When we decided to travel to Manta, it became clear to us that homeschool was our best option.   The main concern I had with homeschooling was “Am I really qualified and patient enough to handle this?”  (Oddly enough, I started out in Elementary Ed in college and moved into Accounting later on).  The second was “How do we choose the right curriculum?”  Thankfully we had an invaluable asset (Serena!), who was already a pro at homeschooling.  She went around with us at the TPA Homeschool Convention and gave us input on what she felt were the pros/cons of different curriculum’s.

When we first walked into the convention center, I about cried!  It was completely overwhelming.  There were so many options.  I didn’t expect this, because the main homeschool curriculum I had heard of was Abeka.  It was so relieving to have Serena there to show us around!  I didn’t realize how much the industry had expanded, since I was a kid.  It was also very exciting and encouraging for Mike and me.  It was the first time we really looked at homeschooling with the thought “This is going to be awesome and we can do this!”  Due to our situation, we chose to stick with one publisher and two types of curriculum.  We didn’t really know what all we would have access to in Ecuador and wanted to prepare for the least amount of hiccups possible.  Plus there was the issue of luggage weight/space (The homeschool materials weighed 50 lbs alone, not including the school supplies).  There are a couple of other curriculum’s we want to explore in the future.  They are ‘My Father’s World’ and “Apologia’.  Apologia looks like an amazing science curriculum.  I really enjoyed the variety of books ‘My Father’s World’ had at the convention.

 The neat thing about homeschooling is that you can tailor everything around how your child learns best.  If your child (or you) is having a bad day and it obvious that it won’t be a good day to do school work, you can take a day off.  You can go year-round or stick to a more standard schedule.  The possibilities on how to organize your school are endless.   

I have already had numerous people comment on how they don’t think they could do homeschool.  I actually ready  a blog post recently posted on another homeschool mom’s page.  (Click here to check it out!)  I totally could relate even after only doing it a couple weeks.  It is truly God’s grace that allows us to do this and to be successful at it.  I have three highly intelligent children, who can be anything but compliant and quiet at times.  Thus the reason I call them “My Zoo Crew”!  But honestly these last couple weeks, have gone a lot better than expected.  They are testing well and are already showing growth from the first few days.  I’ll check back in a couple more weeks and let you know where we are on this front!