Homeschool week #3: Some of Our Preparation Steps

This is the 3rd and final post in our homeschool series (though we’ll post about it more in the future, I’m sure). If you missed anything, here is Monday’s post, where we shared pictures of day 1 of school, and here is Tuesday’s post, where we shared a tour of our room and the choices we made in curriculum.

Today, we are sharing some of the other things we did to get ready for this major step in our lives. Obviously, there is no way we could list every small decision, but we wanted to share some that have been most helpful and memorable.

1. Prayer and Conversation. Lots of both! We both prayed a lot for this decision for many years, and, as the time drew closer to make the final decision, there were many short, but important conversations.

2. Choice of House. While you can homeschool in basically any house, we bought our house knowing that this was a possibility (though the kids were 2 and 1 at the time). We bought a house with an office that we knew could be used for this purpose if we chose, or could remain a nice office if we didn’t.

3. Conversations with Others. As we made the final decisions, we talked with folks about homeschooling. We worship with a few families who homeschool, and who have helped tremendously in giving ideas. We know other homeschoolers as well, so through email and other means, have asked some questions and tried to gather as much information as possible. I’m sure this will continue throughout the years of doing this, but we want to say “thank you” to everyone who gave us your ear during these months!

4. Treating It as “Natural.” In other words, once we decided that this was what we were going to do, we talked about it a lot around the house. Just as most families “talk up” the first day of school and Kindergarten, we did, too. We tried to get the kids excited about it, and we let them see the changes in the room as it was getting ready.

5. Budgeting. Homeschooling doesn’t have to cost much, but getting ready for the first year can be a lot of money. Since we really wanted the room to be like a school room (including furniture, as you saw in yesterday’s post), we knew there would be some cost involved. So, we looked at our budget many times. We had a garage sale. We used some speaking money. We comparison shopped. All this helped us do what needed to be done for not a lot of money.

6. Sources. There is no way I could list every source we used to get ready (besides curriculum and furniture sites), but I want to mention two specifically.

Leah was told about a great blog, Confessions of a Homeschooler, that has already served as an invaluable resource, both in reading material and in supplies. It has really helped us get ideas, and provides tons of downloads and links that are helping us already.

As one who loves to read, I checked out Homeschooling: Take a Deep Breath, You Can Do This from our local library to read. While this was not quite the book I thought it would be, it did help me in the last few days before we started to have some things to think about, and it reminded me of some of what I learned in my college education classes. [Link to this book on Amazon here.]

7. Calendar Discussions. When to start school? When to take breaks? With Polishing the Pulpit coming right in the middle of August, we decided to start a bit early (August 1), so we could have 2 weeks of school in before that, and come back ready for a longer stretch. Leah checked to make sure that we had the right number of days (180) and could be done by the end of May, while having the normal breaks (Thanksgiving, Christmas).

8. The Final Week. The last week before school started, we did three things to get ready.

First, on Monday night, we took the kids to the store to buy their school supplies. We chose some, and let them choose some, too. Since they were going to school, they needed supplies, and they thought it was great (although, I was a bit worried about how much Turner loved scissors!).

On Tuesday, it was “date the teacher” night. Leah and I went out for a date without the kids (thanks to a dear friend!) and enjoyed some free time away from all the preparations. We talked about homeschooling, but wanted to spend most of the time just “being” and letting our minds rest from it all for a couple of hours. We hope to continue this on a regular basis during the year.

Finally, on Thursday, I took the Kindergarten student out on a “daddy date.” I called and asked Mary Carol if she wanted to go on a date (thankfully, she said yes!). I told her to let mommy pick out a nice dress, and we’d dress up for this date, because it was very special. We went out to eat (she loves Chick-fil-A, so that was a bonus on the budget!), then went to a couple of stores. On our date, I bought her the dress she wore on her first day of school. Finally, we stopped by and bought everyone cheesecake to enjoy and celebrate this milestone together. [Here is a picture of us, all dressed up and ready to go.]

So, as you can see, it has been a long process. This by no means exhausts the list of all we did to get ready, but we hope it shows that there was an intentional nature to it, but that it is something nearly anyone can do, if they really want to. Please pray for us as we get underway with this first year. We are truly excited to see what the future holds.