Oh my gosh you were Homeschooled?

Charlotte was at College this weekend and a few older ladies asked where she went to school, she explained that she had been homeschooled. After many questions the ladies couldn't believe that Charlotte was socially okay, had friends, good jobs etc. So we decided to come up with a few answers to questions that we often get asked. : )

Here are some of Charlotte's homework assignments

What about you? Have any homeschooling questions for us? Ask away in the comments. : )

How did you make friends? It must have been so lonely! 

Our parents made it a priority for all us to stay involved in activities. We met other large homeschooling families our age, and would get together for study days. Our mama started a chess club for homeschooled boys, and every week 30 or more boys would come over for popcorn and chess. Our neighbour who also homeschooled started a girl's group, where we played games, did crafts, wrote and directed elaborate plays, did unit studies etc. We all did swimming lessons, volunteered, babysat, and took music lessons. Our parents also strongly encouraged that we would build relationships with each other, as a family, and so we spent many homeschooling days, doing lessons together, teaching each other etc.

How did you learn? Who taught you? 

Our parents are both very creative, and always looked for other ways to make lessons approachable for us. Both of them were very hands on in their teaching methods. What worked for me during high school, wasn't necessarily the best for Elese, as she wanted more complicated science based courses. So our parents scoured the web and found an umbrella school out East, that sent Miss Curious Elese formaldehyde pigs, frogs etc and detailed videos how to dissect.
They also discovered that all of us learn on different levels and in different ways. While some us learned to read early, others didn't, and that's okay. There is not the same level of competition that there is in school. Our parents did very thorough unit studies for the younger kids, ordered correspondence courses for us older kids, and enrolled us in many different classes. Leah was fortunate enough to take part in an enriched University/homeschooling program that allowed her to take a few University classes at a young age and for a low charge.


How did you get into University? College?

It has been a different experience for each of us, and we joke that our parents should write a book on all that they have been through in compiling records, tests, writing evaluations etc. By doing correspondence with umbrella schools, we were able to have written evaluations, marks and test scores.
For Renee she took her SAT's, first went to a liberal Arts College in the States, and then to University of Ottawa, and to Lakehead. Elese put together a detailed portfolio and was accepted and graduated from the University of Ottawa. Zac went to public high school, and then to University. Leah was in the enriched program at University of Ottawa, and so made it easy for her to apply to University and then switch over to College. Last but not least, Miss Charlotte is currently also at Algonquin working towards a Creative Arts Certificate, and the hopes to go to Fine Arts College.


What did we love about being homeschooled? 

Our parents made homeschooling not just regimented to books and studying, but to learning how to interact with each other and the big world all around us. They made it fun and  most importantly we learned how to be together as a family unit. When we were all home, Mondays were called: 'Funday Monday'. Our parents would take us all to the library where we would spend a couple of hours perusing books, working on lessons and taking out 200 different books ( seriously we had the longest library list ever!), movies, cd's etc. After the library we would sometimes head to Wendy's and then off to an afternoon of swimming lessons at Dovercourt. All of us looked forward to Mondays, and it was a great way to be together as a family.

Now we proudly say yes, we were homeschooled. Yes our mama and papa were the primary educators, yes we did lessons and learned with our siblings, and we are grateful. So very, very grateful for our parent's sacrifices.