The Introduction

So, I thought, I've posted my first post in my new blog, giving me some "blogging" experience, and thought, I should do a little introduction.

My name is Jennifer, I'm married to Ed, and we have four gorgeous children, Rebecca, Jonathan, Savannah and Isabella. Ed's from TX and I'm from MO and we reside there, except right now Ed's been activated to Augusta, GA so we are all there. We have discovered we love Ga. We love the cultural diversity, and especially the weather. Our blog is titled "Outside the Wake" because we love water sports and boating. Getting outside the wake is often the goal of a skiier, tuber, wake boarder, etc. Did I mention we love to go to the lake and we love boating?!

I started homeschooling my children a month ago "temporarily" while we are in GA, and have discovered that I love it! I love being with my children. I didn't realize how much I missed them when they were at school for 8 hours a day. We are all learning so much academically and about each other. There are things about my children I thought I knew, but didn't, and they are learning to get along better. I think that family is where you learn life skills. I've learned so much about homeschoolling in the last few weeks. I struggled the first week, of course we were in a new location and not in our permanent apartment yet. But the curriculum I had was boring, sitting at the table, trying to keep up with what they were supposed to be doing at school. Jon's been in kindergarten so I wasn't too worried about him going back to school because he's already way past kindergarten curriculum. I held Jon back a year to start kindergarten wanting him to be older, more emotionally/socially ready. Now I think, what kind of parent holds their child back when they want to go forward? Jon begged me to put him in first grade, so now he is doing first grade curriculum and flying through it. I shake my head that I just didn't get it earlier with him.

Rebecca has wanted me to homeschool her for awhile, so she was excited to do it. She is flying through third grade. I struggle with the decision to put her back in school when we get back to MO. She wants me to, and I know she has a great teacher and wants to see her friends. Then next year she says I can homeschool her, she just wants to finish the year. But if she goes back, Jon will want to and I don't see putting him back in kindergarten. I've pretty much made up my mind to keep them at home. They have so much more time to play and do other things after their school work is done.

I think the biggest concern for most people about homeschooling is their children getting social opportunities. However, now, in most places there are homeschoolling coops. In Jefferson City, I'm planning on participating once a week in the specialized classes taught, i.e. k-2 history or whatever is offered, and then once a month they have a play group with others their age...so play group once a month and school-like class once a week, I thought that was great, not to mention any other extra-curricular stuff we do, like dance and tae kwon do. I think they will be plenty socialized,(even though we are actually conservative).

So as far as homeschoolling curriculum, I really struggled the first couple of weeks trying to figure out what to do. I was turned onto the book "The Well-Trained Mind" and that has made the biggest difference. It's a great book whether you want to homeschool or supplement your child's education and is a great resource book of which curricula, puzzles, books they think are the best. It is based on the trivium, (the 3 "Rs") and classical education, so here we go! Let's learn the classics! I'm excited because we are starting with Ancient history, Greek, Egyptian, Roman and going along with Old Testment time. I'll keep you posted.