Books Which Influenced (or Confirmed) Your Decision to Homeschool

Sally Clarkson’s Educating the Wholehearted Child is a great beginning book. I still refer to it at times.

http://www.amazon.com/Educating-WholeHearted-Child—-Third/dp/1932012958/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1316398203&sr=1-1

You are so blessed to start studying this so early with your precious little ones. Enjoy the journey!

I am new to SCM and homeschooling also.  My kids are 1 and 4 so we are not quite there yet, but feel so blessed that God led us to homeschooling before our kids were school age.  The book that really convicted me was I Saw the Angel in the Marble by Chris and Ellyn Davis.  Their website is here.   Hope this helps.

Blessings,

Carolyn

“So You’re thinking About Homeschooling” by Lisa Welchel really took a lot of the intimidation out of the equation by showing me there isn’t one right way to homeschool. She profiles about 15 different homeschooling families who are using different styles at different ages for different reasons, and they all homeschool successfully.

“For the Children’s Sake” by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay really established the “Why” for me in homeschooling our family and introduced me to Charlotte Mason, who I had never heard of. I have sentences and passages underlined on about every other page throughout this book.

Not books so much for us…but God used a number of other means to lead our family towards homeschooling…We started homeschooling mostly because my dd wasn’t socially/emotionally ready for “preschool” when all of her peers started…then preschool morphed into K, and now here we are planning to at least go all the way through middle school if not all the way through high school. I am a former classroom teacher so never thought I’d homeschool, but as I started working 1-1 on my daughter I realized what a better and more personalized educational experience we could give her….things that even the best, most caring teacher in the best Christian school could give to her. (As a classroom teacher, even in a school with a great environment, I know all to well the limitations of the classroom setting.) At the same time, I had read a number of Sally Clarkson’s ‘mom’ books (not even their homeschooling one yet) and was getting a vision for a family life that was lived together rather than everyone always going their own separate ways all the time. Then as we started stumbling into our home “preschool” I stumbled across lots of homeschooling blogs which refined our vision for our family life, and homeschooling seemed a natural component of this. One in particular that stands out is Ann Voskamp’s blog A Holy Experience – not strictly a homeschooling blog per se, but she does occasionally write about how their family homeschools and I found that very influential in our decision to keep going beyond the preschool/kindergarten phase. And then I stumbled across CM methods – I think Karen Andreola’s A Charlotte Mason Companion book was the first I read – and also have read and was very inspired by For the Children’s Sake and When Children Love to Learn as other’s have mentioned….and around that time found the SCM community. Anyhow…sort of sealed the deal for us. =) DH was initially opposed to the idea (mostly becuase it wasn’t what everyone else does or how he was raised), but has now come around as he realized the benefits to our family spiritually and our children academically. So…that was how we ended up where we are now. Definetely a journey for us. =)

Jen

I first had the idea of homeschooling put in my mind when I was about 17.  I was dating a boy who was homechooled (and the family was friends of our family.)   I don’t remember why it would have come up, but one day his mom said not to be in a hurry to send kids off to school – that they didn’t need preschool, kindergarten, etc… and that homeschooling is always an option.

Although at the time I was “yeah, right”, the idea did stick with me, and by the time I married my husband, I figured I’d probably homeschool.  My husband’s experience with the school system with my step-kids had him also convinced that homeschooling would be the best.

I took a book out from the library – don’t remember the name – but basically on homeschooling for free (or very little) – and I think with the attached website I learned about Ambleside Online, which got me researching CM education. (I also researched Classical, Unit Study, and others)

For books, I read A Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola (and a few other books – but LOTS of websites as the websites are free and easy to find) – and I knew I had found my homeschooling style.

I did not read the other posts. I read Lisa Welchel’s So You’re Thinking About Homeschooling and also some material from our state Christian home educator’s group and then went to a homeschool conference. Also prayer and talking with other homeschoolers.

I read “The Well-Trained Mind” many years ago and it made a big impression on me.  While I did not go on to use Story of the World or the classical methods described in the book, it left me with the revolutionary idea that a home education could be BETTER than a school education.  When we found our school system unsatisfactory in some areas, instead of fighting with teachers and administrators, we just left the system.  I am not sure I would have considered that an option without the influence of The Well Trained Mind.