If you have been following any member of the Xtrodinary Family you know that we do things a little unorthodox. We stay up late and sleep in longer than most, we watch horror films all year round, we have symbolism representing all different types of spirituality in our home and we teach our children acceptance and truth in all of them, we go on 14 day road trips with our 4 kids in our Suburban, we sky dive, ride horses and wear cowboy hats, both @xtrodinarypilot and @xtdnrymompreneur work from home, we do not vaccinate and we have decided to HOMESCHOOL THIS YEAR!!!

@xtrodinarypilot has been trying to talk me into taking the plunge into homeschooling for a few years now. I am slightly intimidated by it, I have to admit. After following several users on steemit like @canadian-coconut and @papa-pepper, I realized we could do it as well. I saw the @little-peppers were quite intelligent and well versed. There is a lot of responsibility that comes with taking your child's education into your own hands. Sending them to school gives you the illusion that it is someone else's responsibility. When in fact, the reality is that no matter if your child is learning at school or at home, all aspects of their future are your responsibility.

What is our reason?
We have a unique way of looking at the world and everything in it and why try to teach our children to always question but not what to see... We want them to think for themselves. I believe that is one of the most important things you can teach your children. My husband and I have watched our oldest son go through school and now our youngest son started first grade this year. We have discussed the public school system and things we like and do not like. I think what it all comes down to is time management, actual teaching methods and tests. Kids these days spend so much time not learning!!! The reality of time spent learning during a school day is something like less than half of the time your child is in school. We are huge advocates of learning by doing and experiences. This is why we take our children to visit the White House, Gettysburg and various National Parks. I believe they retain much more information when learning is an active study, not in a desk. I also do not agree with the amount of testing that takes place in our public school systems. Not only do I think test preparation and testing take up valuable learning time but I do not think tests measure our children's abilities.

What about social development?
This is my #2 question with homeschooling, after getting over the thought of screwing up my kid and making them dumb for life, lol. How do I nurture their social development? It is a lot of responsibility to know I have to get out of the house, find strangers who are as crazy as I am and homeschool as well and make the effort to meet them and do something I am not very good at.... small talk. Ugh! My husband is the BEST at small talk, I am not so much. I know that getting out there and meeting other families that homeschool will be good for me and we probably have more in common than not but that anxiety of being judged is still there. Besides play dates there are TONS of programs around our city for homeschoolers and even more free do it yourself type field trips. Co-ops are a good way to meet other families also. For now, we are going to take it slow and meet with some friends we have met for a play date this coming Friday. We also start fall baseball in a few weeks. I think what is important is to not force anything and just continue to meet people and try new things. Eventually, I believe we will find our group.

How did we choose a curriculum?
This was so overwhelming!!! I can tell you that I am not 100% convinced I have it all figured out. I started with the basic subjects; math, reading, writing, science and social studies. I also joined homeschool groups on Facebook and saved any post that had any kind of information on curriculums. Then, I looked up every thing!! I researched Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills to find out what a first grader is learning this year. Texas Home School Coalition Association is a great resource to stay informed and they have a ton of events posted.
There are all inclusive curriculums that have every book, test and teaching material you need for each subject like Time 4 Learning. You can also pick and choose from different cirriculums and kind of put together something that works for you and your child such as Math Mammoth and All About Reading. In the end we decided to put together our own library of material. I thought committing to a full curriculum would be risky in the event we do not like the way it teaches and then we would be stuck with that for every subject. So, we went to a book store and bought grade level learning material, work books and reading books. We are also doing some online learning such as ABC Mouse and joining a few homeschool classes available in our city.
I have made a list of what should be learned this year and various resources to help me teach it. I am also looking into placement testing at the end of the year to find out the progress that is made.

Staying on task seems so hard!
I can admit that our family's schedule is different than most. We do enjoy staying up late watching movies or playing our VR! That tends to have us waking up later than most. So, I wrote a schedule and posted it. I do not think we will stick to this schedule every single day but I do think it's good to remember that schedules are an important lesson to learn as well. The beauty about homeschooling is that we can choose our own schedule so I am not going to stress out about it so much. I think that we have gotten more done in the first two days at home than he would have in school for a week. On our schedule I have added a time slot for "making lunch" because I think it is very important to have our kids help with making our meals and teach them about good food habits.

We have just started this journey and I am not quite sure how it is going to go but I know that both Devdan and I are excited!!

It takes a Village
@xtdnrymompreneur