Homeschooling Perks

It has been a very full week here - actually much busier than I prefer, but with a lot of fun activities. That is one of the huge benefits of homeschooling...the flexibility and time to do the things we want to do. What most students spend 30 hours a week at school doing (and then additional time doing homework at home), we can accomplish in a mere fraction of the time. I can speak pretty confidently about that because I used to be a teacher prior to having kids, and so I know firsthand how much wasted time there is in a typical classroom. That is not a knock on teachers. It is simply unavoidable when you are teaching a class of 20-35 students. Of course I am able to accomplish much more in a much shorter amount of time with my 2 students than with 30, and can then use the rest of the time to do whatever we want to do. And, although we are trying to stick to a regular daily schedule, I can choose to rearrange that schedule in any way that I want at any time that I choose. So, this is a big perk. Homeschooling is not always an easy path, but we believe strongly in its benefits (obviously...or we wouldn't have chosen it). And, believe it or not, as much we love the flexibility, it's not even at the top of our list of reasons for homeschooling. But, I digress...

This is what our week looked like outside of our regular "class time."

Mondays are nature days for us, and this week we headed to the tide pools and a little secluded cove by hiking around that point in the picture above with our small homeschool group. This year, we brought in an instructor (Mark Hay from Coast Live Oak School) who will join us once a month on our nature days. He teaches weekly nature classes to homeschoolers year-round, but we approached him about doing a private family class for our small group on just a monthly basis. We needed to tailor it more to our younger group and also didn't want to commit the time or money to something weekly. Fortunately for us, he agreed. Our nature days consist mostly of letting the kids just explore and discover, run around, and enjoy nature. But, it's also nice to have someone along who is extremely knowledgable and can teach them much more about God's creation than us moms can do. Plus, we are getting to learn right along with the kids, which is great.

The kids were learning to keep a close watch on the waves before trying to continue around the rocks.

Mr. Mark helping the kids around the rocks.

This is the private little cove that we ended up at and it was awesome. The kids then proceeded to turn the rocks into their castle, complete with a king and queen, princes and princesses.

Exploring the Tide Pools

Then Wednesday, we got to take a field trip to the Long Beach aquarium. (If anyone is interested, the homeschool group rate is only $6/person.)

Thursday, I took the kids to Disneyland (actually to California Adventure) and celebrated the fact that the Disney blackout days are over and they can again enjoy their new passes. I didn't particularly look forward to taking them on my own for the afternoon - what with being almost ready to give birth, swollen and uncomfortable - but I really want them to get to take advantage of the passes that they worked so hard for, and I wanted to try to get a special day in for them before the baby arrives. So, we went, and it turned out to be great. In fact, I might try to do it again one day next week if Tate has still not made his appearance. I warned the kids ahead of time that we would only stay for a few hours and would then have to come home and get some school work done. Their end of the deal was that they needed to show me that this would work, and that they could come home and not be too tired for school if they wanted to try to do days like this more often. It worked out great. We spent a few hours at CA Adventure, took advantage of the fact that most kids are in school and there were hardly any lines, had a great time, and came home and learned more about the first settlement at Jamestown!

And, lastly, on Friday, they started a couple of classes that we're trying out. Addi is enrolled in a 6 week art class, and Jake in a 6 week "Pre-Engineering with Legos" class (how cool is that?), and then they are both in the same Spanish class. That's for about a 3 hour block of time on Fridays. I had originally thought that that would be a great time for me to be able to get a few things accomplished on my own, but it looks like I'll be hanging out and helping in the classes instead. Oh well. So much for grocery shopping and running errands by myself.

And, yes, there's the rub...homeschooling, without a doubt, requires some sacrifice - sacrifice of my desires and time that I would sometimes love to have for me. I wish I could say that I love being with my kids constantly, but that is certainly not always the case. As I think I've mentioned pretty frequently, I am FAR from being the most patient, perfect mom. I lose my temper and get frustrated with my kids far more often than I would like to admit. But, when I start to feel sorry for myself because I am tired of my kids and "deserve" some "me time," I try to remind myself that, really, none of it is my time anyway. It is all time that God has given me with which I should be serving Him; and these little people that He has blessed us with are the people that He has put in my life to be serving right now. And then, I remind myself again of all the reasons that we have chosen this path for our family...but that is certainly a post for another day!