The Evolution of our Homeschooling Style

I have never considered myself to be the patient kind that would be good to teach children. That was one of my biggest apprehensions about homeschooling and thought things weren’t going to work because of that.  I was wrong… for the most part.

I’ve had no trouble helping guide Shammy’s learning journey through the usual language arts, math, science etc but have encountered a huge road block when trying to delve into more “right brained” topics.

I am left brained/ Type A/ OCD a rather pain in the rear combo. Shammy has some of my same left brained tendencies so art has proven a failure as he simply isn’t interested unless you count creating with Lego bricks (which I do).

As we enter the 4th week of our second homeschooling year, I look back and see how much our homeschooling style has evolved. Our first year was full of trial and error and this year we have found the unique recipe that works for us.

I had heard of children that came from public school needing to “deschool” before starting homeschooling. I didn’t think that applied to us since we were starting education at home from the very beginning. But after that first year I learned that I was the one in need of deschooling. Once I let go of the concept of replicating a traditional school at home things flowed effortlessly.  We don’t need those fancy classrooms seen on Pinterest.

We are no longer schooling at the dining room table because it wasn’t ergonomic or comfortable for Shammy to write and Zen kept interrupting. We no longer have Shammy’s desk in the living room because he was too distracted so for a while I was struggling to find the layout that would be most conducive to learning with comfort.

We are cosleepers. Up until recently Shammy had been sleeping in a toddler bed in our room but he had gotten too big for it and was not comfortable anymore. We were planning on giving him his own bedroom and a bigger bed but then my husband hurt his back and that got put on hold. I didn’t know how Shammy would react to sleeping in another room so I was procrastinating.

Then I bought him an appropriate sized desk so he could sit ergonomically and write and when I suggested we placed it in his new bedroom he suddenly got excited about his “Shammy room”. He happily moved in and has slept there all night, every night for 2 weeks and counting.  It is amazing how his love for learning has fostered his independence.

He now has his school nook in his own bedroom allowing him to do school work whenever he wants without his brother bothering him. It’s been working very well.