Homeschooling...

A few of you have been asking me how our homeschooling journey is going, so I thought I would update you on this. It's going great, and by great I mean, we have enrolled the girls in a beautiful local school about 8 minutes away.

How did we arrive at this decision I hear you ask?  I want you to imagine 4 kids and 1 teaching parent in a hot tin shed, with little to no internet.  I mean, really what was I thinking!?  I can see it now, what you were all thinking, and so graciously let me explore.  BUT, and I know you're not supposed to start a sentence with but, (see I could have taught them some things...) but, homeschooling was something I had talked about with Kristian for ages and now that we were out in the sticks it seemed like a perfectly sensible and logical idea.  That was until I began to try.  Very quickly I could see it wasn't going to work the way I had imagined.  You know when you picture something in your mind, where the kids would sit, how I would manage keeping Alaska occupied while trying to teach a prep child, grade 2 and 3.  I would imagine doing maths in the garden using natural materials, Missy would be smiling as I taught her how to add 2+5 using 2 leaves and 5 little rocks.  Meanwhile, the older girls would be working independently on a wonderful story they were writing for their english component of the day.  How 'little house on the prairie' of me! Anyway, it was more like Alaska crawling all over me trying to breastfeed, while the 5 of us sat around the table and me trying to bounce between all of them with their varying levels of work, trying to talk above the high powered fan blowing hot air on us.  Anyway, there was lots of reasons that led me to check out a couple of the schools close by. I felt like I was cheating on my homeschooling dream but never the less, we visited 3 schools, and decided on the first one we visited.  I had feelings of failure as we we tossed up what to do, but ultimately the decision to put them in the school felt really right.  We actually felt really blessed that a school like this was so close to us now.  It has a total of 61 children and 3 multi-age classrooms. It really is a lovely school, and for now we know its exactly where the kids should be.  We don't know what the future holds and perhaps when we are more set up on the property  we may consider homeschooling again.  Maybe. 

Eliza xx