This Relaxed Homeschooler

Originally published at Homeschoolin' Mamas
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is doing a 180.

We have taken the plunge and signed the girls up with Minnesota Virtual Academy (a K12 program). I think I will miss our relaxed homeschooling days, but it is exciting to move on to something new, as well.

Why the change, you may ask?

Well. As much as what we have done for the past two years has really worked for us in these early grades, the times they are a-changin'. Firstborn Daughter is now moving on to third grade, and she really needs something more rigorous and organized and scheduled and planned and detailed and...you get what I'm saying? I just don't have the time or energy to put into making her education rigorous, organized, scheduled, planned, and detailed on my own. In order to continue homeschooling now that she is older, there are two of school age at home now, Max will be right behind them shortly, pregnant mama is sick and crabby and miserable, there is still a house to keep clean, meals to be made, fun to be had...(deep breath)...we need to turn to some outside direction.

And I am very excited about this outside direction! The best thing about this program is that it is all laid out for us. All books, materials for experiments, a computer, everything, is mailed right to our doorstep and modem with complete instructions, for free! I'm sure there will end up being downsides to this; I'm wondering how it's going to be having to report every thing they do and grade things, etc. I'm also wondering how having to learn within a certain time frame of the year is going to work for us. I think it's a challenge we are up for, however.

I just love learning, growing, and changing as a family. This has been a real pleasant surprise of adult life for me.