Preparing for this up-coming school year has looked different than all the years before. It seemed to me, for a long time, that the grammar stage would just last forever. Getting comfortable with days that aren’t as successful as I would have liked them to be took a while, but it happened. After years of homeschooling, those days when the only thing that we had accomplished was reading a book, are viewed as blessings. But my kids are growing up (as they do), and the school schedule is more intense. Next week will be our first day of school, and the first time we will be doing school together with another family.

Suddenly, my propensity for starting the mornings late will be a thing of the past. It has to be, or their classmates will be arriving mid-pajama-wearing. Even though I’m a little nervous about this change, I am excited for what it will offer: group discussions over great books, someone to practice Latin vocabulary with, and honestly, a little more motivation to get things moving.

What we are doing is not necessarily what other homeschoolers are doing, but isn’t that the beauty of home-education? We get to be creative, try new things, and in the midst of it all, our kids get to experience learning in a way that a lot of us wish we could have experienced.

May God bless you as you pursue His will for your homeschool this year.