One More Step Toward My Life Dream

I did it. I took the plunge. I pulled all 6 kiddos out of public school (2 last spring, 1 this fall, and 3 this winter) and started homeschooling them  all. I've always dreamed of homeschooling my children and traveling around the USA. As a single working mother, it was never possible to stay home and homeschool before. I admit, I was very nervous pulling the high schoolers out, knowing they can't go back unless we 'prescribe' to the 9th grade curriculum and show proof of same. I do not homeschool using any particular curriculum that mimics what their peers are doing in the public school and I refuse to pay for a tracking program. For the most part, I homeschool and unschool, if you want to separate the two. It seems many people think of homeschooling as public schooling at home. OK. I do teach reading, writing, math, history, geography, and science at home that way. I do use textbooks, worksheets, and websites at times. I teach mostly reading, writing and math this way, actually. I did not purchase any particular curriculum. I was blessed enough to find a variety of middle and high school level textbooks on freecycle and in thrift stores. (I absolutely love Camden County Freecycle, by the way.) I started with the basics at each of their functioning levels and moved on from there. Most of my children have learning difficulties, so they do not work at the prescribed grade level for their age. Since I adopted all of my current children, all of them came with some sort of learning barrier; however, some of them are no longer behind their peers, as I was homeschooling them nights, weekends, and even throughout the summer when they were in public school to compensate for their past deficiencies. For most subjects, though, there is no textbook. I am guided by each child's individual interests and we springboard into discussions and research topics and we use daily life circumstances as learning opportunities. I admit, I was terrified and felt quite inadequate and insecure about my ability to prepare them for the future, even though I taught middle school and high school for 10 years.
Now that I have taken the dive, I must say I'm quite pleased. First of all, I just like having my kiddos home all day, every day. Since they have been adopted at an older age, I missed out on much of their lives and I love having the ability to make up some of that time now. Second, I no longer have to deal with making sure my children have the 'right' shoes or clothes to 'fit in'. That thrills me to no end and I'm sure they feel better not being teased.  Third, I love that my kiddos are self-motivated to learn and are developing the skills to do that.  I do not tell them what to learn many days. Some days I just require that they learn something new. I do require that they each read every day. Many days I give them math to do and I have been teaching them Spanish and a little American Sign Language as I teach my youngest two their days of the week, months of the year, counting, etc. They are all Hispanic, I figured they should know some Spanish. One has verbal processing issues so the sign language helps with his processing speed. Otherwise, they choose their topic of interest. One of my boys has an intense focus on music and taught himself how to read music, play keyboard, and compose music on a synthsizer. Now he is learning to play guitar. One loves sports, so we incorporate anything sports-related into reading, writing or math lessons. One loves animals and shopping. It is so easy for me to use those in a variety of lessons. The littles don't really have intense interests, yet. I love that they are all learning to observe things, ask questions about what they observe, then search for the answers. They do this almost completely on their own. Some days they read a lot of books. Some days they do a lot of research online. Some days we are out and about learning stuff in the community. I love my RV. I love traveling in it. Traveling in my RV full-time sometimes conflicts with adopting children from foster care so I do have to have a sticks and bricks house as a home base, at least until I'm done adopting.

We were due to hit the road Jan. 12, 2012. The weekend before, my exhaust system broke and my gas mileage went from 7mpg to 4mpg. I had to leave it in the shop for repairs but I was determined to head out. So we did ... in the minivan. Seven people, some with mood issues already, living out of a minivan can make some people quite cranky but we made the best of it. We got to meet some online friends face-to-face. That was an awesome experience. I'm so glad we were able to do that. We attended an RV rally for Full-time RV families and met other families who live on the road. I was relieved to learn that feeling exhausted all the time, every day, is normal when you start living on the road. We also met these families on a homeschool trip to Legoland where we built race cars and raced them and the older boys learned how to program robots. That was very cool. We decided, since we were in Florida, we might as well start at the very bottom and make our way northward back to NJ seeing everything we could see. So, we headed to Key West. We enjoyed the Keys, the sunset party, the beaches (minus the sand fleas that infested the minivan to the point that we had to flea bomb it), the glass bottom boat tour of the coral reefs, the self-guided tour at Bahia Honda State Park and we thoroughly enjoyed the all-you-can-eat seafood buffet. We did sample new foods we've never had before. Yummy.
From the Keys, we stopped in the Everglades. We completed the junior ranger programs for all 3 National Parks there, camped there, hiked and took many ranger-led tours. One memorable time was when my youngest (9) dropped her pencil into the alligator-filled lake and had a meltdown, demanding someone retrieve it for her. In a previous blog post I wondered how I would handle a meltdown or a runner on the road. I got to try that on for size. I did not like it. The meltdown was horrid. Quite embarassing. The runner ran but thankfully not far away. We were in a campground with a tent. He left the tent, snuck out, of our campsite even, while the rest of us were still sleeping. (House Rule #1: No one gets up until Mom does. House Rule #2: Running away is defined as leaving our property without permission and the nonrunners are rewarded with going out for ice cream.) He was with neighboring RVers but off 'our property' so the rest of us did go out for a treat and he missed out on some teen event later on. There weren't any other significant events, thank God. We visited Myakka State Park, too. Very nice. In addition, we visited many Florida beaches, collecting various shells and shark teeth, and cities. We went to Universal Studios and Island of Adventure and had a fantastic time. Our favorites include the Harry Potter section and the Simpsons and MIB rides but all of the rides were great fun and well worth the entrance cost. We also got to experience the Mardi Gras parade and the B-52s concert. We left Florida after Orlando to get the RV because the crankiness was beginning to increase in several teenagers but we did stop at Congaree National Park, SC, to do more junior ranger work, Myrtle Beach, and Greenbelt Park in MD (one of our favorite areas to travel to and where we stay every time we visit Six Flags America, Baltimore or Washington, DC) on our way home. Even though I was so excited about the gas mileage when we first started out, I don't think traveling in the minivan saved us any money because I probably spent the gas savings on fast food and campsites.
When all was said and done, we had a great time in between cranky moments and one of my kiddos, the moody runner, just may have made a break through in his healing process. It has been almost 2 weeks and he is still 'different' somehow. Two weeks is a record for him. Shoot, one week was a record. If he truly is not 'faking' his way through it, then I also am very thankful for that. Not for me. For him. I love him beyond measure, even with all the negative behaviors he has gotten so used to using. We learned so much science and history, among other things, on this trip. We can't wait until the RV is finished so we can head out again. In the meantime, I started some home improvement projects and have started preparing for my next adoption.