After a year of blogging with the general public, this activity has been an asset in my homeschooling endeavors. Blogging has allowed me to provide a glimpse of the homeschool life with a personal touch. I have had enlightening conversations regarding attitudes about homeschooling and some were even positive! As a leader, blogging has been an excellent avenue to pick up ideas for organization and management techniques. Now, I have joined homeschoolblogger.com to post home school related topics and to become a part of a world wide home school community.

Thanks to the road the homeschool pioneers trudged, we no longer have to hide behind closed doors. Blogging is another step towards the homeschool movement going public. I have posted entries about our daily schedule and curriculum that we have found particularly exciting and beneficial. Other bloggers, often referred to as blog buddies, have commented on my posts expressing their interest in the sited curriculum for their public schooled children, or for themselves. I have discussed my children’s strides; like their interest and enthusiasm for foreign languages, and their struggles; like, their hilarious antics of resisting exposure to classical music. When I research educational theories online I try to provide links in my posts and encourage comments and personal opinions from others. This is a way to absorb the new found theories with a grounded perspective. We have also discussed the positives and negatives of home schooling.

Homeschooling is an excellent educational alternative and it has been the best choice for our family. Blogging has provided me the opportunity to share the finer values of home schooling on my site and other blogs as well. It has been interesting to hear such positive opinions regarding homeschooling; like, the high quality of education received in the home environment as evidenced through published test scores. It has been equally as interesting to hear the negative opinions; like, the lack of exposure to diverse ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. By writing about the current home school movement, I have attempted to dispel the myth that our kids suffer a lack of socialization opportunities.

From managing busy volunteers to personal motivation techniques, bloggers have had much to offer to me as a leader. On my blog site we have brainstormed ways to organize priorities and dissected aspects of perfectionism. The possibilities are endless and only limited by imagination.

Blogging has been so fulfilling that I have recently opened another blog with www.HomeschoolBlogger.com. This will be a place for me to trade ideas with other home school bloggers about teaching techniques, curriculum, kid management, God’s blessings and the silliness of daily living. How much one wants to expose about their personal lives is the choice of the blogger. Many bloggers set limits outlining what they are willing to share on-line. These limits differ from blogger to blogger. In my experience, the more I become a part of a blogging community the more comfortable I feel about sharing and the more satisfying are the rewards of blogging.