Family Life and Alternative Ed Homeschooling on a farm!

For those of you who don't know my family personally, we are a homeschooling family but not in the way that one would think.

We are part of the Columbia Virtual Academy (CVA) in Washington State. It is a state funded Alternative Ed program that fosters the parents right to choose to educate their children at home! I know it sounds amazing but there is actually a program in Washington that respects the rights of parents and families! I prefer to call what we do at home an Alternative Ed. Homeschooling approach! We enjoy it, the kids enjoy it and we get to learn some great things as a family and no homework every night to take away from family time!

Don't get me wrong, there are wonderful schools really trying hard to educate kids and our local school district is one of them. Infact they started CVA! The school staff are a great bunch of people who put their hearts into what they do for families who cannot educate their children at home. For us, we wanted our family to have more quality time together and find lots of educational opportunites in our daily world around us.

Just think about how much fun it would be to take a walk with your children in the middle of the day and listen to them talk about what they are finding! They find turkey, coyote, elk and deer tracks and don't forget about the scat(poop)! They look for wild plants and we learn how some of them have medicinal uses. We made homemade soap and candles one day and don't forget the homemade paper! They have writen stories about bugs and horses that make you laugh. They learn important math, reading and writing skills through things they enjoy! What could be better than this? I love homeschooling!

We use daily life as a our schoolhouse and it is made better through the help of CVA. Thanks CVA!

Jean