Why do we home school

GO HERE for the give-a-way that ends Friday at 12:00 a.m.

Bear with me-I have 3 posts today and I know this one is a little lengthy but I will cut out as much extra, as possible. I didn't get anything up yesterday so I guess I am making up for it. I've read a lot of info on people hitting road blocks and not knowing what to write on their blogs from time to time. I haven't had that happen YET-my problem is too much info to put on here--Do I over load you guys, would you prefer fewer posts?

Yesterday was filled with lots to do--Mr Prince Charming had the day off so I fixed a late big breakfast brunch before he went to the library to study. Mr G3 (4 years old) wanted to make cut out cookies the night before, we started them when I realized I was out of eggs and so we postponed them till morning. While the cookies were in the oven, I was multi-tasking and trying to get some pictures taken of Miss G4 (2 years old). My sweet cousin, had a picture of her little girl, in this adorable outfit. I asked her where she had gotten it. Her sweet girl is 3 years older than my sweet girl. She had bought it, custom made and said she didn't have the person's name but if I wanted to borrow it and get Miss G4s pictures in it I could, so she sent it to me and I needed to get it mailed back to her. I had been meaning to get an appointment but didn't so I decided to take some pictures of her, myself. She was being 2 and would sometimes cooperate and other times not-didn't she know I had lots to do.

I got my last packages wrapped up and did a couple of things on the computer, got ready, got the kids all ready, headed out the door, only to arrive at the post office about 5 minutes before they closed. I got everything shipped off, ran to the library to pick up some books I had being shipped in from other locations. Saw my hubby and he was about to leave so we ran home and dropped off the car and he got in the van with us and ran to the other grocery store to get the rest of our groceries. We divided and conquered so we could get home and make dinner. Which by the way -- you need to look into this whole process of coupon shopping and finding the best deals. I saved another $117 dollars, spending $170. If you want to know more GO HERE After dinner I began doing a search for our home school books this year. This is VERY late for me to be searching this but we were waiting to see if he was going to be done with school and had any job possibilities on the table, so we could avoid having to pack up and move books-they are so heavy but I just feel like I needed to go to my favorite used home school website and search, to see what was even available, any more, at this late date, to purchase and start getting them in so we can go ahead and start school. If we knew right now where we would be going I would wait and just start school a little late but I feel like I need to get these. Plus with the job market the way it is-we have no guarantees that we will have job offers any way-we may be here for awhile-that's not my desire but it could be God's plan for us. So I fell into bed around 12:30 and was up at 5:30. I hope to hear from everyone about the school books so I can get them paid for and get them in.

I promise I am getting to the Post Title-Why do we home school--it all started off when I went to The Imperfect Housewife to get her Knock Off Knock Out pictures and she had this post about her job as a librarian. She also had a library video, from you tube--it is funny.

She had a link to a gal who is a librarian who then told what a day in the life of a librarian is like-it is really pretty funny- you should check it out This was my first visit to her blog and I left her a post. I have changed a bit of my comment, adding in some things for my post. Here is what I posted plus a little more.

