Wild Goose Academy - our adventure in home education

I had a friend tell me once that you should never reveal the name of your baby until he/she actually arrives, as this will save you from hearing all those stories about your baby's soon-to-be-name.

"Oh, I knew a ________ back in grade school. He would beat little kids up for their lunch money."

"Oh, that's my cousin's name too! Well, at least it was before she joined a commune and became Butterfly Sparkle Princess."

Et cetera.

The idea was that no one tells you these stories once your little bundle of joy is staring them right in the face. Makes sense to me.  And I guess you could say we took the same tack here...

Welcome to Wild Goose Academy!

The "classroom"

The lesson plans

New books, new binder, new pencils

We are here!

Today was our first day of school - and I couldn't be more pleased with how things turned out. That might be due in part to low expectations (I just didn't think the wee girl would be cooperative) and it was definitely due to reading this blog post last night (so well timed, one could only say it was from God... especially when this morning I found out we had (not enough) eggs and the little dude was running a slight temperature. How in the world did she know?!?)

But whatever it was, no one could be more surprised than me at how willing the wee girl was to just jump right in: Morning Time - pray, sing, read. Check! Get ready to go play - then play. Check! Run an errand, come home, have lunch, put the little dude down for a nap. Check! Make lemonade - measure, count and add. Check! Read our first chapter of Farmer Boy, do an oral narration... ok the narration was a little like pulling teeth, but it's our first time, so check! Extra credit: make a bookmark for our book. Check!

Ok, that makes it sound like I'm happy because we checked things off a list and that's not entirely accurate. I'm really happy because the wee girl was so happy. All. Day. Long. When I shared this with him, my husband pointed out, "Well, she got a whole day with Mommy," which stopped me in my tracks. Doesn't she always get a whole day with me? (And then some?) But no. She doesn't always get days focused on her. Today was special because I was focused on doing things with her (and if I didn't know it already, then I learned it today - quality time is totally her love language).

What my husband also reminded me of was one of the reasons why we wanted to home educate in the first place: family relationships are important and we want to cultivate those relationships through the time we spend together. When I first articulated that value, I had thought about it purely in terms of sibling relationships - I want them to love and take care of each other - but I had totally forgotten the parent/child relationship benefits from this as well. *smh*

I know not every day will be like today. (In fact, I'm fully prepared for tomorrow to be everything that I feared today would be - minus the lack of eggs part. I fixed that during my errand run today.)

But I will celebrate today. I will be (already am) thankful for this beautiful start to what I hope will be a year full of discovery. And I will ask for the wisdom and guidance to make more days like this one happen.

I think we're going to have a good year.