End of an era...

And here we are. Four years after we started, finishing up homeschooling.

We are ending more with a whimper, than a bang, but that is also one of the reasons we are going to back to school. Yet, there are still signs around the house that we were, at least for a bit, homeschoolers:

[caption id="attachment_2111" align="aligncenter" width="640"] We did craft once...felties![/caption]



 

I feel a little bit sad, because there was so much I wanted to do, but we never quite got there. There are quite a few unfinished and never started projects hanging around the house and ideas hanging around my head.

But you know what? As I said to the kids, I don't regret what we did - not for one second. Look at just some of the lovely memories we have to look back on:



 



 

Oh, that made me a bit teary, looking back at all the cool things we did, together. TOGETHER! And how much they've grown! They've journeyed from children to young adults. Oh sure, we've had our difficult moments and sure, there aren't as many lovely pics from this year, but I'm so glad we did it.

And you know, I met so many lovely people! In real life and online, through this blog and Facebook and the Home Education Association. A real community! I thank every one of you for the support and tidbits and joy in our journey together.

In a few short weeks, I'll be posting pics of kids starting school in their shiny new uniforms. At one stage, I was very convinced we'd never do that ever again. But never say never. It's just a new phase in our lives, but as I look back on the last four years, I'll always look back with fondbness at our homeschooling era.

Transitioning - homeschool to actual school

Wow. So this is really happening! My homeschooled kids are headed back to bricks and mortar school.

Last week, I sent Video Boy and Wombat Girl back into the "real world" - well, transition days into Year 10 (I think that would be the equivalent of Freshman year in US high schools - someone correct me if I'm wrong?). I had to go to work (a recurring them around here), so Hubby dropped them at the front office. They found the group and went into the gym for the compulsory Catholic school intro and prayer. Wombat Girl wanted to know if she had to learn anything for that, because there hasn't been a lot of prayers in the last four years, but I assured her that she would be fine just listening. In fact, the Principal made a point of saying that all faiths and even(!) atheists were welcome at the school, as long as they were respectful.

And then Wombat Girl got lost. Now, I must preface this paragraph with a reminder of her last transition/orientation day where she found herself separated from her class and, not knowing what to do, took herself off to hide in the toilets. When I went to hand over her bag which she had left with us at recess, her teacher had NO IDEA that she was missing. A frantic search finally found her in the toilets and I'm not ashamed to say I might have shed a tear of relief. Anyhoo, with this emotional baggage in tow, fast forward 5 years and this time she had not been allocated a roll call class, and when she had, a teacher accompanied her (and another non-allocated student) to where her class should have been. And then walked around the school with her until they found where they had moved to. All good. But school bureaucracy....don't get me started!

Practical upshot of the two days? Kids enjoyed themselves (even P.E.), met friends (homeschoolers socialising? Who'da thunk it???) and enjoyed trying out a few Elective subjects.

Warning - proud homeschooling mumma moments!

In Video Boy's maths class, teacher shows pictures of fractals and asks if anyone knows what they are. VB waits a while, noone else answers, so he pipes up "a fractal". Yay for the homeschooler!

In Wombat Girl's class, they were asked if something cost $4 plus half its cost, how much is it? Lots of people yelling out 6, but WG pipes up 8 (which is the right answer). Yay for the homeschooler!

And yay for my clever kids!

And so they decided that they were very happy with the Catholic school option and that going to the other option was only going to confuse the issue. Decision made.

Tonight I have sent off enrollment acceptance forms and elective choices. WHO AM I???

But the kids are excited and happy and that is a good thing. And I will continue to add more good, bad and ugly stories of the transition from homeschooling back to to school - hopefully lots more of the good than anything else! In a perfect world, they will go back and SMASH IT and make lots of friends and wow the teachers who will say "well, who'da thunk homeschoolers could make the transition so well?" But, I'll let you know all the tricky bits too, because this is the real world, after all.



I might also post about cruises, my coffee addiction and other random goings on in our lives - that would be OK too, wouldn't it?

Have your kids moved back to school after homeschool?

Did they smash it?

What's your best story of losing a child?