Hi, my dear readers 😃
Once again, we’ve had a few busy weeks. Let’s see…with new guests coming every week or so to the Airbnb, we get supplies, prep it, and it always seems to need repairs or upgrades, so Tom oversees all of those. Thank goodness his Spanish is almost fluent now, so he can carry on complex conversations with local tradesmen. The 2 owners were here in March and April at separate times with their families, so we had some special visits with them, and met some of their lovely friends and family who came here with them. The girls also had some much-needed play time with their friends on the beach.
These days, our mornings in the mountains are filled with science, writing, math, and an online history course the girls do together. Our afternoons are usually spent on hobbies, reading, or creating things. It’s amazing how often the girls have new ideas—the other day, it was an obstacle course, and then a spa for Tom and me, complete with foot soaks, cucumbers on our eyes, and a massage. One of my girls also had a gnocchi recipe as part of her geography lesson on Italy, so we made GNOCCHI for dinner one evening…a bit of a mess preceded this photo, but it was fun and so worth it 😋…and we also figured out how to say it: “nyo-ki.”
As for my hobbies—other than baking or dabbling in art—I’ll often take out my sewing machine and repair torn clothes, or make little things like shopping bags or pouches. But recently I took on a big skirt-making project—pictured below—I’ll get to the story behind that in a minute…
When you hear the word homeschooling, what comes to mind..? For me, a myriad of things. My first experience with homeschooling was when I was 9 years old, starting grade 4. I remember my sister and me, in the dining room, sitting at the big sturdy desks our dad had made us, alone with our workbooks for hours. About 2 weeks in, my parents moved my desk into the sun room…because what 9 and 11-year-old don’t want to chat and distract each other all day..?!
Meanwhile, my mom was downstairs, busy helping my 5-year-old brother learn to read and write, and supervising our 3-year-old brother as he played and coloured. Unless we really needed her, we were on our own upstairs. The plus-side was that my siblings and I would be done most of our work by around noon, so we had lots of free time—other than a bit of piano practice and taking care of our chickens and rabbits. Here’s a photo I dug up from around that time of us 4 kids sledding with some of our neighbour friends. I’m the one in the yellow toque.
In the beginning of grade 4, I remember not knowing how to study. I was 9, going on 10, and had been in a small Catholic school where I’d never had to study much of anything…other than a weekly spelling list and memorizing my multiplication tables!
Suddenly, I had to take tests in subjects like science and history every few weeks. And, I’m ashamed to admit this, but—being transparent here—I cheated on some of the first few tests. 😔
Yes, the answer keys were accessible, I felt desperate, and I was sneaky enough that no one noticed…but God did..and I knew. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I couldn’t keep this behaviour up. My conscience was bothering me SO much that I couldn’t even sleep at night. And so, I determined I’d learn how to study. Once I did, my life got much better, and I could sleep again.
I’ve told my girls this story because I want them to ask me for help when they need it. And also because I think our kids should learn from our mistakes whenever they possibly can.
As a mom, I never had a deep desire to homeschool my kids. They loved their private school in Canada, and they all had great teachers and close friends. Leaving that school was one of the hardest things about our “escape” from Canada during the Covid madness of 2021. Here’s a photo of Show and Tell when our middle daughter had me bring our huge, gentle giant Saint Bernard-boxer for her class to see. They loved her!
I have a friend who’d been homeschooling all 3 of her kids for a few years, and she’d told me how challenging it could be. I took mental notes, and told myself I didn’t want to do that, if I could avoid it. But, suddenly our life took some major twists and turns, and I found myself thrown into it, when we left Canada in the fall of 2021. If you haven’t read the story of why we left Canada, it’s in this post.
There are so many reasons to homeschool nowadays, and please don’t get me wrong—I’m NOT saying it’s not worth it! Hmm…was that a double-negative?!
Not at all—in fact, I’d encourage you to try it, especially if it means saving your kids from being indoctrinated into gender ideology or critical race theory, being bullied, or getting sucked into a bad peer group.
Some days it’s been smooth sailing, and I wonder why I’d ever complain. But, other days it’s tiring, I feel stretched, and sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it. There are times that my buttons are pushed, my emotions surface, and I have to take some deep breaths to regroup.
But, teaching my kids at home has had so many moments of fulfillment, and there are lots of perks, such as not needing to do the mad rush in the morning and having so many opportunities to teach from nature and from everyday life opportunities that arise.
But it can be hard.
Ok, I FINALLY said that.
I know I’ve written a few times about how fulfilling and beneficial homeschooling can be. While I still stand by that for many aspects, I think I’ve failed to mention that there have been countless days of frustration and even tears—especially if my kids are overtired.
It can be so hard to keep some kids motivated when they don’t have classmates that they’re in competition with. Maybe that word sounds unhealthy, but I think a bit of competition can actually be a good thing. When you’re 6 or 8 or 12, and you see that someone else in the class is already done their math lesson, or your friend across from you is halfway through, that can be motivation to keep going…and to keep up.
And then there’s the aspect of my girls wishing they had friends around them. My middle daughter values friendships highly, and for her this has been the hardest part about not going to a regular school with friends. She has often recounted the camaraderie she and her friends had in Kindergarten. That’s the only school year she completed in Canada. She still tells stories of their antics and the games they’d play together at recess.
We’ve been homeschooling since we left Canada to go to Mexico almost 4 years ago. It’s been a learn-as-we-go kind of approach. And we’ve been blessed to find some great resources along the way. The girls have an amazing curriculum now, which includes online videos explaining new math concepts for each lesson.
Recently though, our girls asked us if they could attend a local school on the beach. Some of their expat friends had started going there in order to improve their everyday Spanish. But because we now live almost an hour away, it’s not feasible to go 5 days a week. We worked out a plan with the director for them to go once a week to become more fluent in their Spanish.
In El Salvador, schools tend to start at 7am. That’s 1-2 hours before most Canadian schools start! But, on the plus-side, that means they’re done by noon. Our girls are used to getting up around 7, so with the one-hour drive, they need to get up by 5:30 on the days they’re going to school with their new friends.
Our youngest was pretty nervous about going to a school with all Spanish-speaking kids. But on the first day, within a few minutes, she was embraced by a bunch of friendly, chattering little girls, all eager to touch her golden hair, hold her hand, or share something with her. She barely had to say anything besides, “Hola,” and she’d made friends. I’d never seen such friendly kids. My other girls felt the same way. Salvadoran kids have a gift when it comes to hospitality. 😊 Now they’re all asking if they can go twice a week…or, “How many days is it till Monday? I can’t wait to go to school again!!”
And as for the sewing project—when we went to purchase the girls some uniforms, they didn’t have the skirts, only the fabric. And so, for the next few days I found myself sewing a LOT. Each skirt took me about 3-4 hours. And the girls were ecstatic about getting their skirts made—I couldn’t sew them fast enough!
Even though it’s challenging for the girls to be part of a class with ONLY Spanish being spoken for 5 hours, they all LOVE being part of a group of kids their age. In fact, they all wish they could be attending the school full-time! Hopefully in the next year or so we can make that a reality for them wherever we find ourselves.
Tom and I think this shift—providing our kids with a way to have friends and spend time with them while also learning another language—has been a win-win. Our kids need friends, they need to learn Spanish, and they also need time to explore, create, and play. I’m thankful they can get a bit of everything these days 😅
I’ll keep you all posted!
See you soon…😊
¡Nos vemos pronto, amigos!
Wonderful report. You're doing great! Thanks for the shining, clear window into your lives.