Econfina Creek Canoe Trip

During our Spring Break trip to Florida, we discovered Econfina Creek. Located just north of Panama City Beach, it is a beautiful spring fed river that offers 24 miles of the "best canoeing in Florida". To celebrate my birthday, we signed up for the 8 mile canoe trip with Econfina Creek Canoe Livery and spent the day exploring the crystal clear springs, running from snakes enjoying the abundant wildlife, and admiring the fern covered limestone cliffs and many other little surprises along the way. It was wonderful!

Parked for an afternoon picnic on the banks of Econfina Creek.

There were parts of the river that were thick, dark and murky, where Spanish moss dripped from the old Cypress trees...spooky quiet, causing my husband to start humming the dueling banjo number from Deliverance. Then all of the sudden, it would open up to the most beautiful, clear, blue, bubbling spring...cool and drinkable...breathtaking. The pictures don't do it justice. All I had in my backpack was a disposable camera and I was aggrivated at myself all day for leaving the Nikon behind.

One of the larger springs in Econfina Creek, a great spot for observing tadpoles.

Ben had a blast catching and releasing gigantic tadpoles that were in the late stages of metamorphasis. Are they still called tadpoles if they have all their legs and a tail? I'll have to look into that. Anyway, they were everywhere!

Ben catching tadpoles in Econfina Creek.

7 miles into the trip and nervous that we might be lost

The kids learned more on our 5 hour canoe trip than they would in a week in the classroom. Our trip was a perfect opportunity for some fun, hands-on learning. They got to see, smell, hear, touch and even taste nature. So even though we haven't offically started homeschooling yet, my kids already think I'm the coolest teacher ever!

Happy Birthday to ME!

Welcome!

New Orleans, Louisiana ~ Exploring the live oaks at Audubon Zoo

Hello! Welcome to our new homeschooling blog! It feels really weird to finally put that in black and white. The truth is, I haven't shared with too many people that we are soon going to be a homeschooling family. We needed some quiet time to ready ourselves for this new journey. We are finally at peace with our decision and ready to share our adventure with all our family and friends. Currently our children are enrolled in a public school in Texas, but in a few short weeks that chapter will come to a close and our new journey will begin. I chose to let the kids finish out the current school year so I would have time to prepare our curriculum and prepare myself for the challenge ahead.

Our children are both very intelligent, they are (mostly) well behaved and they enjoy school. We've been at our current school for 4 years and we like it well enough. We have good teachers that care about our children and do everything they can with the time and resources they have. So why homeschool? Basically, it comes down to the fact that school is getting in the way of our children's education.

I could go on and on about how messed up the public education system is in our country and I also know plenty of expensive private schools who are battling their own issues. I could get really fired up about standardized testing and throwing fundamentals out the window in order to teach to the test. I could get down right mad about the lack of science, history and the arts in our schools. I could seriously give you a laundry list of reasons why we've made the decision to educate our children ourselves. What it really boils down to for me, is the fact that our children are spending 7+ hours a day in school and very little of that time seems be focused on the joy of learning. Large class sizes, increasing disciplinary issues, stressed out teachers, lack of funding and a whole heap of other issues have me dreading sending my kids out the door every morning.

I don't have much power to change the system (believe me I've tried), but I do have the power to change our situation. I have no grand delusions that it's going to be easy, but I do believe it's going to be an exciting adventure. I am so looking forward to having the luxury of time; time for my kids to catch their breath, slow down, explore, invent, travel, be consumed by the love of learning and time for my kids to just be kids. I also have the luxury of being able to offer them an exciting curriculum, hands on experiences (Let's not just read about the Alamo, let's go to the Alamo!), my full attention and time to really master the fundamentals that will shape their future education.

Lately, our lives have been a series of "hurry up, stop it, quit it, don't". I can't wait for it to become "take your time, relax, enjoy".  Maybe I'm crazy, or just maybe I might be on to something. All I know is that I've got to try. I know all the stereotypes about weird, unsocialized homeschoolers and quite frankly, I think they're ridiculous. On top of that, I have the wonderful ability to not give a rip about what anyone else thinks.

So here we are, 9 weeks out and we're ready. We've done our homework, we've chosen our curriculum and I've designed this little blog to document our adventures, discuss what we're learning, share our work and answer questions from concerned friends, family and strangers ;-)  Please don't be shy, let us know you're reading. We're always open to making new friends and sharing new adventures!

And so it begins......