LauraMaery Gold - Homeschool Your Child for Free: More Than 1,400 Smart, Effective, and Practical Resources for Educating Your Family at Home

A RE YOU READY for a grand adventure?

In 1988, my second child was struggling with a kindergarten teacher who didnt like stragglers. A friend introduced me to homeschooling as a viable option. As I read books by John Holt, Raymond Moore, and others, I felt divinely directed to homeschool. I knew I could meet the needs of my children individually, and that we could be closer as a family. For us, homeschooling has become a lifestyle.

The world of homeschooling today is nothing like it was a couple of decades ago, when we started. LauraMaerys first homeschooling book opened the world of the Internet to me and showed me all the options that were available in cyberspace. Thanks to her, I now have almost too many options for materials, resources, and information.

Online resources have been a great supplement to our homeschooling effort. We have always homeschooled in an eclectic way, focusing on the childrens and my interests and talents, as well as the flow of the seasons. By this I mean, our schooling takes a different twist in the late summer, when we put up the garden harvest. This becomes our unit study and a great time for us to talk.

The first week of October to late November, our studies become more academic in nature. During the holiday season we look for ways to improve our community and serve our fellow man. This sometimes has included making quilts for humanitarian aid, providing hands-on help with flood relief, coordinating donations of household items for natural-disaster victims, and coordinating and preparing Christmas Eve dinners for those in need.

After the New Year, we start another season of academic focus, along with a concentration on talent and interest projects. We use individual unit studies and hands-on activities and adventures. These have included Boy Scout merit badges, projects with our churchs youth groups, tending animals, art, sports, crafts, and sewing.

Toward the end of April we begin another season of garden preparation and tending the newborn animals. Everyone has responsibilities and helps in their own way, and collectively we learn and growno pun intended.

The cycle of the seasons continues through the summer, with lots of outdoor projects, experiments, camping, and family fun.

The children are learning how to set goals and provide a good flow of different activities throughout the day. Sometimes children will become immersed in a particular study, and I have really tried to honor their work and not interrupt them. Other times, changing activities helps them to stay excited and motivated, because of the many projects they are allowed to juggle.

Throughout the year, the kids are reading books individually, and aloud to the family. Often, the books relate to what we are doing. Once, we read Heidi around a campfire by night while camping in the mountains, and, like Heidi, spent part of our days hiking and collecting herbs and berries.

The children in our large family have many different learning styles. We see both their strengths and their weaknesses as opportunities for learning. Reading works by pioneers such as Raymond Moore helped me to see that all of my children werent going to be ready to read at four or five years old and that there are great benefits to developing in other ways at their own pace. As a result, we have had children who were reading by five and some that really didnt click until they were twelve or thirteen years old. Thats okay, because God made each of us different, and as a homeschooling family we can each grow in our own way and in our own time.

With seven children, four grown to date, this has been a grand adventure that still excites me as a mom. I get to see children become independent, capable people who know who they are, know how to learn anything they want, and are successful in whatever they choose. I wouldnt trade our homeschooling life for anything.

Kristine Farleyis an author and homeschooling mom, as well as a master rapid eye technician and wellness coach. While she raises her family she operates Joyful Empowerment, her Web business. She lives with her children and her husband, Scott, on a mini-farm in the foothills of Mount Rainier