As I wrap up our 5th-grade school year at home, I reminisce about how and why this journey started. I did not think that when we had twins 10 years ago, I would be a home school mom. We both knew I would be a stay-at-home mama, and I have been. The plan would be to stay home, and then when they started kindergarten, I would get a job while they were in school but be home after for all the things calling my mama wife heart. That all went to plan back in California. I became a substitute teacher and picked up half a day when my littles were in school. It was great. Then COVID happened.
Before they could brace the stage with their toothless smiles and great big dreams, they were sent home to finish the year with mama. This was my cue. So, we wrapped up kindergarten and did a hybrid year of first grade with a wonderful teacher who made her way into our hearts and became a lifelong friend. The school was providing a curriculum, and we were on Zoom a few times a week with the rest of their class. It was not ideal, but we all made it work with what we had. By the time second grade came, I had already started a successful camper rental business, and I was a stay-at-home mama working while homeschooling, another cue.
Still unaware of the calling God was placing on my heart, I went through the motions with our littles. My husband and I gave them a choice to go back (in a mask), and they wanted to go back to their wonderful school, a small charter school in Turlock, California. So we let them, despite our views on COVID. They had a wonderful year, mask-free in the middle. Yet God was making moves nobody saw coming. He had placed a seed in our hearts to take a road trip during their second-grade year. By the last day of school, we had sold our two campers, bought a travel trailer with a bunk room, and sold our home. We were heading East to Tennessee to buy land and build a barndominium. Still, at this point, homeschooling was not on our plate. We ended our second-grade year, played our last soccer game, and headed into our future.
Landing near an elementary school while staying in our camper, we enrolled the twins into this school for 3rd grade. I quickly found a part-time role in a local bank (mama was a banker before a mama), and I worked while the twins were in school. This allowed time to pick them up and be there in the afternoon. It was going great. However, a couple of times, our children came home and asked certain things we didn’t believe 7-year-olds should be asking, and that is when the seed was planted that maybe they should be learning at home because only then could I help keep their childhood a childhood.
By the end of third grade, we decided to pull them from public school and home school for 4th and 5th grade, giving them a chance to stay children before they lost that innocence God so carefully places in all of our littles. The school year was a long one with lots of strep throat and calling out, and I think this all led to us being home together as well.
We changed our minds. We went from being home together to school and jobs to being back home together. I asked to stay on Saturdays at the bank, and I am still there today. These last two years have not always been easy, but they have been wonderful. Watching light bulb moments where one of them could not do something and then spark that joy and say, “I love writing”; another moment when a math problem was no match for tenacity and grit. The moments we sleep in or do school outside, eat lunch on the trampoline, or play survival camp on the land.
I have seen such moments in their childhood that I would have missed if we had stayed the course of public school. And in no way is this meant to push a mama one way or another. I just wanted to share my journey into homeschooling and how God stretches your heart and patience to answer the calling he places on your heart. So, as this year ended, we were all wondering what the next year would bring. We have all decided we love this, and we will continue to learn at home. We are excited about a closer community day that matches my husband’s schedule. We are excited about summer and the end of lessons. Some of us are not as excited as others for the summer reading program, but there is ice cream at the end!
During these last two years with the community we joined, we have made lifelong friends, learned more about classical education, and grown as moms, children, and families. It was a hard decision to try a new community, between moving across the country and trying to home school, but I felt led to do something different. But we look forward to continuing to grow within this new community.
So, I am not sure what the rest of their education looks like. But I am certain that God has placed it in my hands, and I will listen, pray, and diligently intertwine his words into every fabric of our time together. Those roots are the best gift I can give them before they head into the world. We only ask that when they grow up, they choose what is right and find joy. The rest will fall into place.
John Lennon once said, “When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down “happy". They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” This quote hit me hard in my early days of motherhood when we started asking children what they wanted to be when they grew up. I am the best example of we don’t know when we are 5 what we want to be. We become it as we grow, and we see what interests us and where God calls us.
My homeschool Mama journey happened organically. It wasn’t planned, and it’s not perfect, but here we are. Showing up and choosing happiness. Loving God and making the most of this precious time.
Photo Credit: ©GettyImages/yaoinlove
Kimberly Trigo has always loved writing. It started with poetry when she was a teenager. Kimberly is a stay-at-home mom homeschooling her twins and building a Barndo with her husband—so life is busy! She works part-time in finance and loves helping people succeed financially. Lots of hats, but her most favorite hat of all is motherhood.