things about homeschoolers you may not know...

These are things I have noticed in our last three years of homeschooling that I did not necessarily know before I homeschooled...obviously I will need to add to this list as time passes on...

1. Homeschool children do not necessarily know how to line up.

• When my son is at a social activity and the adult tells the kids to line up to play a game or do an activity, the kids end up in a mass blob.

2. Homeschool children will not automatically write their names on their papers as public school children do.

• Putting your names on your papers is an automated response in public school children. Once handed a test, worksheet, or even blank sheet of paper, the public school child may have no idea what to do with that paper, but he/she knows to automatically, without question, write his/her name at the top.
• This is especially difficult when you gather homeschool children in a group to share instruction support and you have three or more kids in the group and no one writes his/her name on the papers.

3.  Homeschool kids have almost so many social activities and classes of instruction taken outside of the home, that you end up carschooling more than homeschooling.

• This week alone, my son has had 3 of his major content classes at the resource center. He is taking 8 hours of IT classes free from a local IT company in a city over 30 minutes away 6/7 days this week. When you figure in the visit to the orthodontist, allergist, and guitar lessons...we are running ragged. Oh, and let's not forget scouts...
• We have 3 social activities alone this week and it is not even Wednesday. And, we have said, "No!" to two other activity invites.

4. You have to choose between activities.

• When in public school, there was never two invites to two different activities at the same time. Now there is so much more social interaction than he ever had in public school and he was with those kids in the same setting for almost 8 hours/day 5days/week. The difference in socialization now is that it is actually really social. Academics is academics. Social activities are purely social.

5. Homeschool moms know how to plan a carpool...sometimes there is more children committed to a carpool than can fit in the vehicle. But, we are tenacious and we know how to make it work.

• Never when my son, either of them, was in public school did any parent work with me as well as these homeschool moms to make sure my child could participate. If your child wants to be included in an activity and you cannot get him/her there due to work, illness, etc. there is a mom alive in the homeschool community that will rescue you and make sure your child gets from point A to point B. It is funny that sometimes now he will ask me who he is supposed to be leaving with...At the same time, there are often rides in which the children I take to an event will not be the children who ride back with me.

6. This is a tight knit community and we ban together.

• All homeschoolers homeschool differently. We all believe different things. We all have different priorities and our kids participate in different activities. Although, we have each other's backs. We support each other. We support each other's children. This is a community unlike any other. We are not necessarily bound together by spirituality, religion, race, ethics, etc...We are bound together by knowledge that we have a right to educate our children and we want what is best for them.

Image retrieved from http://foodriotradio.com/2013/11/yet-another-reason-to-homeschool/.