Beginning to Homeschool

At the beginning of this year I began homeschooling my daughter. Ever since birth I knew that I wanted to homeschool, but wasn't quite sure how I would get there. There is so much information out there that it is easy to get bogged down by all the specifics. One question leads to more questions and pretty soon you are in a maze of information where you don't know which way is out, what you really want, or even how to get there. One of my hangups that has kept me from achieving success in various things is called analysis paralysis. I think about things too much, do too much research, quickly get lost, don't know how to get started and ultimately never get started. As three approached I was drowning in information and time was dwindling down. I had to make a decision, to homeschool or send her to public school.

Like all dilemmas, problems we turn over to our mind to figure out, we eventually stumble across a solution, something to help us with that dilemma. This solution is usually found in the last place we would have ever looked, because, by this time, we have moved onto something else entirely. I don't remember exactly what I was looking for, but I stumbled across a website called http://mommylife.net/ . It talked about the "prepared environment", creating an environment that is conducive to your child and facilitates their learning. It said to look at things from their perspective, small people in a world more than twice their size, and take steps to be more accommodating to them. Basically, what you are doing is: speaking directly to your child, not at them; taking their needs, wants and opinions as valid; and creating an entirely new form of communication between the two of you. Communication that can lead to peace in the household.

Barbara Curtis has twelve children over 30 some years, homeschooled most of them, was a former Montessori teacher, and an author. She seemed to know what she was talking about, it seemed correct to my heart, in fact it spoke to me, so I decided that I would apply Montessori principles to homeschooling. Boy what a relief that was. Now we can focus on the important stuff of really making this work for us. I will talk more about my "prepared environment" in another post.