Always greener on the other side

Since one of the girls is in schooling age, the "How does she like her school, does she like her teacher?" questions have been coming from different people. To strangers, it's always easy to say "yes she likes school and she LOVES her teacher". I don't have to explain to them that we homeschool and tell them the reasons why we do it. I don't feel the need to prove to them that I am able to teach our daughters or having the fear that they will quiz them to make sure that they are indeed learning SOMETHING.

But when it comes to people close to us, people that haven't been around  children who have learn from home, it's get more touchy.

 I went to public school, I did well, and wasn't emotionally scared by it. The only downside of it was that I wished it would have been a bit more challenging academically and would have foster more of the independent learning. I personally think is the key to have a life long inquisitive spirit. With that said, I think that the school system are doing a good job teaching our kids.

So why do I want to educate from home, if the school are doing a good enough job. I have  many reasons as why I choose to do it, and I might get into them one of these days, for  now one of the reason is that homeschooling the girls is what is the best for them in this season of life.

Now, because I have been in the public school system, all I know about school is desks align in a row, fixed scheduled, tests and homework.  Of course when I see curriculum that comes in a box set, the all-you-need-to-teach-your-child box is so very tempting, and closer to what I know. I have look in the past at a few of those "boxes", but for some reason my pocketbook likes to play hide-and-go-seek every time I find one that I really like, they don't come cheap. Then the insecurities comes, can I teach them without the box set, how can I show the people that I love that we are learning, if I don't have something like what they know, like typical school?

Reading trough Sally and Clay Clarkson book, Educating the WholeHearted Child, put my mind a bit more at ease. I am not a cookie cutter type of person, and the girls have a bit of the outside-of-the-box type of personalities. I am sure they would perform well in many different learning setting, but I want to be part of it, seeing them learn and grow, doing it together. For now, I am not using a box curriculum, but we are still learning, I might in the future invest in one, but not now.

How about you, have you ever had curriculum envy? If you are teaching from home, what do you use?