussed the option of homeschooling with the kids and were surprised by their response.  They loved the idea of learning from home and expressed challenges they had in the classroom being bored at times because they would understand a new concept before others and my daughter felt too much time was spent on kids in her class acting up and disrupting the class.

 

I started researching and found a few programs, which I had our kids test out.  Thankfully we found programs that they enjoyed and we started our homeschooling journey this week! Our decision to homeschool will definitely change our day-to-day routine and I’m sure it’ll be a learning process.  Through homeschooling, we will be able to learn at the pace that is best for our kids and they will be able to explore subjects they are interested in.  For example, when we spoke about History and Geography my son asked to learn about American History and my daughter is wanting to learn about rainbows and butterflies for Science.  An added bonus is that I get to re-learn as well! 

 

I will now be working from home full time which I’m excited about as I’ll get to spend more quality time with my kids, however, it will be an adjustment.  We changed our playroom into our homeschool room and they each have a desk with a computer and school supplies along with a huge whiteboard where we write down the daily schedule.  We decided to start homeschooling this week with 30 min. of Math and 30 min. of ELA per day to ease into our new journey.  The first week has gone okay and my son even said I was the best teacher he has ever had.  I need to record that to playback in the coming year 😊   My daughter hasn’t accepted “school in June” as well but she still completes the assignments.

 

Our future is unknown now more than ever as we all adjust to our new way of life with the pandemic.  I have found comfort in our decision to homeschool and focus on helping our kids grow academically, personally, and spiritually.  

 

More about Karen White

Karen's Homeschooling Story

 

 

Karen is the Sales Manager for HomeschoolConnect and has worked around homeschooling for 3 years without ever thinking she’d take the plunge. Now she’s is excited to become a homeschool mom too! She is married with two children and lives in the sunny state of Florida.