Oshiolema wrapped up his first year of homeschool (Preschool) this summer and it’s just about that time to start things up again. O and I spent weeks on end evaluating our schooling strategy for this year but after much deliberation, we’ve come up with a plan that we have peace with and the kids are thrilled about so keep reading to find out what we settled on. 

The first difficulty with planning out the school year was the timing. While we know we’re doing the University Method of schooling, the school Lema will go to has strict rules about age. He wasn’t able to start Kindergarten until September of 2020 but since he turns five two weeks into the year, that would make him over 5.5 years old at the start of Kinder. That’s the difficult thing about a January birthday- he’s so mature for his age that I’m hesitant to keep him back but also I know how much he’d benefit from really marinating in the material. If you’re not familiar with the University Method, it’s where you send your child to school two days a week and homeschool the remaining three days. I love that we’ll be given a curriculum to stick to and, most importantly, that the kids will have the community and camaraderie of friends and classmates rather than hanging out with us all the time.

When Oshiolema went to preschool two days a week in Memphis he thrived and blossomed into such a fuller version of himself. It was such a gift! We had to come back and truly look at the heart of why we wanted to homeschool in the first place and those core values are still there for us. Ideally we’d have a bustling homeschool community where the kids have friends their age and we all explore and learn together but that just isn’t the case where we live. It’s been a head-scratcher. Even though Keogena will be doing dance one morning a week and both kids do KidStrong together one evening a week, that “school” experience can’t quite be replaced in those time periods.

Taking all that into consideration, for this year starting kindergarten in a University school, both kids will be going to a church preschool two days a week. We couldn’t be more excited! O and I weighed each option and after touring this school we just had complete and total peace. Part of me still battles the thought that Keogena is too young and that maybe she would benefit from that one on one time while Lema is away for those hours but we did that. We had that experience in Memphis and it just wasn’t very pretty. She was devastated to be apart from him and by the time we got back from dropping him off and eating a snack it was time for nap and picking him right back up again. Thankfully, the school is month to month so if for whatever reason it just isn’t the right fit for our family to have both babes going two days a week we can just pull them out and call it a day. They’re both so excited, you guys, and I’m pretty giddy at the thought of having that time to hunker down and work two days a week and really get a feel for the stay-at-home-mom life I dreamed of as a kid.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be diving into our homeschool curriculum this year, the activities and books we’ll add on our own and my favorite things to keep Keogena busy while Oshiolema jumps into the new schedule with both feet. Are you pivoting this school year? Trying something new? It’s all right around the corner and this year, we’re ready.