Things That I Like About Homeschooling

These things aren't necessarily the reasons why we decided to homeschool Connor, but they are definitely things that I enjoy.  Perks, if you will.

And now, in no particular order, are some of the perks that I enjoy about homeschooling my children:

Food.  I am able to cook my kids a nice breakfast and make them a leisurely hot lunch.  I know how much and what they are eating every day.  And they can sit at the table for as long as it takes them to finish, which today was seconds.  Some days, it's thirds.



Today, they chose to eat triple-decker nutella sandwiches.  Which they ordered from the game room upstairs using walkie-talkies.



Fun.  I get to play with my kids all day long.  I love being with them, and since they aren't away in school for a large portion of the day, we get to do silly things like order lunch over walkie-talkies.

Family.  If Connor was in school, he wouldn't be at home with Lex all day long.  Right now, they are very close.  Sometimes, too close, admittedly, but they really are best buddies.  I like that.

Flexible schedule.  If we want to go outside and enjoy the sunshine, we can go to a playground for a while.  If I notice that the kids are getting wound up and antsy, we can go ride bikes or take a walk.  They learn better when they are fed and have done something physical before we start doing any homeschool work.

Also, I've noticed that Connor is more of an afternoon learner.  He's not really ready for school in the morning, so we usually wait until late morning or after lunch to get started.  And since he is ready, he pays attention nicely and does his work quickly.

I like that I can tailor our daily lessons to things that Connor is interested in, or we can learn about anything that catches his attention.  For example, today he was playing a fishing app on the iPad (Ninja Fishing, thanks to my brother, Christopher for getting him hooked on it), and the app informed him that starfish didn't have brains.  This seemed interesting to him, so he asked me about it, and the next thing I knew, we had spent about 45 minutes researching starfish and sand dollars on the internet.  And since he was the one that asked about it, it's more likely that he will deem it important information and remember it.

Bullying.  There isn't a lot of bullying going on in our little school.  Although we did go to a playground once with a homeschool group that had a bully.  And when some of the moms mentioned it to his mom, we discovered where he had learned it from.  But since I was there, I was able to talk to Connor and Lex about it, and we were able to leave as soon as we wanted to.

So, those are some of my rambling good thoughts on homeschooling my kids for today.  Now that they're here, I can read them on days when I feel like the kids are making me crazy.

And I'll add this great video for good measure.