When our son was in about 4th grade, we decided to take him out of the school system and homeschool. We had to go through the steps it took to take him out and prepare for the home atmosphere. We searched several different programs and asked other homeschool parents which one worked the best. We chose the A Beka program.
That program seemed a bit intense, but it also seemed more structured and the best for our son. We began with their video teaching but ended up not using them since a little more one on one seemed to work. The struggles of learning are more prominent for some than others, but especially for those who are born with difficulties.
The way our home is set up, we decided to set our classrooms in our living room. The bedrooms were too small and the middle room was too dark to see. The living room was spacious and had a lot of natural light and was the obvious choice.
It took a bit getting into a schedule but we managed! To keep him from feeling left out as far as school extracurricular activities and field trips, we also incorporated those into our schedule.
Our son was a very fast runner. Both of our kids were into taekwondo but he also joined a Christian track team. He was a bit uncomfortable at first because he knew no one, but gradually eased into the program. After a bit of running back and forth to practice and such, we decided that for time sake and driving a distance, perhaps we bit off more than we could chew, so the cliche goes.
There is so much in God’s creation to see and history was one subject we struggled with. He loved math and science! We took opportunities in seeing what we could and being in nature. We studied the trees and leaves, investigated dead and alive animals from the woods and farm, and made the mock volcanoes that all kids in school make.
We took field trips to various places as well. The Old Wild West was visited with a train ride and the military was covered by a family friend. That man was a retired military head of the mesh hall from Fort Knox. He was then able to take us on a personal tour of Fort Knox; showing us the building where the gold blocks were held, the museum of aircraft and military equipment, and even a meal with the officers in the Admiral’s mesh hall. It was a great experience and I believe I probably learned more and took it in better than our son.
We did have our difficulties with class time. It is much different for both of us being he was used to a teacher at school verses mom-teacher. God always had His hand in everything – sometimes my hand too – and we did a lot of praying! It took a lot of adjusting not only to a routine, but to each other.
