Our Homeschool Adventures

I’ve got a great view today as I take my son and his friend to Sedona, Arizona, to visit the mountain bike festival. They are too thrilled to get a chance to go, if only for a day due to tight schedules, and I am happy to be the driver and escort.

After perusing the vendor tents quickly and, of course, seeing what lunch has in store at the food trucks, the boys wanted to make a run to a trail they wanted to hit while here. It’s like a dream for them, and we’re getting it done before the rain comes.

How cool it is that I can sit on this rock during a break in my hike and write a post to share and send out right away and from right here!

Trips like this have been the joy of homeschooling for me. Traveling is expensive and often inconvenient, but our adventures provide bonding time, priceless memories, and learning experiences for us all. We talk about budgeting and logistics and how to work within the system, among other things like the culture and history of the area, and all these things come up naturally in the process.

My next favorite part of the unschooling process has been how the kids get me interested in activities that I quite likely never would have explored otherwise.

It was quite a switch; I have to admit, to learn to pull back on what I wanted to show them and let them show me what they wanted to show me instead, especially about athletic activities.

I placed my kids in all the sports that my husband and I liked to play as kids, such as swimming, gymnastics, soccer, basketball, volleyball, and tennis. They pretty much wanted nothing of it except for swimming when they were tiny and tennis when they were in elementary school. That dumbfounded me because I loved those activities so much.

But after a couple of years of homeschooling, I learned to sit back and let them come to me with ideas, and I would occasionally ask them what they wanted to try when lulls occurred. It was magical how they stepped up with enthusiasm in many activities that I never thought to offer.

I learned that when I gave them space, they took the lead, and that’s precisely what I wanted to develop in them, personal responsibility and the ability to take the initiative.