The Face of Homeschooling: Interview with Blossom

Welcome to the very first edition of  the "Face of Homeschooling"! This is when I have the pleasure of featuring a homeschool mom and her family, just one little image in the mosaic of the homeschool world. My first interview is with Blossom of North Laurel Home and School. 



Q. Tell me a bit about why you decided to homeschool.

A. We decided to homeschool because of negative influences from the public schools. The attitudes and behaviors that our kids were coming home with were unacceptable yet they spent most of their day/week in that atmosphere making it difficult to correct. And life is so short; I want to enjoy my kids and our family as much as possible. 

 Enjoying a sunny day in Cleveland, OH

Q. Do you use any particular method or curriculum in your homeschool? If so, why did you choose it? How has it benefited your family?

A. We use Charlotte Mason in our homeschool. Originally we went with a more traditional approach (set up almost identical to the public schools the kids were used to) but the stress it caused made me wonder why I was teaching them if all I wanted was them to be removed from the influences. I could have simply opted to place them in the online public schools. I soon began to realize that there was more than one way to do school at home. We wanted to have them learn for the sake of learning, not to a test. The stress has been much reduced and I am confident that they are learning what it is they should be.

Kids making "Tuna Turnovers"- lunch

Q. Do you purchase a curriculum? If so, what advantages and disadvantages have you seen? If you don't use a purchased curriculum, what do you use instead and what are those advantages and disadvantages?

A. When asked if I 'purchase' a curriculum the answer is automatically 'no'. We use the free Ambleside Online curriculum but that doesn't mean there are no costs involved. We still have to purchase the books and such outlined in the curriculum. I'm not entirely sure if there is an advantage or disadvantage to doing it this way. Previously we had purchased a boxed curriculum that was nice because it was all included for one flat dollar amount. Whereas with AO, I've had to do a lot of research and scheduling myself. It takes more time, I suppose, using the AO curriculum but I feel more free to tweak it (choose what to include/exclude) to suit our family.

 The kids at the National Railroad Museum in Wisconsin

Q.  What is your family situation? Do you work? How do these affect your homeschool?

A. I do not work and have been married for almost 15 years. We have two children. When we decided to bring the kids home from public school to homeschool is when I became a stay at home mom. It made it difficult at first because of the financial aspect but I cannot imagine just starting out homeschooling and working. With two kids homeschooling has been great. I am able to keep them in their appropriate year/grade whereas I may have combined years/grades if I had more children.

Exploring Oregon Trail Ruts in Guernsey, WY

Q. What kinds of activities are your kids involved in and how did you determine what they would or wouldn’t do?

A. Being homeschoolers, we tend to stay on the low end of activities and sometimes I feel a twinge of guilt. We rarely participate in co-ops, neither of my kids are in sports or dance, but we do take many family trips and vacations. We don't participate in clubs and we only meet up with other homeschoolers occasionally. But the question was what kinds of activities are they involved in. Not many.

What determines what they do is driven mostly by desires. My daughter was in dance for a year; she decided that was good enough. My son wanted to play soccer but by the time the season came around, he had changed his mind. He is now a Young Marines recruit going through bootcamp. We used to volunteer with the public library when we lived in a small rural town but since moving to a urban setting we haven't found our niche yet. Other than desires, what kind of behaviors and skills would be learned from the activities helps us decide. The people involved, the associated people (if it is run by upstanding individuals and such) and the activities themselves are all a factor. Finally, and perhaps I should have put it first, financial impact has a large part to play in what they participate in. It may be awesome but if we can't afford it, they don't do it.   

 Investigating cat tails in South Dakota

Q. What’s been the most rewarding part of your homeschooling experience?

A. The chance to get to know my kids more. To spend time in the middle of the day with them. And the time we get to spend as a family that we wouldn't if they were still in public school. 

 Lego Pirate ship my son made without instructions

Q. What do you find to be the biggest challenge with homeschooling and how do you deal with it?

A. There are two challenges that vie for the top spot on my list: attitudes and costs. The first is dealt with like it always has been (lol hmmm if it's still a challenge perhaps it's time to change the method!): firm and consistent. The attitudes are not necessarily from being in public school but I do associate some specific ones with that. No, the attitudes are sometimes laziness and disrespect. Laziness is dealt with by giving that person more work to do until they do it without complaint. Disrespect is dealt with by separation (I guess it could be called 'time out'); if they cannot be civilized they cannot socialize.  There are consequences as well for inappropriate behaviors. The attitudes have improved greatly since we've begun homeschooling.

The other challenge of costs of homeschooling is in one eased by using living books: they can be passed on again and again. I have almost all of my son's 8th grade materials because his sister went through them last year and we've set them aside. Another way is to find as many free resources online (or in print if possible) to help with this. There are so many great resources out there that it is sometimes more of a challenge to choose which one rather than finding them in the first place!

 My kids are happier being homeschooled than they ever were in public school

Q. Did you always know you would homeschool or how is it that you came about to the idea of homeschooling?

A. Well, I thought I would homeschool. My husband was homeschooled his entire k-12 and he turned out so well that when I was pregnant with our first child, we agreed that I would homeschool. It didn't turn out that way. Life sometimes takes different turns than the ones we plan. I actually was able to homeschool my daughter in preK (when the public schools would not allow her to start kindergarten because her birthday was 20 days after the cut-off) and in part of 2nd grade. My son I homeschooled in kindergarten because he wasn't ready for kindergarten at the public school (even though his birthday was a month before the cut-off!). We didn't officially homeschool until my son was in 5th and my daughter in 7th grade.

Daughter's note to me- written in Leetasian- her own made up language!

Q.  Finish this sentence: Homeschooling is…

A. ...the absolute best thing that ever happened to our family.

 Playing in the middle of the day- after raking leaves

If you would like to be featured on "The Face of Homeschooling", please contact me: HolisticHomeschooler@gmail.com.

Happy Homeschooling!