The Road Less Traveled

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

Speaking from the perspective of a mother of three beautiful adult children (they will always be my children), I must say that the road less traveled when it comes to child rearing and education has been a long and arduous journey. Don’t get me wrong, if given the chance to change the path that I had taken, I would have taken the same path. But all and all it has been a difficult journey. I am speaking of home educating my children for fifteen years.

The early years had been quite enjoyable. Teaching the children their alphabet and reading was very rewarding to me as a mom. It was great when they were able to recognize their letters. And then from there, my little home school troupe would be able to recognize groups of letters, syllables, and finally full words. We had so much fun when they were reading three and four word sentences and the children would be rewarded with brightly colored stickers or a trip out for ice cream cones. Along with reading was the arduous task of learning to write their letters, first in printing the alphabet and then as the years progressed the cursive writing. One of my children had better motor skills than the other two but I won’t tell you which one. They may be reading this and I don’t want to play favorites.

Math instruction was also extremely rewarding. The children began at first with the recognition of the numbers, counting, adding, and subtraction before the dreaded multiplication drills and division which usually took the most time to learn. Once they mastered these skills, then the sky was the limit because I knew with the basics they could go as far as their little minds allowed.

History classes during the early years was quite exciting as most of the lesson materials came in the form of reading stories and answering questions about what we read. Since ours was a Catholic home education program, we were always reading stories about the saints and the good that they had accomplished in their stay here on earth. Sure we read stories about our Founding Fathers, the American Revolution, Christopher Columbus and the American Indians and such. But as an adult, teaching my children about what the past has revealed and the lessons to be learned from mistakes made, has taken on new meaning. What I am saying is that History has never held such an interest within me. To re-learn History had a whole new meaning to me as an adult. It’s one of the many benefits that I now cherish.

Science class was an interesting course to teach. While I don’t have much in the way of a science background, the lesson plans were laid out for me which made the task fun and exciting. I must say that if the children had their choice, they would have preferred doing science experiments every day of the week. However, there was more to learn about science than just the experiments. We live in a wonderful world where there was so much to learn about nature, the eco system, the food chain and how all the world and things within had a purpose and meaning.

Art classes were about as much fun as science experiments. The children would spend hours doing their assigned art projects. They couldn’t wait for their dad to come home so they could show him their prized creations. It’s a good thing that this class had lesson plans or I would have been at a loss of how to instruct them as I am not very artistic.

Religion class was always a class that I loved to teach. I loved to teach the Bible Stories to my children and their Catechism lessons. Our class had all the splendor of Jesus and His disciples and how God had created everything from nothing all. We learned how to pray the Rosary; we learned about the History of the Catholic Church; we learned about the Founding Fathers of the Church, and the beauty and history of our religious art. Part of the reason that I wanted to home educate my children was due to the fact that they would not be able to get this type of education in a public environment. I didn’t like the idea that someone other than myself would be instilling their value system into my children’s little minds and that this value system would be with them for the rest of their lives.

We had outside instruction in music and gymnastics mostly due to the fact that I wasn’t qualified to teach these classes and I was exhausted from teaching the full curriculum. Our local YMCA offered a swim and gym class for home educated children and we paid for private tutoring in both dance and violin lessons.

Well, that sums up ‘The Road Less Traveled’; I hope you enjoyed reading about our walk through the grassy path. If you are interested in purchasing a curriculum package for your pre-school children that will help give them an advantage, then visit this website. Pre-School in a Box – Open It Now!

Until next time,

Wanda Mills

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