Just over ten months ago, I watched her skip hand-in-hand with a friend into her kindergarten classroom. I stood on the sidelines and held back the flood gate, wondering where time had gone. And now here we are ten months later and we survived! In fact, we thrived! Avery thrived! She was blessed with a wonderful kindergarten teacher who nurtured so much in Avery’s soul. Avery has grown in so many ways over this past school year. She once was reading her alphabet, now she knows how to read words, books! She has developed a great love for science and nature and would define her best days by creating art all day. She is sharp as a tack in doing addition in her head and amazes us with her memory. Before and after school she spent her time writing "books", which consisted of stapling a stack of 8 1/2 x 11 inch papers together and writing and illustrating them. At the beginning of the school year, she wrote her name in manuscript, but is now asking me to teach her cursive and can write her name in cursive. She has accomplished so much over the past year and is growing into such a precious young girl.
Over this past year, God has put a special plan on our hearts. While in some ways this plan has caught us by surprise (mostly my dear husband), we are thrilled to see what He has in store for us! As Avery has accomplished this special milestone in "graduating" kindergarten, we are celebrating with joyful noise over her past education in private and public schooling and gratefully anticipating her growth as we transition into her 1st year with homeschooling! We are amazed where God has brought us to and can hardly wait to begin. We believe God has great plans in store for our family.
To our pleasant surprise, Avery is quite excited about homeschooling. We have received great support and blessings from our family and friends as we have shared our news. Of course, the first question everyone asks us is, "What made you decide to homeschool?” We are still learning how to share that answer, but we have “researched” homeschooling extensively and God has brought countless homeschool families into our lives to share and advise us in our decision. He provided for us conferences and homeschool networks to attend and piles of books, CD’s, DVD's, online information and homeschooling blogs to learn from. And when it came down to it, homeschooling was a decision that was placed in my husband’s and God’s hands. It took several months for the final decision to be made, but with my husband’s blessing and God's clear, peaceful confirmation we are ready to start this exciting journey ahead! We feel God's Hand upon us as we take this leap of faith.
We are excited! We love learning! We LOVE books! We are happy about more time with one another. We love the gift of choosing our own faith-based curriculum and having enough time in the day to devote to learning about Christ and working on our character. We joyfully anticipate the opportunity to spend time with other homeschooling families, teach lessons together and go on adventurous field trips. We love the ability of mastering a concept and moving at our own pace and exploring the world through unit studies. And we get to do science projects and create ART, ART and more ART! We think the idea of lying outside on a blanket and doing math and spelling is awesome! We are certain there is so much more; we have no idea what is in store for us with homeschooling and we are thrilled to be given this gift of time and learning together as a family. Most of all, as Avery’s parents, we will get to see her "skip among her milestones” even more at home than if she were away each day. We are thrilled! Stay tuned for more about the start of our homeschooling journey.
By the way....those mothers were right! Where have the last six years gone?
