I've Come Full Circle

After all the time spent trying to determine the right curriculum to use for homeschool, I'm back where I started. The program I intended to buy would've cost about $450 plus we needed to buy another computer (one was not going to work with two boys). I started looking at the cost and thinking this was a bit more than I was ready to bite off. Besides, something inside wasn't really clicking for me.

I picked up a wonderful book called "Homeschooling Methods" by Paul & Gena Suarez. They're the publishers of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine. Their book goes through the various methods used in homeschooling. They give a brief summary of each method and then various people in the world of homeschooling offer contributions to further explain each method.

As I read Jessica Hulcy's contribution (she's the co-author of KONOS), I realized that we already have what I really want for our family - and it's in the KONOS currciulum. Additionally, the Lord showed me that I need to add a bit more structure and focus more than I've been on the academic side. The other piece that's been missing is godly character training. Not that KONOS doesn't cover it, but we've not done what we should with it.

While I've ended out pretty much with the same conclusion regarding homeschool, I have a different, and hopefully better, perspective.

First of all, it's a tremendous blessing, opportunity, and privilege to homeschool my boys. My ultimate responsibility in training them is to lead them into a life of godliness. They can have all the academic knowledge in the world, but if they don't know the Lord and how to follow Him, it will be worth nothing.

Secondly, I cannot expect the boys to have discipline and responsibility if I'm just flying by the seat of my pants, changing the plans on a regular basis, and have little consistency in my parenting.

And last, but not least, I want us to grow together as a family. I want to see our relationships flourish, not suffer and die from poor choices and bad attitudes.

Following Thanksgiving, we'll begin anew. Our new unit will be on electricity and simple inventions. This is something the boys are very interested in and we'll even be able to tie in their Boy Scout merit badges - engineering and railroading (model trains). My oldest wants to create his own electric train engine.

Thank God that He always gives me do-overs!