Elementary & Middle School

My daughters' elementary school years, as well as their middle school years, continued to progress following our eclectic style. I practiced child-led learning. We would look at the fall as a time to begin new things. In late summer, we would make our annual trek to a local teacher supply store that I mentioned in the last post. I also listened to my daughters and investigated different ways to accomplish their learning desires. I was so fortunate to work with an E.S. from our charter who could see the progress of our ways and always seemed to approve our purchases. It was a fun, interactive lifestyle. An experience that I wouldn't alter in any way, even if I was given the opportunity to do it all over again.

That's not to say we didn't have our struggles in the beginning. We actually had a great first year. Because I pulled my daughters out of school one week into 2nd grade, we didn't have much to begin with, so homeschooling was relaxed and easy. Our next year was a different story. Me... in my 'planning' mode went overboard and created an atmosphere of "school at home". It didn't go well and after a couple of months of all of us crying over the schedule that I had created, I knew we had to alter things. I think that it's at this point that many homeschoolers give up. I've heard that the failure rate in the first year of homeschooling is 1 out of 2 give up during the first year. I didn't look at our struggles as a time to give up, I looked at them as an indicator that something had to change.

We made it through that second year and for our third year I decided to go way relaxed. I began in the fall with an attitude of just laying around on the living room floor with our projects and books all around us. It was okay, but after a couple of weeks, my daughters asked if they could go back to working at their desks in our 'school room'. My girls were happy with some structure, as long as they had input into the structure. So, through it all, we found our way. Our school life evolved into what worked for us.

And that's how the rest of our elementary and middle school years progressed. As the girls got older, I could see them taking control of their own education. For instance, (as I mentioned previously) we used a math program called Math-U-See and at the age of 10 or 11, my daughters began watching the video math lessons on their own and each girl, individually, progressed at their own pace.

These years of home education also brought me into the world of teaching classes through our homeschool support group. Being 'child-led', I'd usually extract from my girls what they were interested in and we would, together, decide if the subject would be fun to do on our own or with a group of friends. I'd then research the subject and offer it up to my homeschool group. It was a blast! I taught so many classes during those early years! It was a great way to be social and educational at the same time. My daughters also took classes that other homeschooling parents offered. A homeschooling support group is an invaluable resource.

Of course, as well as all this was working, as we headed into the high school years, I was concerned about providing what my daughters needed to have in their future. I wanted to keep as many options open for them that I could. Would they want to go to higher education or straight into the working world? I needed to be sure that I could give them the base from which they could make those decisions.

~Debbie in So. Cal.