We’re a homeschool family, but not the kind that sits around and does worksheets in their school room. Our focus is on doing life together and learning life skills.
When our house burned down we needed to find a new permanent dwelling. Our insurance only gave us so much money and we had the option to rebuild or buy something elsewhere. We love our area and community and so we decided to rebuild on our site. We started with a hole in the ground and ended up with a beautiful home. It is quite a process to get there. The company we went with to build our home was great to work with. They are a family company and were totally cool with us being onsite while they were working. They even allowed my kids to help do some of the work. They can walk through our house and tell you which walls they helped put up and they are so proud of it. It really helped make them feel like this was indeed their home.
Since I knew we would be building our house, I decided to make that our school for the year. We as a family learned all about what it takes to build and make a house work. We studied measurements and fractions and angles. We learned about the science of electricity, along with the history and wiring of it. We learned about foundations, plumbing, types of wood, and color therapy. Everyday I took lots of pictures and the kids had to write about what all took place during the day. Neither of them are big fans of writing, but I told them to write enough that they could trigger their memories so they could put their book together at the end. I also had them learning to type. When the house was FINALLY finished and we got to move in, they read their notes, realized the importance of penmanship (yikes), and typed up their books. I then showed them how to use Shutterfly. They learned about inserting text boxes and editing pictures. Then when I got my coupons for a free book, they each got a hardback book of their experience of building a house. It was a once in a lifetime project.
No, they didn’t sit at a desk, but as I told my husband, “I don’t remember 5th grade science, but these kids will never forget that year of “class”."
