Blogging From A to Z - Five Reasons I Love Homeschooling

Welcome back to Blogging From A to Z! This week we are on letter F and I'm going to share with you five reasons of the many I love homeschooling (and yes, they all begin with F!).

1. Family Time

This is really important to me. Homeschooling allows me to be with my children all day, every day. We wake up in the morning and I'm not rushing them out to catch a bus where they'll be gone all day until the bus brings them back in the evening. We spend most of our days together. We run errands together, we do chores together, we do our schoolwork together, we read books together, we sit on the porch together - nearly every part of our day, from the small parts to the bigger parts, are done together. Doing life with my children is the best part of each and every day.

Zoo Trip!

Arts and Crafts (shirtless of course)

2. Free Time

This is another really important reason I love homeschooling! My kids have so much free time compared to their friends and cousins who go to public school. We are done with our schoolwork by lunch, and they have an extra three hours to pursue their interests, read books, or play outside compared to the public-school schedule. It really equates to much more than three hours, because if you factor in commute to and from school, it can really add up. Free time is really vital to a child's day - being bored sparks creativity and imaginative play and forces your child to think of ways to entertain themselves. My boys will play outside for hours, building forts in the woods or making up games in the yard or jumping on the trampoline or taking care of the animals. If it's raining outside, they'll make up games inside to play with Zeke, draw or color, build with Legos, or read. Mercie has plenty of time to devote to her horses and chickens, and I'm so glad their days aren't scheduled from sun-up to sun-down! Even though we do have outside commitments, like Taekwondo, and plenty of farm chores, they still have tons of free time.

Mercie and Butterfinger, the horse she is breaking herself.

3.) A Firm Foundation

I really pray that I'm building a strong foundation in my children's lives - a foundation of faith, family, and learning. First a foundation of faith because our Christian faith is the most important thing in our lives. I'm reading the Bible with my children, praying for and with my children, and hopefully modeling a godly way of life for them to imitate. We go to church and serve in the church, participating in many different programs and outreach programs. Our faith is a lifestyle not just a hobby for us. 

An older picture of Mercie reading a storybook Bible to the boys.

Second we are trying to build healthy and strong family relationships. I want my children to be best friends with their siblings, loving and encouraging each other, taking care of one another. I also want to have strong parental relationships with my children especially as they grow into adulthood. I want them to trust me and talk to me and know that if they need help or prayer, they can always come to me. 

Climbing a tree together!

Lastly I want my children to have a solid foundation of learning. What I mean by this is that I want them to know how to learn and to love to learn. I want to give them all the tools they need to learn what they want or need to know in life. I also want learning to be something that is exciting and fun, something to look forward to in life! This will serve them well if they go to college, when they start their career, and when they begin a family.

This is from a blog post from 2016 about gentle learning!

4.) Fun

Homeschooling is fun for me (well, most of the time!). I also want it to be fun for my children. Over the years, we have really done some neat activities! We've been to many different libraries when we traveled with my husband for his job. In those libraries, we have participated in lots of programs and met some really nice people. Visiting new libraries is a highlight of our memories of traveling! We have visited many different parks and playgrounds in our travels. We've also made some awesome art projects, done some cool experiments, read interesting books, and visited some really fun places. Our homeschool routines have ebbed and flowed through the years, depending on our life circumstances (babies, toddlers, preschoolers) but I think we've managed to keep a pretty steady flow of fun in our days. Board games, arts and crafts, and day trips break up mundane homeschool days in a fun way!

Picnic lunch indoors at a summer reading program at a library in Ohio.

Titus won a fireman's hat when a fireman came to give a presentation at the library.

Making perfume this year as part of a history project!

5.) Farm Life

Homeschooling allows my children to be fully immersed into our family's farm life. We have horses, cows, chickens, dogs, cats, and a rabbit. We have lots of land and even farm soybeans and wheat some years. My children have responsibilities like feeding the animals, helping with worming and medicines, helping to build and repair fences, keeping the yard mowed, gathering eggs, driving tractors, and more. They learn so much from all of their duties and questions! If they were in school most of the day, they wouldn't be able to be as involved as they are in the day to day workings of our farm. Mercie is able to work with her horses for hours each day. She has trained Lil Bit to run barrels and is nearly done breaking another horse! We are so blessed that we have this time and ability. 

Even Zeke can help with farm chores.

Picking peas!

Feeding cottonseed to the cows who need a bit of bulking up.

There are so many more reasons we love homeschooling! It's become a lifestyle over the past 14 or 15 years. I look forward to many more years of homeschooling, as Zeke is only three and Zoey is yet to be born. What is one of the reasons you love homeschooling?

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