About XYHomeschool Blog

This blog exists to share the views and experiences of a homeschool lead by a dad.


About This Blog:
A vast majority of homeschool blog sites are by moms leading the homeschool show; not so here, as I'm all dude.  The language, perspective, and examples offered up will most certainly be from a guys point of view and will probably offend someone at some point.  It is updated as frequently as I feel moved to do so, which currently feels like once every couple of weeks.  I intend for this blog to 1. cheer on other guys homeschooling their kids with posts that will resonate (no hair color advice here, I'm bald!) 2. inspire other guys to take on this amazing experience and 3. share potentially unique homechool approach ideas and perspectives.  You can read the inaugural blog post outlining the manliness impetus here: Homeschooling Needs Testosterone

About Our Family:

Yep, I'm the luckiest dude on the planet.  These are my ladies!

We are a family of 4: mom, dad, daughter (b. 2005), and daughter (b. 2008).  Our daughters are remarkable, with each having distinct personalities and a variety of interests.  Both are voracious readers, easily consuming a book a week.  My eldest loves science fiction, like Harry Potter, Eragon, and all of Peter Jackson's books.  My youngest loves biographies and factual books, with President Lincoln being her favorite person in history and Giraffes being her favorite animal. Both are avid martial artists, having been training rigorously since 2013 and have both earned Grand Champion titles at different tournaments.    My wife is employed full time as an accountant (controller) and I'm home with the students.  Both my wife and I have multiple degrees (wife BBA Economics/Finance and an MBA, husband BS (Cum Laude) Physics and an MS Computer Science) all from University System of Georgia state schools).  We've both been road warrior consultants in our fields, have both had tremendously successful professional careers in the corporate world, and we have run 3 of our own companies along the way too. Before all this awesomeness, when we first got married back in 1991, I was an enlisted soldier in the US Army.  In 2005, when we decided to have children, we agreed that one of us would be home full time.  My wife took the first watch at home, birthing them and raising them until they were both in school (about 10 years).  Once our kids were both in the common/public school system and my wife employed, I started the shift into their primary care person, leaving my career.

About Our Homeschool:
Our plan was to let our daughters enjoy the common/public elementary school system as long as we could, carefully monitoring their growth, values, and environment.  We knew that we would have to pull them out at some point, with the absolute evacuation grade being 6th (the start of middle school). Until then, we would build homeschool prototypes doing afternoon supplimental home school, summer home school, and the like to build out our homeschool model and approach. This tuning and adjusting has resulted in a fluid learning environment wherein our girls can learn at their pace, be self-driven, follow their interests, not see knowledge as containerized, and enjoy learning as a life activity.  They use a variety of learning vectors to include online tools like Khan Academy and Florida Virtual School, groups like 4-H and ToastMasters, camps like Space Camp, travels like going to Egypt, community offerings like museums and zoos, nature experiences like extended camping, pencil and paper exercises through worksheets, and more.   All of these mechanisms fit nicely within our codified approach to homeschooling, as captured in our Homeschool Charter.