Today’s topic is all things HOMESCHOOL!
The first part of the question is: Why did we choose to homeschool our kids?
The answer to that begins 6 years ago and about 9,000 miles away when we were still in St. Louis and before Matt had even known about a possible call to this side of the world. Laurel had finished PreK at one of the local Lutheran schools and we realized that we couldn’t afford to put her in school full-time there. The public school wasn’t a good option and so we talked with other homeschool families and made our choice.
When we moved to Indonesia we could have chosen to enroll the kids in an international school. There are 3 of them in town. There are 4 reasons that we did not:
When we arrived we didn’t have a car and using a rideshare to and from school twice a day would add up monetarily and with my time.
The tuition for these schools are quite high and we would rather spend that money elsewhere.
We wanted to solidify our family unit. We going through a HUGE transition and wanted to have the kids around us as much as possible so that they knew that no matter where in the world we were, if we were together, we were home.
We enjoy the freedom of the homeschool schedule. We can take short breaks when we need to and spend time together as we need to.
We choose to follow a classical Christian curriculum and it has worked well so far for Laurel and Eleanor. Laurel loves the reading and enjoys learning Latin. Eleanor benefits from the memorization of it and looks forward to studying some of the subjects that Laurel has already done. Caroline is ready to be a student in the fall and has already learned some skills from just observing her sisters.
The next part of the question is: Do we have any fun field trip experiences?
Unfortunately, here in Medan there are not too many. We have swim lessons each Thursday and the 3 girls attend a gymnastics class once a week. That covers our P.E. time, but not much else for enrichment such as museums or zoos.
BUT… we do have access to other cities, islands, and even countries for field trip opportunities. When we travel, I look for places that would be educational or can be connected to something we have learned. We go to zoos, museums, or historical sites.
That said, we have taken two trips to Bukit Lawang to hike in the jungle and have used our knowledge from Laurel’s Mammals class and Insects class when looking at the wildlife there.
The last question is: Do we have a homeschool community near us?
Yes! While it is a small community, it is a great one. There are 3 families that we have really connected with who homeschool. We have weekly play date with them, do seasonal activities (such as: dye Easter eggs, learn about St. Patrick, Valentine’s themed STEM activities, and so on).
