Reason for Being

The reasons I started this blog :

*To attempt and get myself organized, at least in the area of homeschooling. I currently have about 8 huge binders and keep every single paper they ever do. This is not going to work much longer.

* We are shifting our homeschool journey. We currently aren't even technically homeschoolers. We are public school students who receive most of their instruction at home. This is all because we partner with a PPP ( Parent Partnership Program) in our district. These are fairly popular and a great option to keep you legal, offer lots of resources, give kids a bit of a school feel, fun classes for free or cheap and other reasons. But recently our PPP has started to become more and more like a public school. I started working there this year and saw a lot of behind the scenes workings and realized this is no longer the place for us. Unfortunately, I am contracted there until January but after that we will be free and independent homeschoolers.

*Last week I attended an almost 4 hour Parent Qualifying Course to legally be able to homeschool my children in the state of WA without an overseeing certificated teacher. It was an awesome course to take and receive the certification at the end. The teacher gave a lot of great tips and blogging for record keeping was one of them.

*We started out unschool, we had some problems and didn't last for very long. Since we partner with a PPP they require monthly proof and twice yearly evaluation that your child is keeping up with the district standards for that grade. Which has shifted us to be teaching towards the testing and evaluating. It is is not our normal rhythm, we work at a grueling stressful pace, we are always behind - in where we should be in the year and where the girls should be testing. We have completely lost our fun and student led learning. I realized this as everyday there was a battle that ended in tears on both sides. This is not why we homeschool! This is NOT how it should be! I can't believe I am teaching my children for someone else's standards I don't even agree with! So after some soul searching we are shifting back towards unschooling.

* Because Story has moderate dyslexia and has been made to feel, until this point , that it is a learning disability that puts her behind, requires tutoring and is something that is wrong with her for the rest of her life. So wrong! She has dyslexia, which means she learns different. At it is my privilege to teach to her unique strengths and struggles . I am thoroughly enjoying researching and learning about dyslexia. I don't have it and didn't really understand it. I thought it meant people read backwards. Even when my older daughter was diagnosed with it all I understood was she would probably be a  bad speller and a blue lens in front of the words helped. Now, she is a bad speller but that is my fault. I don't think I used the right learning to tools to help unlock her learning potential. And I feel awful for failing her like that.

* Because I have a lot to say and I love talking about what we do in this house. I don't always get much of a chance to talk around here but I have a lot to share. Maybe I will never use this site again. Maybe it will become my new favorite outlet. Maybe I will eventually broaden it to include other things that happen around the house. Because honestly, our house is a unique, functioning blend of magic and people and animals and plants and chaos and different interests and schedules and diets and it all works amazingly!

* Because my small little town is lonely. I have been the oddball out for more than a decade. We live in a beautiful place in the Evergreen state but I don't belong here. I have a few more years until my older kids graduate and then we can move on. And that leads me to my next thought.....My older kids attend a High School I can honestly say I hate and disagree with. The influence of that High School is awful. But the kids are heavily invested and I don't think pulling them out is the right answer. I should have never let them start but now I just have to ride it out....gritting my teeth the whole time.