Spring break for homeschoolers? How does that work?

Well, late is better than never. This week was officially spring break for my crew. While technically only my oldest is of school age and it's not a huge change, one takes for granted all of the activities that go on to keep you busy in a week.

As mentioned in my title, we homeschool. Well, kind of. Really my oldest is part of a "Partial Homeschooling" program that is technically integrated with her school district. She goes to a school that does electives one day a week and all day class one day a week. I am responsible for her schooling the other 3 days. At home I teach Language Arts and Math. We use the online program K12 and her teacher creates that math curriculum for me to follow at home. My oldest being a natural introvert, this program is well suited to her.

Miss. H on her 1st day of 1st Grade

How did I decide to homeschool, you ask? This decision came gradually. Ask me 10 years ago if I would homeschool and I would have given you a funny look and say "Yeah right!". Then after my first was born and we began to approach pre-school stage I met an assortment of women who homeschooled. They were not introduced to me as homeschoolers but as I got to know them they began to describe their children and their involvement in their kids schooling, I was intrigued. It seemed to me that all of the preconceived notions that I had about homeschooled kids wasn't true. These kids were social, well rounded, well educated and loved being homeschooled. I began to look at options and how homeschooling worked. Let me just say, without direction and some guidance it can be wholly overwhelming.

After 6 months of reading about curriculum, certification programs, Washington State homeschool law, I still didn't know where to begin. Then my daughter began to see kids going on the bus, tv programs about kids in school and hearing about school from older kids. She wanted to go to a class, have lunch with kids, have a true teacher. I prayed long and hard about what to do. My heart was called to homeschool, her heart was called to class. Enter a good friend of mine and the savior to many of my mom questions. She was also a homeschooler and a provider of many of the answers to my homeschool questions. She mentioned to me a program that she had decided to send her oldest to, a program unlike any I had heard of.  This program was run through our school district and was no extra cost (bonus!), the kids are in school 2 days a week. Day 1, electives, the kids can choose up to 3 classes that range from foreign language to science to drama. Day 2, class with a licensed instructor. In class they cover social studies, science, english (though most is done at home) and some math (again, mostly done at home). After two years in this program we adore this school. The staff and teachers are amazing people, the class sizes are small, the home programs are easy to work with and we still get to enjoy things like field trips and school plays.

Well this is just an intro into the massive world of homeschooling. Comment if you'd like to see more of what an actual day looks like for us.