Welcome! Let's get to know each other!

Hi! I’m Trisha. I have one kiddo who is 8. This is our second year homeschooling. We love it! Our reasons for homeschooling are being able to teach the love of Jesus everyday in a nurturing environment where our child can learn and grow comfortably. Nice to meet everyone!

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Hi, I’m Jacq, we have 4 children and another one arriving in May. Ages 11, 9,5,and 3. I homeschool the 11 year old and the 5 year old. The 9 year old goes to public school. I started Homeschooling last January (14’). I made it through the first year and I am enjoying it more and more as time is going on. I felt a whisper to Homeschool for years, but never had the support or confidence in myself to take the step. I knew God was asking this of me and he showed affirmation after affirmation of opening the door. since I have taken the step of obiedience life as Peaced out! Woohoo! I too question the choice and possibly school occasionally and for the same reasons as you Erica - But there is always a blatant encouragement that occurs that sets me straight in what is right for my family right now. I have found Erica’s post to be a helpful at all the right times and I enjoy everything I have ever purchased from her shop. (Thank you)

I think our style is eclectic/ traditional. I really like unit studies and lap books. I am not sure how this site/ group works but excited to be involved.

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Hi everyone! My name is Ryan and I am a mom to 3. Daughter 7, Son 5, Daughter 3.
We have been homeschooling for 3 years and my style is very eclectic. I am a former public school teacher turned homeschooler and I will never go back! After having my first child I knew I didn’t want my kids in public school. Since then, I have grown in my faith and in my homeschooling journey. This is what God has called me to do. Oh, and we live in the Houston area. :smile:

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I want to add that when I first started homeschooling 3 years ago COAH was one of my first homeschooling blogs that I followed and it helped me along my new journey! Thanks Erica!

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Hi,
My name is Stacy and I have 3 young children. This is my 5th year homeschooling but I still feel like such a newby! I consider myself an eclectic but this year have found myself drawn to more of a CM approach. Niether my husband nor I were homeschooled… It never even crossed my mind to homeschool but when we started talking about having children my husband suggested it. After years of research I decided that this was something I might be able to do. The first year was rough and I almost gave up but I powered through the second year and then never looked back. I’m excitd to join this forum and get advice from like minded people. :blush:

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Hi, I’m Dana! I have 6 amazing boys! We are a blended family but my husband and I have known each other since we were 12 years old (that’s a huge awesome long story of it’s own). :smile: Our boys are ages 12, 11, 10, 10, 8, and 7. Our oldest has Autism. We are in our first 4 months of homeschooling. We decided to start this journey because of the issues we were having in our public middle school with our two oldest boys. Both with some really bad safety issues with a special needs child, and also the “dropping” of the ball with our other son, who was just not getting what he needed even though we were doing everything we could to make sure that he was. Most of our boys have some sort of learning delay and in school were just being pushed along and everyone was just “hoping” at one point they would pick it up and make leaps and bounds of progress, especially at the middle school level. Though our elementary school is one that we love with people we love more, we knew it just wasn’t giving our boys all that they needed, not to mention the constant push of common core. We know it was time for a change to give our boys the best and what the school was offering just wasn’t the best or the safest anymore. I also felt it was the huge push I needed to go in this direction. I saw homeschooling as something that wasn’t for me or us, or something I couldn’t even do. It terrified me and still does some days, but I think God showed up in a big way for me, with a huge door and a big light saying this is the only way to go, so go. I’m pretty hard headed so that’s definitely what I needed to make the jump. So we prayed and made the jump, as scary as it was, into something totally foreign to us. We have such great friends who home school and they came along side us to get us started and help us weave through everything to get ready to start teaching our guys. It’s been so amazing to see our guys bloom, achieve confidence and enjoy learning and actually hold on to and converse about the things they are learning (which has never really happened when they were in public school). Even our son with Autism has grown more than we thought possible and is blowing us out of the water with all that he is doing on a daily basis and how much joy he has learning (we are really starting to see that in school, they had no expectations for him, so he didn’t excel, which is sad and they missed out on how awesome he is an how great his brain is, and now all of our boys are excelling and we are seeing their strengths and pinpointing weakness to work on). I think we’ve accomplished more in these last few months than they have in school since they started. We that’s how is seems anyway. :wink: Since we are a blended family two of our boys are still in public school as of right now, but hoping they will join their brothers at home next year, that’s been the saddest, hardest part, not having everyone at home. We are loving it so far, and I’m getting the hang of it. :slight_smile: I have no idea what teaching style I like best, since I don’t really know what they all are. I just know I’m super ocd and right brained so I teach and schedule in that capacity, but I’m learning to not be super rigid and lay back a little, go with the flow, and just enjoy the time together with my little men as we learn even though we run on a pretty set schedule (my husband is helping me let go, and use big x’s on our schedule, reminding me we don’t have to do it all). It’s so good to teach and not reteach, which is how I was feeling when they were in school. They would come home and we would have an hour + of crazed, stressful homework time, and everyone started our family evenings off angry, tired and frustrated. It’s been a refreshing change for sure. My husband also is a pastor so it’s freed up our family for week day family time, since our weekends are pretty booked up, and it’s allowed my guys to help their dad in ministry which he and they love so much. We are excited to continue in this journey and I’m excited to keep learning and teaching, and I’m super excited about this forum, because there’s so much I don’t know, and I love reading, getting to know people, and learn from the wisdom of others who are so much more skilled!

