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Becoming the Homeschooling Type

Hello!

I am a mother to three amazing, creative, curious children who all have some form of Albinism. Each one of them a blessing in their own way.  I stay at home full time to raise these world changers. 

Today I want to share with you about the decision we were faced with, our oldest starting Kindergarten in the fall. He loves everything to do with school! He thoroughly enjoyed two years of preschool, and he attended the elementary school just down the street from our house in Omaha, Nebraska. All of the faculty and staff that handled his IEP (Individualized Education Plan) were better than we could ask for. Knowing the amazing people at school have the best interest for Peyton made the decision to homeschool a difficult one, however after a lot of prayer and research our family decided to homeschool this year. Peyton will start and finish kindergarten at home.

Last month we got the email entailing the back to school guidelines. As I was reading over them I was feeling disheartened. Thoughts like these started racing through my head. How is my six-year-old going to wear a mask for seven hours? He already has issues with vision, how will he be able to see when his glasses are fogged up? How many harsh chemicals will they spray in the classroom? Will his skin react to them? To be honest, I am not the kind of person who worries, yet these questions had me up at night thinking about my child’s education.  

When you have three children under 6, sleep is a precious thing. I was always the person who would say “I am not the homeschooling type.” As parents we want our children to grow, learn, thrive, and succeed. I knew for my son there was no way he could thrive in that kind of environment. So I decided to become the homeschooling type. Now the adventure begins.


Decision is made, now what? It wasn’t as easy as I thought it was going to be. You don’t just send an email to the school your child is enrolled in saying, “Hey! We are homeschooling! Peace out.” If only it was that easy. The form is online, for me it took a while to fill out. You need to have a letter written up stating the reason why you want to homeschool. A detailed list of the curriculums that you’re going to use. A start and end date, and a total number of hours you're going to spend. Easy Peasy lemon squeezy right? 


The curriculum was the most challenging part of the whole thing, because I have so many different criterias and boxes that need to be checked off to find the ideal curriculum for us. 

Here are just a few.

  • Focus more on book learning instead of a screen

  • Does it have the same core values as my family’s 

  • Is it big enough for when he has to write/read it

  • PDF option so it can be print out or blown up if needed

  • Are the pictures clear enough/not cluttered

I am so pleased with the curriculum that I found, it’s called “The Good and the Beautiful” 

 It met and exceeded all my criteria. Yay! One more thing is checked off my list!

Even though I feel like I have little to no clue of what I’m doing, I know how each one of my children learn best. I also know their strengths and weaknesses, and I believe this year of homeschooling can be a new beginning for all of us! 

“Oh the fun we will have by learning together!” Is the phrase I keep repeating to myself. Our family made the hard decisions based on the upcoming school year guidelines and we believe this curriculum is the best one out there for his vision impairments and his education. We are believing he will thrive in this environment. Our family is looking forward to growing and learning together!


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