So today begins an exciting journey for me.
This is my first ever blog and I am super excited to share my homeschooling journey with the world.
To give a little back story, I am the mother of eight beautiful
children.
My husband and I call them “the top four and bottom four.”
With the top four, my husband and I did things the traditional way.
Early mornings, bus pickups, parent teacher meetings, and all the
fixings. Our outcome includes three of the four as college students.
One with a full ride. One on a football scholarship. And the other only
30 credit hours shy of graduating.
Although we handled it all, I can honestly say, it has not been the best experience all the time.
With the bottom four, my husband and I made the choice to provide our children with the educational instruction we felt they would need to be successful in life, We decided to homeschool.
One of the first questions we tackled was, “How in the world do we still feed ourselves if I no longer work?”
Well, we became creative with our financial
situation and made the statement, “our children were worth whatever sacrifice we needed to make for their futures.”
I will explain in another post where my educational determination and drive comes into play. It is an interesting story all on its own. Trust me!
But back to this story…..
I began researching the best way to start homeschooling and how to develop lesson plans, and who to report to?
You have to understand I am that momma that has to have everything in order (well at least organized chaos).
I mean for every question I had; it was answered with another question. I felt like I was just running around in circles. Between Pinterest, Facebook, and
the world wide web, there was just sooooooooo much info. It was an
overkill on things.
Simply said, I was done, done, done!
I went back to my husband and was like, “We must rethink this thing.”
After my meltdown, he took me to dinner. I had a drink. And we figured out a better plan.
He helped me to think of the plan I used to tackle the beginning
process.
First, I identified what areas I felt our children were lacking in school
and what I felt would allow them to grow into well rounded students.
The next step in the process was to research which lessons plans to
use. The web came in handy. For example, I wanted my children to
learn about Africa and its geography, ecology, and understand its
ancient roots. So, this was one of the topics I choose to include within
this year’s study.
So now that I had this plan.
I began to prepare.
I developed lesson plans and attendance sheets.
I had a work area designed so my husband could build our desk.
I mean ……. I was really on a roll.
Well at least I thought I was on the roll.
At some point I realized that I still wanted to ensure my children were in line with the State of South Carolina standards and on target with their peers. But how to ensure this I wasn’t sure. So…
To say the least, I was devastated and again frustrated.
But this time, there was no dinner.
Instead I began looking for support groups.
I was like, “there’s got to be something or someone out there that can point me in the right direction.”
Well there was and she was an articulate, interesting, and
inspiring home-schooling mom. Angela Jordan Perry.
Angela is the director and owner of a home schooling association in South Carolina, United Community of Homeschoolers Unlimited, LLC. (UCHC).
She provided me with direction and guidance and even inspired me to begin capturing my experiences through this journey.
I highly recommend any new home-schooling parent to look her up and see about her services.
As a matter of fact, I have referred a few families to her.
Since my connection with UCHU, I learned my true lesson as it relates to homeschooling.
“It is a way of life.”
A parent must be dedicated to this way of life in order to be successful; and for their children to be successful.
It truly is a way of life.
To be continued………..
Founder/CEO of Legacy Family Based Consulting Firm, LLC. Dr. Ford obtained her Doctor of Management from the University of Phoenix in Organizational Management and Leadership; Master of Science in Administration of Justice and Security from the University of Phoenix; Undergraduate degree in Political Science from the University of Central Florida. Married to her college sweetheart and soul mate for over 10 years; together they have eight wonderful children and is a new homeschooling family. Dr. Ford’s faith provides her the determination she needs and knows it’s time to move in an ecumenical, economical, and ecological way to ensure progressive growth through generations.