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Hello,
I am Sarah. I am going to take my kids out of public school and homeschool in the fall. Right now, I am finishing up my AA degree and will be done with all but one class this semester. Then in the fall, the girls will stay home. We have 3 girls. Lex is 11 and in 6th grade. Sam is 9 and 4th grade. K is 7 and in 1st grade. I am still trying to figure out what we will use. I am leaning towards the eclectic teaching. I am here looking to see what others use and like and what I think will work for my girls. I am starting to homeschool for a lot of reasons. Lex is in all pre-AP classes and it is still to easy on her. I want to see how far she can go. We are working together to plan her classes and come up with a plan for her High school. Sam is a great reader, but struggling with Math and Spelling. The school is doing nothing to help her. K has a lot of challenges and I think her being at home will let me be able to help her more than she is getting in public school.

Sarah

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Hi! My name is Jillian and I have 2 beautiful girls ages 5 and 2. We just started homeschooling in October, so we are still learning what we like and what works best. My 5 year old loves dinosaurs and has a very active imagination. My 2 year old likes to do everything her big sister does, so we make sure to include her in our learning. We started homeschooling for various reasons, but mostly because we feel that its whats best for our girls.

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Hello. My name is Sonja A., and I’ve been homeschooling for about 6 years now to our 2 kids, 1 girl, 1 boy. I started homeschooling for many reasons, and a few are: We love the Lord and wanted a Christian-based atmosphere and education. As well, since my hubby is in the military, it’s just easier to stop and start at our own pace than public or private school’s & the kids are able to have a better relationship with their Dad–and vice versa–than they would normally have (not saying it can’t be done, but it’s what works for us.) :smile: One of our more pressing reasons was because our daughter has medical issues and a developmental delay that would be complicated in a public or private school setting; and in her 2 years in public school, she was sooo very behind in Math, she couldn’t tell me what 0+0= at the end of Kindergarten, and they wanted to pass her on. We were not happy with that, and with an upcoming move, we prayerfully took her out.

We have varied the way I have taught a lot along the way. It was first all textbook, all the time, lol. That was really hard. Now we have some textbook, some Classical Conversations, some notebooking, and some serious independent work (since they’re both in middle school/or will start middle school soon). I try to sorta work their schoolwork around what they enjoy/need. Ex: Our daughter needs a lot of repetition in Math, as she has an issue with multi-step instructions; so she gets a lot of worksheets, book work, etc…to repeat the information a lot. Our son, however, excels in that, so once his Math is done, he is pretty much done. He needs help in Spelling, so he gets extra Spelling on the computer, through worksheets, or help from his Dad or myself.

This is super exciting, as I’ve been a COAH follower for I don’t know how long now. :smiley: And it’s great to see your husband on here, Erica, since he’s normally a behind-the-scenes kinda person.

Thanks for having me!
Sonja

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Hi All,

Im Donyel mom of 2 girls (8 & 6). I’ve been home schooling for 4 years. Id say my teaching style was Charlotte Mason with a Classical twist. Home schooling was never a thought on my mind until I started to tour schools for my child for K. I never felt good about any place and the Lord used that to look for other options. I now know this was His plan all along and it’s been a huge blessing for my family. I feel so free home schooling. I’m excited about this new community and Erica I will also say thank you for all you do. Your blog was one of the first I followed when I started on this journey and its been a real blessing to me.

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Hi! I’m Megan, and I have 3 kids (4, 3, and 8 months). I’ll be starting “formal” homeschooling with my 4 and 3 year old in the fall. As I’ve researched the different approaches to homeschooling, our family gravitates towards more traditional methods with some fun added in :slight_smile: My husband and I decided to homeschool because it was right for our family. We were both educated in public school, and have nothing against them. (We have the nothing against private schools either.) As we talked about the idea of homeschooling, we knew it was the best way to educate our children. Before I had children, I worked in educational settings, so I’m not naive to think this will be easy all the time. But, I’m excited to be my children’s “teacher” and watch them grow in so many areas of their lives.

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Hello! I’m Jennifer and mom of two. I am a former public school teacher and military wife. I haven’t officially started homeschooling yet but I am reading and learning as much as I can while my kids are still young. We are strongly considering homeschooling as we move often, would like flexibility in our school schedule to match my husband’s work schedule, and would love our children to have a Christian-based education. We have been doing “tot school” and we will be starting homeschool preschool in a few months to see if it might be a good fit for our family.

