Someone on another forum mentioned living in a 2-bedroom home with a bunch of kids. My homeschooling journey started out in a similar situation. We had purchased a little 900sf, 2-bedroom place on 1/4 an acre in the late 80's, hoping to either add-on or sell-up as our family (then 3 little girls, 4,3, and 1)grew. Then, the housing market changed, and we were stuck with a house that was too small, oon a lot so narrow we couldn't build more on (what did we know when we bought? oh, that would be NOTHING.) (we did have a cute backyard and a sunny garden spot, and BEES, though... that was cool!) What could we do but wait and pray? (and be very creative about space as daughters #4,5,6, and 7 arrived on the scene!!!) What does this all have to do with homeschooling? I'm getting to that. In those days, all I knew about homeschooling was that my WEIRD sister-in-law in Pennsylvania was doing it, it looked like an interesting idea, but she only had 2 kids. Besides, my kids were doing well at the small neighborhood elementary school. All that changed in the mid-90's, as I began to meet families with 7,8,9 or more children, who were homeschooling and LOVING IT... I was intrigued. In a word, my husband said "NO!" So I decided to wait and pray some more. In the spring of 1996, our next-door neighbor CAME TO US, and asked us if we would like to buy her 1800sf, SIX-bedroom house!!! For the tax-assessed value!!! We sure did, but didn't have the necessary $5000 to put down, even after cashing our children's savings bonds. More prayer. Along cam e another neighbor (now, this is NOT a rich neighborhood, mind you!!!) who said that he heard that we were trying to buy the big house, and offered to loan us, with NO paperwork and NO interest, the remaining $3000. WOW! We went forward, and moved into our "house-next-door" that summer, keeping our first house as a rental. I saw this entire process as an answer to my homeschooling prayers, and after asking the kids to each write an essay about why they'd like to try homeschooling, presented them to my husband over breakfast one morning. He said "YES!", adding that he'd like to have the children tested by the school district at the end of the first year, to see their progress. Fine by me! I ordered way too many materials from a way-too-rigid curriculum source, did nothing but sit around and do schoolwork in our pajamas for the first month, burned out, and woke up one day realizing that this was NOT what I had envisioned. I returned most of the books, and started on a brand new path, of trying to figure out just what OUR personal homeschooling journey was going to be like. (I'm STILL trying to figure that out!) So, what ARE our days like? Well, every one is different, that's for sure! We've found that we thrive best in a relaxed, not TOO structured atmosphere, where we provide lots of hands-on learning experiences (but a basic daily routine is crucial, otherwise we have an entire household of folks "doin' their own thing", like sleeping in and watching movies!!!) We have Catholic Heritage Curricula (and we LOVE it!!!)for the basics, and do LOTS of field trips and library visits, and are VERY involved in our parish life and in pro-life efforts in our city. (BTW, dear Hubby saw that the children were doing so well, that he quickly became my #1 supporter!!!) Our philosophy is that we are educating these kids for HEAVEN, not Harvard!!!

So, that's my story, and I'm stickin' to it... what's yours???

Marcia

In our family it was my husband who started the homeschooling. I had already graduated and was starting my first job, and hub was going to school. He took on the childcare and when the eldest was school age, the schooling. We lived in a city near a college campus, so there were plenty of resources. Hub's background is science, so kids were always doing nature walks, science experiments. When we relocated beacuse of hub's job, I became the primary teacher. My background is history and literature.

Because we are such a diverse bunch--we had kids come to our family speaking Spanish, Korean, and Creole--we keep up the languages and encourage individual interests. The kids are in school now--except our 1 year old 'outlyer' foster child-but we still do a lot of teaching within the family--reading, geography, nature, languages, practical math--whenever the opportunity presents.

GG

I started homeschooling in our family, but now that Kevin is home, it is a shared job. We train our older kids to tutor the younger. It gives them good experience, and allows us to better balance business and homeschool.

Laura
Mom to Eight

Marcia-so there is hope right? with #5 on the way I can't imagine getting anymore creative with our space:) Frankly a second bathroom would be a godsend at this point! We are praying and waiting for our buyer. Thanks for sharing!!!!:)