"Get to bed - it's a school night"

This is the first time these words were spoken in our house. Drake is starting Kindergarten tomorrow and Emmy Kay is starting Pre-K. A big day in our house...literally. Both kids will be home-schooled so the walls of our home will take on a new role, school-house. Everyone is really excited around my house so I hope everything goes well tomorrow.

We have planned to home-school our kids for a long time. We have thought about this a ton and feel like we are doing the right thing. People always like to weigh in with their opinion about it and it runs from support, to people thinking we are doing the worst thing for our children. I could say a thousand things about it but I think the bottom-line for us is that we will take it one year and one child at a time. Regardless, I believe we can provide an education for our children that is at list 1% better than the government or a teacher with a room of 20 - 30 kids. Time may change my mind, but right now we are getting ready for school tomorrow.

I am very fortunate that my wife is extremely organized. She has the kids schedule planned out for the next 3 months with lessons for each day. On top of that, I can go to our shared Google calendar and see what their school schedule is for each day. Changes will happen, but I am glad we are going into this with a plan. At least with a plan we have somewhere to adjust and we can figure out what to change. Becoming a parent of 4 kids has been a crash-course learning-curve on so many things. It has been a fun and exciting 6 years. Now I am very excited about adding a totally new dimension to our family...this is taking it to the next level.

Tomorrow morning the school bell rings at 9am and the fun will start. The challenge will be to learn how our kids learn. So far, we think Drake is linear and Emmy Kay is...well, she is...Emmy Kay. She once told me that she did not want to go to church because the people at church keep trying to teach her "new stuff" and she didn't like it. I am not a very abstract thinker and Rachael tends to think in straight lines so most likely, Emmy Kay will be schooling us on thinking outside the box. Quite honestly, I think it will be good for both of us. Also, for anyone that says home-school kids aren't "socialized" - spend 15 minutes with Emmy Kay and you will understand why we are not concerned.

So find a seat, sit down and get ready for class.