Homeschool

 When we knew we were moving to Hawaii, one of the things we heard over and over and over were "the public school systems there are awful." Homeschooling is something that I'd always been interested in, and we decided that this would be a great opportunity to try it out.

So, since moving my family across an ocean, having a husband in grad school, working from home, and the regular tasks of daily life aren't keeping me busy enough, we added this as well. The boys were totally on board and really anticipated it.

We did a lot of research on homeschooling options and settled on Hawaii Technology Academy, which is a public charter school with a blended program. What this means is that some of their schooling is in the classroom with a teacher, but most of it is at home. Both Brayden and Asher go to "school" at HTA one day a week for 1.5 hours. They each have 3 or 4 (total) kids in their classes and they have a teacher that works with them. The rest of the week, they are at home with their brothers and me, working on their assignments from home.

HTA uses the K12 curriculum. K12 is an online homeschool program that allows the kids to login each day and see their classes for that day. It is a mix of online and offline (worksheets and textbooks) work and it allows them to see their progression and visualize what their daily tasks are.

I have mixed feelings about it thus far. I like that it is all laid out for me so that I know what the kids are supposed to be doing. It ensures that they will be on track to meet benchmarks for state testing. I don't like that it is so much book work. I don't like how much of my day is spent sitting by their sides motivating them as they aren't highly self-motivated (yet).  I don't like that it takes so much of my time away from the younger two kids. I *should* be homeschooling Everett in preschool since he goes to Kinder next year, but I just don't have the bandwidth yet. I anticipated that homeschool would mean more time to experience  and learn outside the home. More hands-on learning and environmental education.  If we went a different homeschool route, which we most likely will next year, they would get more of this. But I do think that K12 is a decent way to dip our feet into homeschooling, just to give us a structured launching pad so that we know what we are getting into, and so that their entire education isn't completely on my shoulders. Not yet anyway :)

We are still trying to find our groove, and I'm told that the first year is the hardest, and the first quarter of the first year is especially hard. I'm trying to be patient with myself and the children, as I realize that we made a whole bunch of drastic life-shifts all at once. There have been tears from both me and the boys (those being homeschooled and those that aren't). They have been completely uprooted from everything they know and love, placed into not only a new location but a new culture and environment, and don't have traditional schooling even. They are amazing, and things will only get better!