Hi friends! How are you?! I’m alright. Health is still a s struggle (whats new, right?) but otherwise things are good. Laura’s wedding was AMAZING. I can’t wait to share some photos. I really can’t believe how far behind I am on photos lately. I guess its just because I haven’t been blogging as much as I used to– but this month was busy! It was hard to keep up. But I think it’ll get back on track too. My mouth is healing alright too. So many soft foods. The weather has been nice. I’m about to try to get some house things done outside. The mango flowers are going away too– so I’ve actually been able to BE outside haha. <– life in a nutshell.I’m excited to say that Marlowe is doing a Spanish homeschool lesson as I type this. And just before that we did a bit of Latin (vocab). Which I realize might sound crazy to some people– but it’s something we’ve both been enjoying. Learning latin in school helped me so much. If you know the root of words– you can pretty much figure out anything when it comes to language. Thats my thoughts on it anyway 😉  We’ve also been doing math and science of course. Reading is a standard in our house anyway. The girl can read anythingggg. We’re working on spelling a bit (me too, haha). Sometimes she’s surprises me with how good she is– sometimes she struggles. I think that’s pretty standard. This is really only our first week of doing it– officially anyway. But we’ve been doing homeschool lessons for about two months now at home (or realistically her whole life). We do a steady mix of things so we don’t get bored. And we definitely don’t have a schedule yet– we’re just doing it to fit our life. Which is tremendously helpful in the current stage of our life— between tooth pullings, weddings, life in general– it feels good to be able to get school done with  and after dinner if we need too.

And It feels SO good to be able to teach her what I want to teach her. Andddd to teach her what she wants to learn! We’re obviously SUPER new to this whole thing– but I think it’s going to be really good for us. When I was reading my homeschool book before, one of the first questions is asked was, “do you enjoy spending time with your kid?” and for me, I totally do. It’s a valid question really. People might be caught off guard by that question– since it feels like we’re supposed to enjoy it– but the reality is, sometimes as parents, we might not. I didn’t enjoy spending time with her in the first year– I spent time with her because I had to— because I was her mother and wanted to make sure she was cared for– not because I liked being around a baby. But as time passed and the baby stage ended, I’ve really grown to LOVE being with my kid, often. She’s more like a mini adult than a kid sometimes. 🙂

She had missed so much school this first year due to us traveling. Andddd she had been asking for SO long to actually be homeschooled– so we finally got to the point where I had to stop and ask, Why am I really keeping her in school this year? Is it for her? Convenience? Me? Because I felt like I should or had it? You know? And so we did it. Alex felt good about it. I felt good about it. Marlowe felt good about it. And we pulled her out.

She would come home often and tell me she found school boring. So I’m working on that. She struggles with math– not because she finds it hard– but for her, thats not fun, it’s boring. It’ll be things like that, that we’ll have to work on. How do we make it fun? Or at least enjoyable enough where she doesn’t hate it? Turning things into a game or competition seems to work best for her. So I’m not super concerned. Well, not yet anyway.

I’m excited to spend more time with Marlowe. Exploring, learning, being outside, just taking it all in. I like learning. I could sit all day reading and researching. Honestly, Alex probably could too. And Marlowe? Well, she’s the same.

I think what really sold me, long before we started, was when I asked Marlowe to do her school journal in guatemala. We were sitting on top of a mountain (with an organic farm), looking over an erupting volcano, writing, reading, and learning. I knew that this would be right for our family. I’m convinced, totally convinced that traveling, researching, and all the learning that will happen along makes sense. This is going to be a good thing. I can feel it.

<3

12 Comments

  1. I was homeschooled as a kid and it was seriously the best thing I could have ever asked for. i am so close to my mom because of it and i learned so much about real life and have so many fond memories.

    samantha

  2. I'm super interested in seeing how this turns out, things you struggle with and learn a long the way. I've always known that I want to enrich my kids learning in addition to school, but never thought that I could be an actual home school teacher. I honestly feel like I would get to distracted/frustrated, but it's still hanging out in the back of my mind. Thank you for sharing!!

    • yeah– I've always enjoyed doing lessons with her and projects with her— and we did a lot of reading and alphabet things before she actually went into preschool– and we both seemed to enjoy it. So when she asks to be homeschooled, I figured it's def. worth a shot. I can def. already see that it's not going to be all roses all the time– but I think its a very good plan for us right now 🙂

  3. My daughter started grade one in the fall and we decided to homeschool instead of sending her back to school. I thought it would go well but I never would have guessed how well, we are all loving it. I hope you guys have a great experience with it!

  4. Love that you're doing this. But how do you deal with her not wanting to do the work? Refusing, fighting with you about it, or just wanting to put it off until later? Or is this just not an issue for her? I have a son that age and we already have this issue with simple homework assignments. He would just rather do other work. Maybe this depends on the kid, though! Making it a game works only so well for me. But with his teachers, he's SO willing to do the work.

    • Well, we just started so it's hard to properly answer this! Right now we usually try something and if its boring I say we'll do it for a few more minutes and switch it up. Then I try a different approach to it. Overall she really likes learning though. I also remind her that she was the one who wanted to homeschool — and this is what it is— fun at times, but also school WORK. So she has to do it 😉

  5. You KNOW I love this!! Can't wait to follow along on the journey. You guys were meant for homeschooling! Sending love friend!! xoxo

    • I do know 🙂 YOU need to do homeschooling posts on your blog. Or make a homeschooling blog—– please?

  6. Yes! I think it's really important to learn outisde, somehow the same concept as "living in the wild and captivity".. in the wild you get to be more natural, learn more about people and their reactions, see phenomena as they are happening and developing objective and unbiased views when you see them without somebody's interpretations. Keep learning! And don't worry if you get frustrated, it's always like that with kids. I think I would fear homeschooling my kid or my sister because I'll always be anxious when things get difficult or out of hand.. this lack of control always gets the worst of me, unfortunately. Good luck anyway. 🙂