This ASK SARAH series will help answer some of the questions my readers have had about me and our family. If you have any other questions for me, please let me know by leaving them in a comment below. Your question may be the next one I write about in ASK SARAH.
Many people have asked us over the years about our reason for homeschooling. As more and more people are choosing to homeschool, it is important to know why you and your family have decided to school your children in this way. When the days get long and you begin to question why you are homeschooling, it is import to look back on your “why” so you will be encouraged to continue. Follow along to hear about our homeschooling journey.
Our backgrounds
Danny and I grew up in Christian homes where we were brought to church on a regular basis. We each heard the Gospel preached and learned a lot about God and the Bible. Our families chose to have us attend different types of schools, though. Danny lived in a small town in rural Lancaster County Pennsylvania and attended public school there. He first went to a small elementary school down the road from his home and then at a large local high school.
While he attended public schools, I attended the same private Christian school from four-year-old preschool to grade 12. I had only 35 graduate from my class, which we thought was rather big! Before we got married, we discussed how we would educate our children in the future. We decided that we would really have to wait until we had children to make those decisions. There were pros and cons to every school. We didn’t really consider homeschooling because some homeschool families we knew were extreme and produced socially awkward children.
Our children
I stopped teaching first grade when baby Grace was born. She was a bright little girl (no, really she was!) and always asked us questions about what she saw. Her vocabulary was extensive for her age…. talking all the time. She loved learning so much that she begged me to help her with an ABC puzzle when she was only two. Putting the whole thing together by herself, she knew all most of the letters with their sounds before turning three. She was practically reading around that time.
When it became time for her to attend kindergarten in Iowa, there was only full day kindergarten. We looked into that, but we didn’t know what she would learn there. She was a thriving reader, she knew addition facts, she could write beautifully, and she even liked creating sentences! She had quite a bit of socialization with the other children in our family, playdates with friends, church, AWANA, and MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers, which I led). We decided that for this first year, we would keep her home to start a more formal homeschool — with workbooks and a mini school room.
While I loved creating a homeschool space, decorating, and finding books for Grace, the biggest thing that I loved was not having to say goodbye to my little girl. I couldn’t fathom having her away from me for over six hours a day! It seemed unnecessary. During this time, we fell in love with homeschooling… we loved doing projects together (just Grace and I), we loved including all the kids in our learning, we loved the structure of having some school to do and then scheduling other things outside the home, we loved “going to school” in our basement, and we loved choosing what we wanted Grace and the other children to learn.
Our next steps
As we got further and further into our school year, we began to do more research on what it meant to homeschool in our state and what the Bible says about homeschooling. I read a lot about what our next steps should be (see the list of what I read at the bottom of this post.) I wanted to be prepared to let people know our “why” for homeschooling. We began to be convicted that since God put these children into our home, we needed to be their primary teachers and primary influence.
If our children were gone from home during their best hours of the day, then how could we disciple them well in the leftover hours?
How could we train them in the ways of the Lord if we were not available to them?
Wouldn’t the choice of curriculum play a huge part in what point of view they learned?
Wouldn’t our family thrive in the flexible hours and days that we could homeschool and visit family or take a vacation?
The more we read and the more we prayed, we became convinced that homeschooling was right for our family. If you would have told us back when we were dating that we would be making that decision, we would have laughed at you. But now that we had the several months of first-hand experience, research, and conviction from God, it solidified our decision.
God’s provision
As each of our children reached school age, we began adding more children to our formal homeschool setting. Even the babies, though, were part of homeschooling as they played alongside us or listened to the audio books that we were listening to. The preschoolers and toddlers also participated in lessons, games, activities, and field trips. (It was amazing to see how much the little ones knew before they even started formal schooling from hearing their siblings’ lessons over the years.)
Since we were already homeschooling, we were able to more easily move to the mission field in Zambia when we felt God calling us. We just continued that on a new continent with new adventures to take, new foods to eat, new cultures to experience, new plants and animals to investigate, new people to meet, and new places to explore! Our homeschooling philosophy changed a little in those years in Zambia. We became convinced that we weren’t just homeschooling, but we were home-educating. Homeschooling is more than just schooling at home. We educate our children in all of life. The things that we did in the home and things outside the home were all part of their education. Ministry became and even bigger part of our homeschool as we served as a family in Zambia.
Whether we were traveling to a new country, exploring in an airport, viewing wildlife on a safari, eating N’shima with Zambian friends, having a pool party, creating signs for friends’ birthdays, cleaning a house for friends coming home from furlough, serving in the clinic, teaching Bible study, or playing with children on the playground, it was all part of our education. They may not have been hours in a classroom with books in front of them or pencils in their hands, but their education was far beyond what books could teach. Their life experiences were and are rich and full and perfectly imperfect.
Our plan for the future in homeschooling
We are still homeschooling, and we plan to graduate our first student in May 2025. We will have graduations planned for about every two years for the next 8 years or so. Our homeschooling looks a little different since we have been back in the USA. It now includes library runs, Dual Enrollment at a local college, and a homeschool Co-op, and we will be starting music lessons very soon. The US has many more opportunities for our children, so we are slowly adding some of those things into our homeschool as we feel they are right for us.
But even in this new location, we continue to be convinced that homeschooling is the right decision for us. When we see other homeschooling families, we always discuss curriculum and schedules, but what I most love is talking all about the “why” of homeschooling. It truly helps me to see the heart of every family.
So what about you? Do you homeschool?
If you are interested in more of a conversation with me about homeschooling, please comment below or email me at thebiblicallymindedfamily@gmail.com.
Would you like to read some of the books that I read during my homeschool research year?
- Family Driven Faith Written by Voddie Baucham (Find it HERE.)
- Teaching from Rest Written by Sarah Mackenzie (Find it HERE.)
- The Well-Trained Mind Written by Susan Wise Bauer (I read this when I was newly homeschooling; find it HERE).
- Honey for a Child’s Heart By Gladys Hunt. (Find it HERE.)
Absolutely beautiful 😍
Thank you, Samantha! I pray that it was able to encourage you on your new homeschool journey!