When we started out homeschooling, we began by schooling our second son really right from birth.  We were textbook new parents who wanted the best education possible for our boys.  He was the guinea pig, but we did not yet know we were homeschooling.  Honestly, we were trying to get him prepared for kindergarten. 

 

It did not occur to us to homeschool until I started volunteering in our oldest son's kindergarten classroom.  My oldest son is my baby through marriage.  I did not get to birth the wonderful being he is, but I love that kid all the same.  We had a lot of fun in his classroom.  He had a wonderful kindergarten teacher named Mr. Sparks.  It was his first year of teaching.  He did a fantastic job in a classroom full of 25 students.  Yes, 25! 

 

I soon learned that there were some pretty awesome children in the class who did not know the basics.  Mr. Sparks developed a plan with the resource teachers and tried to get parents involved.  Some students made great improvements.  Sadly, some did not. This experience spurred me to create INK and prepare my new little guy for his kindergarten year.

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I started working more purposefully each day with my baby by reading lots and lots of books!  The difference was, we read to learn.  We still had fun and read some of the same books over and over again.  But, now we had a new focus to our reading.  I read stories and pointed out the shapes, colors, letters, numbers and acted out the stories.  I made our story times the entertaining part of our day!  As we read and learned, I started adding in more activities.  I learned what he liked and we just kept going with it.  We colored, sang songs, played with educational toys, watched educational videos, painted and enjoyed our learning time. 

 

When he was four he was ready for kindergarten and could read basic words.  I was like what do I do now?  I was dreading sending him to school.  I loooooved teaching him.  I stumbled upon a Facebook group about teaching your kids at home.  From that encounter, I searched, joined, and read all of the groups and pages I could find.  I finally realized I was already homeschooling my kid!  I did not have to stop doing what we both loved.  I could homeschool him through 12th grade!  It was such a God moment. I knew this was what I was supposed to do.  I knew we were homeschoolers.  :)  As we had more babies, our homeschool grew.  We now school first grade, second grade, third/fourth grade and fifth/sixth grade.  I use these grade distinctions to give you a reference point for our boys.  I don't really subscribe to grade levels.  I believe more in abilities.  We each discover our abilities at different times.  The same goes for my boys.