My name is Julie Mathey and I am a homeschooling Gigi. I started homeschooling in 1992. I was the mom of a 5 year old little boy and a 1 year old little girl. I was married and living in Montgomery, Alabama. My son was a typical boy, always moving, breaking things and moving at the speed of light. When it came time for him to go to kindergarten I was not sure how well that would go. I didn't think it was possible to get him to sit still to learn. I worried that he would flip his chair and distract the whole class. He was smart and needed to be challenged but I didn't feel he was ready to go to school. I prayed about it and did a little research about my options. I looked into homeschooling and mentioned it to my husband and he was not really in favor of that option. We had a private school across the street from our little neighborhood and we could walk to school. Classes were small so we signed him up but I didn't have a peace about it.
I was home doing my daily stuff and walked through the living room where the TV was on and I heard a commercial say. . . "Julie, you need to homeschool your son." I thought, did I really hear that? I ignored it and the weekend came and My husband was watching TV and I heard it again . "Julie, you need to homeschool your son." I knew my husband was really for it so I went to the women in my Prayer group and asked them to pray for my husband to change his mind because I really feel like God is leading me to homeschool my children. I gave it two weeks and approached him again and he told me that he found out a couple he respected at church are homeschooling their children and that we should talk to them. We did and they answered all his questions and gave us the name of the cover school they were associated with and we prayed about it and unenrolled him in school. I went to the library to do a bit of research and registered in the cover school. I bought some curriculum and we got started.
I have never regretted homeschooling my children. It wasn't just school. It was how we lived. Our vacations were around learning. We took every opportunity to teach the kids something. My children are all grown up with kids of their own. My children are both on board to homeschool their children. My oldest grandchild is 9 and starting 3rd grade. I started schooling her myself and my daughter has had the opportunity to help teach her the last two years so we team teach. My grandson is 3 and loves to do his school work too and is learning like crazy. I can't wait to see how they learn and grow.
I will be adding posts to this blog as often as I can. I have learned so much in the last 31 years of homeschooling. I hope I can give encouragement and fun ideas to make homeschooling enjoyable for parents and kids alike.
Sincerely,
Julie Mathey