COAH has been such a great inspiration and has given me confidence I can shift from being a traditional public school teacher to homeschooling mom. I am leaning traditional eclectic but I know that might change. I am excited to learn from experienced homeschool moms!

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Hi, I am Jen. I have been homeschooling for 2 years. I have 3 kiddos, ages 4, 6 and 7. We kind of fall under the eclectic unschool umbrella (if such a thing exists, ha). We started homeschooling after pulling our oldest from PS after K. Our school district is just barely getting by and the kids are getting the brunt of it. The kids and I are so happy we made the decision to homeschool.

I am excited to be here!

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Hi I’m Kim from Oklahoma. I have a 5, 3, and 1 year old and we are in our 2nd year of homeschooling. I was homeschooled myself so it was something I always considered. When it came time to enroll our oldest for prek, my husband and I both knew we just couldn’t do it! We are loving the extra time we get to spend as a family as daddy is self employed and feel like it was one of the best decisions we have made for our family. We use a traditional curriculum with eclectic style thrown into the mix for some subjects.

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Hello from Minnesota. First off, I’ve gotta say that I’m so excited about this group!!! I’ve been looking for something like this. I have 3 girls and 1 boy – ages 9, 7, 5, and 2. My husband and I both knew before we were married that we wanted to homeschool our children when we had them, so we began as soon as our oldest was preschool age–about 6 years ago. We use a traditional/eclectic teaching style.
Erica, thank you so much for all you do for the homeschool community. I have been very blessed and inspired by COAH.

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Hi Everyone! I’m Brandy. My husband and I have 2 little girls, 4 and an almost 3 year old. We have been officially homeschooling since the fall of 2013. So, we are in our 2nd year. My 4 year old is doing kinder and 1st grade level curriculum and my youngest is doing preschool. There are countless reasons for our decision to homeschool, most importantly though, we feel wholeheartedly that this is what God has called us to do. I feel overwhelmingly blessed to have this opportunity. Before having my children, I was an elementary teacher in the public schools. I saw first hand what is the norm and I know that I want better for my girls. I use an eclectic teaching style and like to take various curricula and adjust them for our needs. We also use your K4 and K5 material. I read your blog and love all your tips and advice. I’m trying out the workboxes for the first time this semester. I am looking forward to getting to know y’all!

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Hi! I’m Annie. I have 3 children and we are on our second year of Home Schooling. We decided to home school for several reasons. I could bore you with the list, but most importantly: we were blessed with these children and we are their best teachers. Our eldest is 5 and does Erica’s K4 program. Our 2.5yo does some of the preK that Erica prepared. We are loving our time together to learn and are happy to be a part of this group!

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Hi, I’m Sarah and have been Home Educating our two children 11yrs and 8yrs since November 2013. We took the decision to Home Educate to allow us to offer our children an education tailored to their needs and interests. We are what we would term here in the UK as semi-structured as we are not required to follow any curriculum. We follow some online programmes for Maths and English and then tailor other subjects depending on the children’s needs and interests. This is normally in the form of projects, lapbooks etc… We also attend hands on science lessons with a group of other HE families. The forum looks wonderful Erica and I look forward to sharing ideas with others.

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Hi, My name is Kristi, and this is our 12th year homeschooling. We’ve graduated one, and our three remaining kids at home are 16, 14 and almost 9.
Our oldest started Kindergarten in our local public school, but by the middle of the year I was investigating homeschooling. It was not something I ever thought I’d do, and it sort of felt like jumping off of a cliff :smile:
We started homeschooling with Sonlight, and that worked very well for us until about middle school when they started taking some outside classes at tutorials and co-ops.

I love the family time that homeschooling provides. I love not being tied to a school calendar. And I love the ability to find curriculum that meets each child’s needs.

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Hello! My name is Maryann, and I am pretty new to homeschooling. I began this past September, and have a 6 year old daughter and 4 year old son. It was a very drastic change for our family, but I have grown to truly love it. My kids are still deciding :smile:

I’m not certain, but I think we do a more traditional style of school. I’m still learning where my daughter is at overall, and how best to teach her. I was amazed to find that my 4 year old was quite eager to learn, and is very much enjoying the Letter of the Week curriculum.

Our family began homeschooling after the Lord called me out of a 17 year (part time)career in the beauty industry to full service to my family. It has been one of the most incredibly blessed times of my life.

The first couple of months were fairly tough, and I had virtually no resources to pull from. One day my husband came home from his work and shared with me that a friend of his knew a woman who had a homeschooling blog, and it was COAH. It has been such an immense blessing to me!! We have recently implemented the work box system and that was a game changer around here. I can’t thank you enough for all the work that you do, and this new forum is icing on the cake!! I still don’t have many homeschooling friends, so this is great for me! Thanks again!!

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