"Love begins at home, and it is not
how much we do... but how much love we put in that action."

- Mother Teresa

Thursday, June 13, 2013

I’m Not the Typical Homeschool Mom

I’m not the typical classical homeschool mom. I do not have my hair in a bun, I wear PJ’s most of the day (who wants more laundry by changing clothes) and I do not plan out every learning experience by the book. I consider music class as how to play cups to the cup song and watching The Weather Channel for geography. We have homeschool books but we veer off course a lot. If the kids wake up and say, “Can we make Duck Tape purses or cook all day?” How can I say no to that? I don’t! So now that I told on myself for not being perfect I will proceed to tell my experience when I took my 4th grader (Freckles) to her achievement testing. The instructions sheet said, “Bring: ruler, scrap sheets of paper, calculator, and 2 # 2 sharpened pencils, and a snack with a drink.” I packed her a ruler, scrap paper, calculator, 6 #2 sharpened pencils, a soda, bag of chips, and a bag of cookies. She walks into a class room filled with about 20 other homeschool children, and begins testing. Freckles had to take the test for 3 consecutive days. The first day she comes out wet and looks at me and says, “I opened my coke during snack time it exploded, thank you for packing me the tissues. My book got wet and my pages stuck together and I messed up my bubble sheet on math because my pages were sticky.” I apologized and we went to the store to get a different drink not soda. While shopping she proceeds to tell me that she was the only one who brought a soda and the only one with a bag of chips. The other homeschoolers had hummus dip, apples, bananas, and sandwiches in cooler bags; Wow, I was thinking mother of the year award right here! I asked, “Well did you want a healthier snack to take tomorrow?” Freckles said, “heck no, those cookies were good except I think the all the other kids were drooling over them.” So by the 3rd testing day they said Freckles messed up her math and the bubbles were off. I was like oh well her teacher isn’t going to get mad if her results are low. Luckily this did not seem to upset or traumatize Freckles in anyway. One month later we received her test results and they weren’t that bad. Her math scores were low but I wasn’t expecting them to be all that considering I sent her in the testing center with a loaded soda bottle. She scored her grade level in math and in reading 10.7 grade level. Proud momma! It felt good to know that I don’t have to take the straight path to homeschooling for learning to happen, it can happen on a curvy dirt road.

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