Principlediscovery is hosting a Home Education Week. 

Writing Prompt:  Profiling Home Educators(Describe yourself, your family or one of you children)

We are a family of 5.  Me, my DH, and three DD’s.  Our ages are old, older and 17, 15 and 11 We also have 1 Golden Retriever, 4 fish and 1 turtle.(And more often than not, other “creatures” that our youngest has captured)

I guess you would say that we use mostly a textbook approach in our homeschooling.  I like the idea of using a more “Charlotte Mason” approach, and I have tried to intertwine some of that into my teaching, but my kids, especially my oldest, simply prefer to have textbooks.

My oldest daughter, has the attitude of, just give me the books and let me learn it on my own.  She is very much a self-motivator and always does a great job on her learning.  She is a very analytical person and loves Science and Health and anything having to do with that.  She hopes to be a doctor or work somehow in the medical or medical research field.  She loves the idea of one day going to a foreign land and helping sick people there. She also wants to completely destory the whole Darwinism thought about evolution and show how it is totally absurd(thank you Dr. Wile).  She has used Apologia Science for years and considers Dr. Jay Wile her favorite teacher.  One anomaly for her though, is that she loves poetry.  She writes beautiful poems and love reading poetry.  It doesn’t really go with the rest of her personality, but it is just something that has developed over time.

My middle daughter is much different. Although, she has very much enjoyed her Health Curriculum, she tends to love the more creative subjects the most.  She pretty much prefers to spend as much time as possible writing.  I have often said that if I could somehow figure out how to teach Math from writing essays, we would be doing wonderfully She  has notebook after notebook full of creative and imaginative stories that she has written.  Some are short stories, some are essays and then others are what I would call semi-novels.  She has also written many skits through the years that she and her sisters have performed.  She has talked about being a journalist or even becoming an author one day.  She truly has a gift and it is great watching her be able to express her thoughts and imagination on paper.  She also loves studying weather.  She will probably end up being a storm chaser one day and then write about her encounters.

My youngest daughter is the entertainer in the family.  She loves doing anything, no matter what it is, as long as someone will watch her do it.  She loves to put on shows.  She dances, so we are invited quite often to sit on the couch and watch this new dance that she has created.  Her ideal world would be a room filled with wall-to-wall mirrors so she could watch herself performing what play or dance or act she has created.  She is definitely our drama person.  She also has a deep love for nature and animals.  She likes getting her nature journal and walking around outside trying to find things to chronicle in her notebook.  She wants to be some sort of wildlife person when she grows up.  She says she could never be a veterinarian since they have to hurt animals sometimes when they treat them.  She wants to live on a farm and have lots and lots of animals around everywhere.  She says she is never leaving home and wants to stay with me and her daddy forever.  Which is fine with me, by the way!

My husband worked for a company for 14 years, but in 2002 they shut down the plant and we have been pretty much making it on our own since then.  Sometimes it has gotten rough and sometimes we start looking for a “real” job to help us along the way, but we love the lifestyle that being self-employed allows us to have.  We don’t “have” alot, but what we do have is a remarkable family relationship.  We are in a definite “holding pattern” right now and we are just waiting to see what God has for us next.

Well, that is our family.  We tend to think outside the box and we probably don’t make decisions that most people would make, but it works for us and we love this glorious life that God has enabled us to live.  Ain’t God Good!!

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