Zach's Education

When Zach was about 3 years old I started having what my friend Sam called, "Kindergarten Hysteria". The thought of sending my baby out into the world made me feel physically sick. I began to research all of my educational choices which were pretty slim in 1995. The public school that was in our district at the time was old and ugly. And made me sick to my stomach. There were two private schools close by but they were expensive. We even drove out to Greenleaf Academy but it felt like a two hour drive so I crossed that off the list. I talked at length with my cousin who home schooled her kids in Washington but decided I just wasn't cut out for that option and, besides, I didn't own any denim jumpers. When the time finally came to make this incredibly difficult decision, I prayed fervently for wisdom and made one final visit to Cole Christian School. They were studying dinosaurs the day we visited so I took that as a sign from God that this was where my dino-loving Zach belonged. When he entered kindergarten, he was already a voracious reader and quickly became bored with the daily reading lessons that are a necessity for 5 and 6 year-olds. By first grade, this was his common complaint: "I didn't learn ANYTHING today!!" He wanted to study space and dinosaurs and volcanoes, not vowel sounds and diphthongs. I very hesitantly researched the homeschooling option again and somewhat reluctantly un-enrolled him from traditional education at the end of first grade. We very quickly decided that we absolutely loved learning at home and I benefited from our curriculum as much as Zach did. He thrived at home and soaked up every bit of information I put in his little hands. He especially loved geography and even memorized all of the countries of the world. In second grade.

We are now nearing the end of is his first year of high school and we have very few regrets. It hasn't always been easy and some days when I see the school bus go by I wonder for a moment if I should have done things differently. Those moments are few and far between and most of the time I feel very confident that we have made the right choice for our family. Here is a sampling of what he's studying this year:

I haven't always been especially intentional about adding art into our curriculum since Zach has always done so much art on his own but since we have to keep transcripts this year, we are using a program called "Paint Today":

Saxon has been our choice for math every year and seems to be very thorough:

The history curriculum we use cycles through 2 years of world history and then 2 years of American history so this year we are on our second cycle of the second year of American History. Our reading list for literature follows along with the history text making it so much easier to retain information and allows history to really come alive. I hated history until I started reading along with Zach over the years and now I find it quite fascinating.

I've slacked off just a little bit when it comes to Language Arts this year since Zach seems to have a pretty good grasp of grammar and it's rules so we have focused on vocabulary and will be doing the really hard work of a research paper after Spring Break. I love writing but I'm not great at pulling it out of my kids. . .

Zach has always loved Science and I've been impressed with Dr. Jay Wile's Exploring Creation series. Next year we'll be studying biology and I'll have to help Zach dissect a frog. . . eww. . .

I wasn't planning to go on and on about homeschooling when I took these pictures but it's been fun to reflect on Zach's education and I really am looking forward to the last few years I'll have him at home. I'm also starting to get a touch of "College Hysteria". . .