For those of you who don’t know yet, beginning next week we will be home schooling.  But that’s another blog post for another day. Many of you have asked, “What is your curriculum?” Well, this is my curriculum: I don’t have one. My thoughts are:  If I were to home school with a set curriculum, I might as well put them back in public school.

The choice to home school has been a long journey in itself.  I don’t think that everyone should home school.  But I put the decision on the same level as Who should I marry?  Should I go on a mission?  Should we take this job? etc. It is such a personal, spiritual, emotional decision, and I have received multiple witnesses from Heavenly Father that THIS is exactly what our family is to do.  And in that witness from God, I have no fear.

We are excited to home school!  I find no greater joy as a mother then seeing each of my children fulfill their nature and become the person Heavenly Father created them to be through their own desire to learn.  Even at their young ages, I see different desires in them to explore various topics and experience things that I never knew were even options!  I almost don’t even want to call it “home schooling” but rather what we’re doing is creating an environment that allows our children to be, learn, and love who they are and what they can become.  I love this quote:

“The longer we home school our children we have noticed our home school becoming more like a home than a school. In fact it has come to the point that there is now no school left in it at all. It is just a home.” (Tibbets, The Headgate)

Leo has already fallen in love with reading.  She could read 24-7 if we let her.  Now our job as parents is to put the right books in her hands and broaden her mind with the correct knowledge.  From what she reads, we can expand upon: How does that relate to the gospel?  What is the lesson that you can put into your life?  From that book, what do you want to learn more about?  She also wants to take guitar lessons, learn how to start campfires, and go skydiving.

You should see Fischer’s magnificent creations!  I love that the main thing he wants to do is play with paper, twine, tape, and markers to create aliens, books, Halloween decorations, and octopi.  It brings me have the greatest joy to see him so happy in his own element.  Fischer has told us he wants to learn to read.  Each child will learn at their own pace, in their own desire with us parents guiding them and providing opportunities for their curiosity to be satisfied.

Rocky loves books too.  He “reads” Go Dog Go to all of us by looking at the pictures and remembering what was read to him and telling his own story.  He also loves to jump, run, yell, wrestle, yield sticks, and let people know EXACTLY what he’s thinking and what he wants.  I look forward to watching Rocky’s talents come about in the environment we prepare for him.

Dodge is an observer.  He is a quiet baby who loves to have the whole family together.  Dodge likes his freedom to roam and explore, especially to make for the stairs that the kids and I have had to jimmy a “gate” in front of compiled from the shoe-bench and double stroller.  He still somehow manages to make his way through the gauntlet and onto the stairs.  I see unlimited potential in Dodge and all my children.

As long as Denton and I follow the Spirit and allow it to guide us in rearing our children, there is nothing that can hold them back.  Of course we’re going to be learning all the types of subjects:  reading, spelling, math, Social Studies, art, music, PLAY, science, English, etc.  And most importantly, everything will be based upon the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Also, there will be worksheets, assignments, and projects involved.  But in bringing the Spirit, our knowledge, and our childrens’ desires to learn into an environment with the greatest potential to succeed, there are no set rules and requirements.  Only progression.

And after all this, if you still need to know what my curriculum is, well I call it “Furna Eclectic.”