January 20, 2022
Are you considering homeschooling?
We still homeschool our four daughters. Our oldest is graduating this May. I am exceptionally satisfied with the resources available to successfully homeschool children. Besides using traditional curriculum, we have tapped the resources and knowledge of friends, family, our local community, and wonderful internet teachers. Because we homeschool, there have been no gaps in instruction due to Covid the last two years.
If you have the time, dedication, and desire, homeschooling your children provides the best opportunity for the best education for your children. It will be tailored to their learning speed, their learning style, the rhythm of the year’s activities, and their learning goals. Our eldest daughter is just one example of what a homeschooled student’s academic and extra-curricular life can look like: fluency in three languages, math work through calculus, science work through physics, proficiency in playing an instrument, solid background in reading, writing, and history, excelling at volleyball and advancing to the State championships, hanging out with friends and family, and following her own interests.
I, like schools, have had 13 years and about 8 hours a day to teach a very special person. A lot can be accomplished in that time, and if you want your child’s learning to be prepared specifically for him or her, go for it. If you are considering homeschooling, I encourage you. If you have any questions, I am happy to share our family’s experience. Homeschooling does not mean you have to do everything as a parent! It means you explore your resources and match them up with the needs of your child’s education.
PS: I have not written for a long time due to helping actively in my children’s activities locally, and also Covid has had me sitting back, watching and figuring out my place in life. But as my daughter approaches graduation, I wanted people out there who may be wondering if homeschooling is a good educational option, to know that it IS a great educational option! I watch my friends’ kids struggle to keep up with all the changes and rules of institutionalized education, especially the last two years, and I am thrilled we started homeschooling and kept at it. I want homeschooling to continue to always be an option in the USA because it has allowed my daughter(s) to have the education that I could only have dreamed of as a teenager. (By the way, I would be remiss to say we homeschooled alone, and I am grateful for every single resource in our community that we have utilized, including public and private school resources. Local and regional cooperation makes homeschooling where I live fantastic.)
Lastly, greetings to old internet acquaintances who may see this. I hope your lives are wonderful. Live locally and develop relationships if you can, beyond controversy. LIVE where you ARE. GIVE where you LIVE. —Terri F
The HSD 
😃🥰
Sent from my iPhone
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I’m back. Never could keep my mouth shut too long, could I?
Hello my internet soul sister/friend!!! Sooooo happy to hear you all are doing so well. You are such a special, wonderful, honest person!!!! I have grown from our few written communications and truly admire the life you chose. Life’s a choice and we make it what we chose. Love to you.
Thanks, Lesq! We are well. I hope you are well, too, over there. Yes?
Thank you for this reminder of why we homeschool; some days are quite hard, so I need a reminder.
I found your blog last year because I was looking for information on butyrate (thank you for that!). Then, I stayed because we are very similar (my kids, too, are fluent in 3 languages, we focus on health, etc). I wish you guys all the best in this crazy world.
Thank you, Amy!
Such an encouragement, to hear how your daughters have flourished! Thank you for sharing. Blessings to you.
And to you, too! Your book was on my bedside stand during early Covid.
So good to see your post again. Can’t tell you how often I have thought about you and wondered how you are doing. Take care! ~~Mary (MEH)
We really are doing great. You being healthy? 😉
Wow, I googled physician homeschooler and it took me to you. Thanks, internet! I am in my third year of homeschooling my 2 boys. I am a family physician- still working per diem but a scary bout of breast cancer right before the pandemic made me go back to homeschooling (I was working 3 days a week – which is really 4-5days as you well know). Right now I am again trying to figure out if I should go back to work. My husband earns a lot less than me as a firefighter but we can live on his income and do fun things with whatever I earn per diem. But we don’t have a 529 and our house is not yet paid off. I guess we can’t be perfect, right?
That is really, really scary, to have breast cancer at any time, but especially with children and a husband depending on you in so many ways. I am so sorry. I hope you are doing okay!?. —To me, there is always a rhythm to life, and when I’m not sure where to turn next, a friend told me, “That’s when you’re supposed to just keep treading water because God is setting other things up for you. You’ll know when it’s time to start swimming again.” I don’t know why, but it helped me psychologically. I just watch for signs to hold steady and tread or start swimming and moving again. —-My children are wonderful people I get to take care of and share with and be there for. Nobody can do that better in their eyes, than I can. Nobody. I know *I* need to be there in the way that *I * am healthiest and most comfortable with (inside and out) now and when I look back in 20-30 years. Kids are resilient! They can handle many things, especially when valued, listened to, and supported. So whether a woman goes back to work or not may not be as important as how she feels about all this and how that plays out in her kids’ (and husband’s ) relationship with her. — Perfection? Never! 😉 May you stay cancer free and have a great relationship with all your boys!
So glad to see this post and to know you are doing well!! You have been missed. 🙂 As usual, I couldn’t agree more. I do not push homeschooling on anyone and yet, I am one of the biggest advocates for it! I cannot believe that I am still going strong 11 years later! One kiddo graduated and two more close behind.
Hi! I clicked over to my reader quickly the other day, and I saw you are doing well! And I thought you had one older than my oldest and likely graduated! That’s just wonderful! I am truly hoping to have more time to read some of those posts! Best wishes to you. Thank you for leaving a note!!
Hi,
I just discovered this blog. I came from your review of Miller & Levine’s Biology. I noticed that you collected the curricula you used for 4th and 5th grade but none higher. I’m considering homeschooling my 8th grade sister, and I’d really appreciate it if you could list out the curriculum you used, particularly in the arts and humanities. Maybe this would be better as a separate blog post.
Hi! I haven’t updated the “index-like” page I made for the menu of my blog. I’ll link here to some more posts on curriculum at about that year in school. Sometimes, I think I didn’t organize it by year but by the book/curriculum used (like for the biology post you read already). Please feel free to ask any more questions.
7th grade:
https://wordpress.com/post/thehomeschoolingdoctor.com/13202
8th grade (Algebra II and the Biology post you mentioned above…)
https://wordpress.com/post/thehomeschoolingdoctor.com/13700
https://wordpress.com/post/thehomeschoolingdoctor.com/13685
9th grade
https://wordpress.com/post/thehomeschoolingdoctor.com/13955
https://wordpress.com/post/thehomeschoolingdoctor.com/13956
Specifically for arts and humanities, I put together my own curriculum depending on the subject matter. For American History, we used America A Narrative History for the main spine. For World History we used Spinning World History as the main spine. For American Literature, we used LifePak (overtly Christian). I supplemented all these with videos/documentaries, extra internet reading, extra books.
For Spanish, we used Ray Leven internet class. And still do for my other kids. For French, we found and love The Happy French Teacher on the internet.
For music, we use various music teachers around our community.
I hope this helps. Best wishes if you decide to homeschool your sister. I’m very happy with homeschooling! Hard work but worth it for us. Also, note: This list and the posts are not all-inclusive of what we did or used.
Terri F
You homeschooling because you are a gold digger, nothing more, nothing less!
Ok. Yes. I suppose so. Is that a compliment? Even if not, I’ll take it as one. 🙂