School Starts?

     We have started, well, sort of, I guess, for this year. It's always kind of funny to me though when people ask, "When are you starting school?" because my thinking is, "Aren't we always schooling?" We have been trying to teach our kids (and others...lol) that school is learning, school = learning. It's not a certain place you have to be or certain times certain things have to be done, it's simply learning. Our main reason for choosing to educate at home is so that our kids would love to learn and along with that have the desire to learn.

     Now, we do follow curriculum, specifically like Math because the basics are the basics. We believe education is important and we want to give our kids every opprtunity to succeed and with that, being educated is important. Not all we do is conventional though, for example, our Social Studies curriculum follows time, not random topics like in the school system. Although the outline looks different, in the end they will have covered the same material, but making a lot more sense here because it follows a time line.

     We are educating at home for us and our kids- because we believe that it is the best decision that we can make for all of us. In turn, we don't look any differently at anyone else who chooses to educate at home or not, nor do we look differently at what people choose or not choose to teach. That is the joy of living in a free country and for us in Alberta, where the options are numerous! We are thankful we have the option and opportunity to grow alongside our kids in this journey. We are often asked if we will educate at home all the way through grade 12 and our answer is always the same... we take it a year at a time and a child at a time. Each year holds its own challenges and schedules and each child holds within themselves their own interests and needs. We pray that we will always be sensitive to this and do what is always best for our kids and our family (even if not everyone around us agrees). 

     So with this... our journey actually began 6 years ago now- officially when Erika started kindergarten. She is now in grade 5 and Kaeli is starting grade 2 this year. We are excited to share our story... even if it is only for our own portfolio. There will be posts here by each one of us at different times.

Rachelle