A year into the pandemic

It’s now been a year since schools started closing and many of you were faced with a new role in your kids’ education, which means it’s also been one year since I started sharing what I’ve learned from my own experience of homeschooling. I’ve had tons of fantastic feedback about that, I’ve heard from many folks that it’s been helpful, and let me tell you, it has made my heart sing to feel like I’ve been able to have even a small shred of positive impact in this fractured world this past year!

We’re all in a different place now, though. You’ve learned your own lessons about what works and what doesn’t for your kids. Many of your kids are headed back to their classrooms, at least part time.

And it sure looks like the ranks of long-term homeschoolers have exploded. My favorite FB homeschooling group (Secular, Eclectic, Academic (SEA) Homeschoolers) had just under 30K members before the pandemic, it now has over 70K. When I first joined the group, before we started homeschooling, I didn’t know anybody—now I have dozens of friends in the group, many of them longtime friends of mine who joined the group due to the pandemic. You might reasonably expect there to be strain from that kind of influx of “newbs,” but what I’ve seen has been broad, enthusiastic welcoming and support for folks, no matter whether their intention is to homeschool short-term or long-term. (We SF-local folks can't wait to meet all the new folks and welcome them in-person once we can start our park days back up again!)

Over the past few years I have been helped, immeasurably, by countless other homeschooling and 2e parents who have shared their own experiences. I’m here and able to have the success I do because they were willing to share. I am eternally grateful to the oversharers of the world.

So: what would be helpful for me to share now that we’re a year down the road? What are you most curious about? I could continue to share specific resources I’m finding and loving. I could tell you more general stuff about how it all works (or doesn’t!). I could answer questions I’ve not thought of myself. I could just keep giving you little peeks at what it looks like, if you’re a curious looky-loo. (I know many of the folks who have loved these posts don't even have kids, and I think that's awesome, too.)

(The pic is from last week, when Wanda took over our school for the day and taught me how to make a color-changing volcano with red cabbage powder.)