In our backyard

I love homeschooling our kids. Don't get me wrong, though, this journey has been far from perfect and has had almost as many challenges as successes. But overall, homeschooling fills my cup. I love being the one to chart the course of learning for my kids. I love that my finger prints are the ones that are imprinted over the hours of the day. I love that there is time during the day to process character issues. Now, I don't do all the teaching. We attend co op's and online classes, ballet and basketball, music classes, etc. One because I don't know everything (spoiler alert) and two because Joel and I are always looking for ways to have other adults speak life and truth into our kids' lives.

The last couple of years of school have been especially challenging with Jack. Jack is very smart, curious, creative, inventive but has struggled, really struggled in the area of reading. Each one of our kids has read at a different age and I have learned along the way that kids will read when they are ready to read. I have tried countless programs with Jack to no avail. I have looked at myself long and hard in the mirror and wondered if it was me. Am I not disciplined enough to spend the consistent time with him that it will take to have him read? Am I not skilled enough to teach actual reading? Maybe with the girls I just got lucky? Finally after a long summer of really being consistent and pushing through, Joel and I decided to take Jack for a learning assessment. When we sat down and looked at him as an overall kid, there were pieces for us that weren't lining up.