This is very funny but I was thrilled that in the midst of the funny, you stopped to praise Home Schoolers and their behavior. I know there are Moms out there that have to work and do not have the opportunity to home school. This is not intended to bash people who choose to do school. Let me just add in that it is a sacrifice for us to home school. My husband is in school right now and we have made huge sacrifices to continue home schooling-so I know, first hand, that it can be difficult, but for us it is a priority-these are our kids and we want to give them OUR best. Yes, we don't have certain expenses that families with schooled children have but we also pay for everything ourselves. We get no tax breaks for this (which is AMAZING to me because if every home schooled family sent their children to the public school in their area-each class would be so overloaded. You would have teachers outraged at the number of children they were expected to teach in each class. I am sure the teachers union would be involved. If you send your children to public school, you too would probably be setting appointments with the teacher and principal because your children would have less teacher time, maybe you would notice their grades slipping and just not understand why. Everyone would feel the squeeze. We also pay taxes that pay for those teachers salaries, so the amount of tax being collected would not change, just the number of students that had to be taught, so there would not be extra money to hire more teachers-they would just have to do the best they could. We do them a huge favor. On a side note many of the National Spelling Bee champs have been children who were home schooled.) There are personal sacrifices, at times, I don't run to catch a coffee with my girlfriends after dropping the kids off at school and then go work out and clean the house and have everything in place before picking the kids up with a snack and the house filled with the aroma of dinner cooking. No, for us-we get up and have coffee here at home and start school. I run back and forth between working with the kids on their school questions to making sure the 2 little ones aren't into something. I am getting dinner ready and doing laundry, un-loading and re-loading the dishwasher, mopping floors and running the vac. Sometimes we have to stop and take a break. My kids help around the house, as well. Life is very busy but I do enjoy being able to teach our kids.
SO Why do we home school? Because we want to be the driving influence in our children's lives not other children teaching them their new "tricks" or a teacher pouring her life into their lives as well as 20 + other children that she is not personally invested in. We are constantly told how well behaved our children are and how well they converse with adults on adult topics. People are truly AMAZED. I want my children to know how to "get it" and for it to stick with them-not just until the test, I can teach them the ways I learned it but then other and better ways to do it, or how it clicked for me. When kids are in school they are so concerned about what everyone is wearing and the social game going on around them and where they stand in that hierarchy game of life. They are many times scared to raise their hand and ask a question out of fear that someone will think they are dumb or that their question is silly-when you home school they have no fear, in the safety of their own home, to ask a question and probe and then possibly be intriqued enough to want to do some research on the topic. I can pour more of my life into my children, teaching them so many valuable lessons. I can take a simple school lesson and teach my children a very valuable life lesson. Then there is the fact that each child learns in a different way, a teacher can not reach out and teach every child in a different way, on their level-it is physically IMPOSSIBLE. As soon as I see that someone isn't "getting it" we can stop and work on that area until they GET IT a teacher can't do that-they have a schedule to stay on. Schools are designed for the medium child, if a child has difficulties they try to deal with learning problems-but then you have the effects of the social issues that go with that TATOO. If a child is "bright" they can try to give them extra work or place them in advance classes, but then there are issues there also. If you want no child left behind-try home schooling. It is a busy life around here-do I sit and just do anything for me-RARELY but I cherish the time I have with my children-one day-too soon- they will be gone. I am raising the next generation here and I want honorable people who know what they believe and have the conviction to do what is right, not because Mom and Dad thought this was the way to do things but because they KNOW what they believe in their hearts. My children are not perfect and we deal with issues as they come up. I am thankful for children who have a tender heart and want to do the right thing. My children will make decisions that are different than what I would do and that is OK. I love to see them excel in an area and see a love that they have for certain things and be able to steer them in a possible career direction that they might love and have natural skills in. I also love working on a project and being able to teach my children HOW to do something, or cooking a meal and teaching them the best way to cook something or WHY you do it in this order.

My 2 oldest boys have been asked, by a neighbor to walk her dogs both in our previous home and here. The other day another lady stopped our boys (and had already discussed with the dogs owners, our boys responsibility level) and wanted to hire our boys to walk her dog as well and said she knew someone else that would probably hire them to walk their dog-while walking her dog. They also cut grass, edge, weed and trim a yard-weekly. Our boys have not even turned into teenagers yet and are making about $200 a month. We have been able to teach them all kinds of lessons on money management, saving, giving, discount shopping, coupons, credit, investing-things a teacher would not have time to teach my children and this is an area I want to pour myself into my kids. My kids wouldn't have the time to make this kind of money, if they were in school.

Because home schooling doesn't take as long each day, we have extra time to be able to have our children involved in extra curricular things where they are able to learn and experience things schooled children would not be able to do.

Our children have no problems playing with other kids-they are social. That is always one question=people fear that their kids would not have any interaction with other children. In a school day there isn't tons of verbal or play time interaction going on-believe me our children get plenty.

If anyone has ever considered home schooling but just didn't know if you could do it--and you have questions and would like to know more. I would be more than glad to chat with you.

Oh--and best of all, our evenings are fun without any homework. We have family time every night, no stress about getting homework done etc. And we can get up whatever we want in the mornings. There isn't any stress in the mornings trying to get people out the door by a certain time. Ifeel sorry for schooled kids and their families-this is the life.

I will do another post some time on why we even looked into home schooling and what curriculum we have gone with and why.