Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Back To Basics: Or Why I Went MIA

I've been missing in action here on the blog and likely will be indefinitely. Life sometimes has a way of intervening with one's plans. In my case it came in the unanticipated form of homeschooling my child.

To make a long story short, things were just not working out at the school. So, in the spring I pulled my little one out and began the process of determining how to school her myself. That involved a DIY crash course in the regulations and logistics of homeschooling. Then came the fun part: building the homeschool library! Now we have a floor-to-nearly-ceiling bookshelf packed to overflowing with books that I'm sure will come in handy over the next several years (whether we continue to homeschool or not). I never know where our discussions will take us so it's best to be prepared with books from an archealogy atlas to Shakespeare for kids to life in the stone age to an introduction to art to books on any science topic you can name and more.

Homeschooling is a lot of work and doesn't leave much time for other pursuits, but this is my job at least for now. In some ways, however, this just brings my life back to that of my ancestors. Before every child could attend school they were taught at home. I may have many more resources at my disposal, but like my ancestors, I can spend my time on what my child needs and wants to learn about. In this way we both discovered that my kiddo loves history. We learn and discuss and read historical fiction for fun.

Knowing what I know about our family history, I can interweave information about our ancestors who were involved in certain historical events. It's one thing to learn about history, it's another thing to know that your people played a part in it. If I play my cards right I may just be able to train the next genealogist in the family.