We recently began homeschooling, just this year actually. God laid it on my heart to begin homeschooling early in 2018, but I was so hesitant to take that on. Just the thought of it overwhelmed my head and heart. However, when God brings us to something, He doesn’t leave us there alone. So He surrounded me with many homeschool families to help support me during this new transition. And still I hesitated, that is until my son Wyatt, was diagnosed with T1D. Then I jumped on this new ministry like my life depended on it!

Homeschooling

We started homeschooling with my heart set on all of these curriculums that I had brought together for one big idea. I had this picture in my head of me reading aloud daily to happy children who never misbehaved or got frustrated. Then God popped that bubble of a very unreal idea of homeschool and set a much smaller plan in my heart. Since this is our first year, we only do the bare minimum with fun stuff thrown in the mix. So basically by homeschool is a mixture of school at home and unschooling.

Unschooling

When I first read about unschooling, I was repulsed! My organized teacher heart did a back flip and landed in slime with a disgusting PLOP! How could any child learn from the unschooling technique? That’s what I would ask as I read all of their ideas. Then when I started homeschooling and God started whispering to my heart to go “At the pace of the children,” I started to love the idea of unconventional teaching. We have stopped curriculums after 3 weeks and tossed them out the door if they tried pushing to hard or overwhelmed either of my older children. We spend a lot of our days letting God lead our school. We focus majorly on biblical principals and biblical history. We learn our math facts with God’s truths thrown in and we learn literature and handwriting from passages of Psalms and christian authors like C. S. Lewis.

At the Pace of the Children

God whispered this to my heart one evening when I was becoming increasingly concerned with the pace my youngest was learning the alphabet. He caught my attention very suddenly and said “Daughter, I never rush you to take steps you are unprepared for, so why are you rushing him? This ministry is for you and your children to grow more in love with Me, not the alphabet. Let him lead this while you lead him to Me. Trust me to fill any void that is left.” And that was it. I was hooked. We would go only as fast as the children were comfortable and the rest was left for God to fill. Trust, faith, and grace are all needed to homeschool, and thankfully God fills me every morning with each of these sufficient for the day.

If you have any homeschooling advice, or curriculums you love, please let me know! I love hearing from other homeschool families!

With All of God’s Blessings

Stephanie Smith