Classroom by day, dining room by night: Here's how this family's year of home-schooling went

Every weekday since September, Sadie van Roie's dining room has transformed into a classroom. 

The Leamington family decided to permanently make the switch to home-schooling this year — a move that was partially fuelled by the pandemic. As the first year of van Roie's home-school draws to a close, the stay-at-home mom of seven said she's glad she avoided the uncertainty parents in the school system faced. 

The 2020-2021 school year in Windsor-Essex saw multiple closures and transitions to online learning as COVID-19 cases in the community fluctuated. These sudden closures often sent parents into a frenzy, as they tried to navigate at-home learning. 

But van Roie was able to steer clear of the haphazard school year. 

"I was really happy that we were able to avoid all of it," she said. "I know some children who were going back to school that complained about wearing the mask and being uncomfortable ... And [to] keep their distance among other children, I feel like that would cause a lot of pressure on children because they're just kids and they just want to have fun." 

And she wasn't the only one who left the school system behind. 

The Home School Legal Defence Association of Canada said that across Ontario, the number of home-schoolers doubled — up to an estimated 80,000. 

Whether or not this number will stay high post-pandemic is unclear, but the association said it heard that a lot of families enjoyed taking on non-traditional learning methods.  

And director Stephanie Pouget of Windsor-Essex Home Schooling, an organization that supports home-schoolers in the region, saw that locally. 

Pouget said every week she was fielding calls from at least two to three parents who were considering whether they should transition to home-schooling. 

"We found that a lot of people were looking at alternatives to the public school system for whatever reason they weren't happy with how things were going," she said. "A lot of people asking questions on what to do, how to get started." 

The differences with home-school this year, according to Pouget, were that some families had to adjust to having both parents work from home and many of the usual field trips or planned community volunteering were cancelled. 

Pouget said this took away from the experiential or "life skills" part of home-schooling. 

'A good roller-coaster ride'

Despite being prepared, especially after a brief home-schooling stint in March 2020 when the pandemic first hit, van Roie said the year was a huge adjustment. 

"I found it to be a bit of a good roller-coaster ride all the way until Christmas," she said, adding that during the two-week break she was able to re-evaluate and determine what worked and what didn't. 

By January, she said she finally got into a rhythm and was better accommodating each child's learning method. 

Along with being a teacher to four of her children, who are in grades 9 ,7, 5 and 1, van Roie also cares for a three-year-old, one-year-old and most recently a three-week-old. 

Juggling schooling with three other young kids sounds like an impossible feat and van Roie admits that it still gets hard, but it's something she said her family has learned to balance. 

"I don't think it will ever not be a challenge. I have younger ones who don't want me to stay at the table for so long when I'm helping said child, they want to be on my lap," she said. "I usually have a child or two on my lap during it all ... but it's not always going to be easy." 

With the school year ending on a high, van Roie said she will definitely continue to home-school her kids next year.