In Which I Tell You What I Miss Most About Homeschooling (Spoiler Alert: It's Not Doing School in Pajamas)

Squirrelboy attended our local elementary school and is now in his first year of public high school, but in between those two I spent three years homeschooling. Our reasons for choosing homeschool for middle school were myriad and aren't directly related to this post, but I'm likely to cover them some other time.

There were many things I loved about homeschooling. The relaxed schedule was great. The ability to teach to my child's learning style was great. The lack of the social pressure that most middle schoolers seem to experience was great. For the record, since people ask Squirrelboy about this all the time, I always  made him change into regular clothes for school, except for an occasional previously schedule pajama day, so there's nothing to miss in that realm.What we both really miss is the way we started almost every day of homeschool: Storytime.

When I started homeschooling him I had all sorts of grand plans based on my many years of reading and posting on a homeschooling forum. One of those plans was having a daily "morning time." This time was going to include scripture reading, poetry reading, musical appreciation, and readalouds. Consistent scripture reading, to my chagrin, quickly went out the window, though we did manage to keep a short devotional reading. Poetry reading never really took off and it got moved to occasional poetry teas (more about that some other time). Musical appreciation never happened. However, reading aloud was a huge hit. I tried vainly to keep the name "morning time" for awhile despite the failure of my initial plans, but Squirrelboy insisted on calling it storytime and eventually I gave in.

We usually had two books going: one related to one of our school subjects (usually history, occasionally science) and one just for fun. We traveled through time and around the world with the books we experienced together. Because Squirrelboy has a particular fascination with the world wars, I now know more about them, from the perspectives of many countries, than almost anyone who isn't a historian of that period. I also made a concentrated effort to read books written by or at least chronically the experience of people outside of our white, Christian, middle class bubble. Through that, he has come to recognize his privilege and think about how his life would be different if he had been born into a different place, a different time, a different culture, or a different family.

Thanks to many years of after school tutoring, Squirrelboy can read well despite his dyslexia. However, reading is not and never will be a natural activity for him. His brain has to work significantly harder than mine to decode print. I always set aside a time for him to read silently, but I knew that that time was not what was going to get him to fall in love with books. Even without all the historical and cultural knowledge he gained through storytime, it would have been worth my time because it helped him fall in love with books. He already enjoyed books and being read to, but three years of daily storytime brought that love to a new level. I don't think he'll ever relax with a book in his hand the way I do, but he's discovered digital audiobooks, and one of his favorite ways to wind down is listening to a favorite audiobook. He prefers to fall asleep while listening to a book. He has practically memorized most of the Anne of Green Gables series, and is working his way through all the Agatha Christie ebooks available through our library.

The best news of all: even now that he's back in school, Squirrelboy wants to keep storytime going. We haven't been able to establish a routine so far, unfortunately, but we've squeezed in a few storytime sessions. Our current read: Fatherland by Robert Harris. At our current rate, it may be Thanksgiving before we finish this, but that's okay. I'll keep up this special time with my teen as long as he'll let me do it.