Mondays With Lady Vee: I'm Ready

Alright, many of you know I announced that I would be cutting down the amount of entries per week on my blog due to some "changes" in our life!
So after about a month of living these new set of circumstances I am finally ready to share via Blog the new news in the Rodney Home.

I am officially a HOMESCHOOLING MOM!
Phew...I got it out!  I was reluctant to share with others because the responses can sometimes be quite negative.  So I wanted to let some time pass-get my feet wet  before the weird looks, social debates and opinions started reeling in!

I am sure you have questions for me, so I have done a bit of a self interview to give you all the details! :D

Why did you choose to start homeschooling?

Education was our main driving force.  Our oldest has always been a smarty pants, but at the end of last year, we noticed her academic performance drop. Her classes were overfilled with students. Her teachers were very unprofessional, and she was doing more playing at school than learning.  Also she went through some bullying last year which was resolved by the end of the school year, but overall was a huge distraction to her studies.

What do you do with her? How do you teach her?

There is a whole world of homeschool curriculum out there.  We researched many different curricula's over the summer and finally settled on one that we thought would work vey well her.  It requires very little effort from me as a parent.  Her main subjects are Reading ,Writing and Arithmetic.  She spends 1-2 hours each on those subjects per day.  Afterwards I have some extra curricular subjects like French & Brain Pop to give her some diversity.  History & Geography are included in her reading class, not an individual course! We keep it very simple, but its very advanced (my smarty is doing Gr 4/5 math-she is Gr.3!)  We don't teach her much, we put all the resources in front of her to help her get the answers.  She has become very resourceful and independent.  We are quite proud of her, as when she was in public school, she always needed our assistance with her homework!  Now she is teaching herself french!

And heres the #1 BIG question....

What about the SOCIAL aspect?

One would be amazed of how many social opportunities a home schooled child has!  We have joined a homeschool group with over 40 families.  They meet once a week, and go on one field trip once a month.  We are actually going horse back riding this friday!(so excited).  She's in swimming, she goes to church, piano lessons.  Not to mention the kids on our street she skateboards with when they all get home from school!  She gets lots of good social opportunities in a week.  Since homeschooling I haven't noticed a decrease in her socializing, but an increase.  She has become bolder and more confident in who she is!  Its quite strange actually!  So no...she doesn't get to spend 8 hours a day with 30  kids and very limited supervision...but honestly given the area in which we live...that's a good thing! :D 


My Heart:
In short, I am not against public schools. Its just not the best choice for our family at this time in our lives! Homeschooling isn't for every family, but it works for us wonderfully!  We are so happy, we have grown closer as a family unit.  We have seen such a lovely change in Tiana, and my baby Miya is learning lots along the way too!  So please pray for us, and rejoice with us! This has been one of the best things we have ever done for our daughter! :D If you have any other questions, feel free to ask!